Jackson Browne Quotes

More than a career, I feel that I've got a function. I see things in a much more holistic way. Some people bake the bread, and some people write the songs.

I followed those highway signs and I've run down those thin white lines.

You would think with all the genius and the brilliance of these times, we might find a higher purpose and a better use of mind.

Let the music keep our spirits high, let the buildings keep our children dry, let creation reveal its secrets by and bye.

I've also gotten to play in front of a million people in Central Park when there was a grass roots movement calling for nuclear disarmament - it was about 1982 - they called it Peace Sunday.

The high ideals and promises you once dressed the future in are dancing in the embers with the wind.

Right around the end of the fifties, college students and young people in general, began to realize that this music was almost like a history of our country - this music contained the real history of the people of this country.

Self-discovery in songwriting, bringing something forth that's instructive to yourself - some of the best songs that you will ever write are the ones where you didn't have to think about any of that stuff, but nonetheless that's what's happening in the song.

So it's not really whether you talk about politics, but how well were you able to do it. Peter Gabriel and Sting get away with it...U2...the examples are there, of people being able to carry these subjects in the music, and the audience is absolutely able to embrace subjects that aren't just the stuff they already know about. And they're actually able to learn stuff.

I want to know what became of the changes we waited for love to bring/Were they only the fitful dreams of some greater awakening?

Caught between the longing for love, and the struggle for the legal tender, where the sirens sing and the church bells ring, and the junk man pounds his fender. Where the veterans dream of the fight, fast asleep at the traffic light, and the children solemnly wait for the ice cream vendor.

Coffee in the morning, cocaine afternoons.

People stand themselves next to the righteous They believe the things they say are true They speak in terms of what divides us To justify the violence they do But it is one, it is one One world spinning 'round the sun Wherever it is you call home Whatever country you come from It is one

I wrote the song For A Dancer for a friend of mine who died in a fire. He was in the sauna in a house that burned down, so he had no idea anything was going on. It was very sad.

And my dad wanted me to play the trumpet because that's what he liked. His idol was Louis Armstrong. My dad thought my teeth came together in a way that was perfect for playing the trumpet.

You can take as much as you can from the generation that has preceded you, but then it's up to you to make something new.

Let the disappointments pass, let the laughter fill your glass.

I'm losing touch with reality and I'm almost out of blow. It's such a fine line, I hate to see it go. Cocaine, runnin' all 'round my brain.

That folk music led to learning to play, and making things up led to what turns out to be the most lucrative part of the music business - writing, because you get paid every time that song gets played.

It's not like I'm looking to describe something that's only true of my own circumstances. It's beyond. It's way inside, you know. It's reaching inside to something that you have in common with many.

They sell us the President the same way they sell us our clothes and cars.

I never was a very good singer.

And while the future's there for anyone to change, still you know it's seems, It would be easier sometimes to change the past.

These days I seem to think about the things I forgot to do for you and all the times I had a chance to.

But when you know that you've got a real friend somewhere, suddenly all the others are so much easier to bear.

I'd have to say that my favorite thing is writing a song that really says how I feel, what I believe - and it even explains the world to myself better than I knew it.

As far as those kinds of things, I also played at the concert to call for the release of Nelson Mandela when he was a political prisoner in South Africa. We were celebrating his 70th birthday and calling for his release.

People look around you, the signs are everywhere. You've left it for somebody other than you to be the one who to care.

No matter how fast I run, I can't get away from me.

The idea that I wrote something that stood for the way I feel about things, and that it lasts, that's probably my favorite thing that I've done.

I started playing the trumpet when I was about eight.

Like, What is the least often heard sentence in the English language? That would be: Say, isn't that the banjo player's Porsche parked outside?

Also, right at that particular time in the music business, because of people like the Beatles, people began owning their own publishing. I'll just say this really quickly - they used to divide the money for the music that was written in two, just equal halves.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say, it could be that I've lost my way.

My forays into trying to date girls my own age from the school I went to were all pretty tortured.

Very often it's really inconvenient - who you fall in love with. You can't really control it.

Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels. Looking back at the years gone by like so many summer fields.

I want to find myself a girl who can show me what laughter means, and we'll fill in the missing numbers in each others paint-by-numbers dreams.

When you turn out the light, I've got to hand it to me. Looks like it's you and me again tonight Rosie.

Lighten up while you still can, don't even try to understand. Just find a place to make your stand, and take it easy.

That's maybe the most important thing each generation does, is to break a lot of rules and make up their own way of doing things.

The biggest influence? I've had several at different times - but the biggest for me was Bob Dylan, who was a guy that came along when I was twelve or thirteen and just changed all the rules about what it meant to write songs.

Eleven on a scale of ten, honey, let me introduce you to my redneck friend.

I let her do some of my laundry and she slipped in a few meals in between, and next thing I remember, she was all moved in.

I love to read. I love to stretch. In the morning, I get up, and if I'm not in a hurry, I will lie on the floor on a rug, look through some books and magazines, and maybe listen to music and try to do stretching exercises to tune up.

The kid I was when I first left home Was looking for his freedom and a life of his own But the freedom that he found wasn't quite as sweet When the truth was known I have prayed for America I was made for America I can't let go till she comes around Until the land of the free Is awake and can see And until her conscience has been found.

I’m going to be a happy idiot and struggle for the legal tender.

Famine and disaster, right there in front of you, and the more you watch, the less you do.