I don't know why I write really depressing songs. I'm a kind of melancholy guy, I suppose. But I figure I'm about normal.

Sorrow and solitude, these are the precious things/ And the only words that are worth remembering.

I've met Bob Dylan's bodyguards, and if Steve Earle thinks he can stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table, he's sadly mistaken.

I don't think you can ever do your best. Doing your best is a process of trying to do your best.

Human's can't live in the present as animals do; they just live in the present. But human's are always thinking about the future or the past.

What I do is between me and the Lord, to examine and possibly alter the state of grace in which I live, and thereby the state of grace of anybody who listens.

Aloneness is a state of being, whereas loneliness is a state of feeling. It's like the difference between being broke and being poor.