I’m gonna make my last stand. This time I can’t be bought. Then again, on the other hand: How much have you got?
— Todd Snider
Blow up your T.V. Throw away your paper. Go to the country. Build you a home. Plant a little garden. Eat a lot of peaches. Try and find Jesus on your own.
— John Prine
Someday, everything is gonna be smooth like a rhapsody, when I paint my masterpiece.
— Bob Dylan
When I look at the television, I want to see me staring right back at me. We all want to be big stars, but we don’t know why and we don’t know how, but when everybody loves me, I’m going to be just about as happy as I can be.
— Counting Crows
We’re all waiting in the dugout, thinking we should pitch. How you gonna throw a shutout, if all you do is bitch?
— Todd Snider
Did I make me up? Or make this face ’til it stuck? I do the best imitation of myself.
— Ben Folds
There comes a time when every man feels the urge to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and start slitting throats.
— H.L. Mencken
With one foot in the grave, and one foot on the pedal, I was born a rebel.
— Tom Petty
Fightin’ for peace, that’s like screaming for quiet.
— Todd Snider
I’m just an old chunk of coal. But I’m gonna be a diamond someday.
— Billy Joe Shaver
Somtimes I get on wild when fancy cars drive fast. Money don’t get me down but I can’t make it last. I bite my nails and if that fails I go get myself stoned. But when I do I think of you and head myself back home where I’ve got chores to keep me busy, a clock to keep my time, a pretty girl to love me, with the same last name as mine and when the flowers wilt, a big old quilt to keep us warm. I’ve got the sun to see your blue eyes and tonight you’re in my arms.
— Gram Parsons
When I was a child, I spoke as a child … I wish I could remember what I said.
— Todd Snider
I don’t want you under my roof with your 86 proof watered down ’til it tastes like tea. You’re gonna pull my string, make it the real thing.
— Chip Taylor
Esse quam videri. (To be rather than to seem.)
— North Carolina State Seal
I cant believe that we would lie in graves, wondering if we had spent our living days well.
— Dave Matthews
I wasn’t losing — I was just learning how to win.
— Ted Turner
Sometimes you rise above it. Sometimes you sneak below, somewhere in between believing in heaven and facing the devil you know.
— Todd Snider
I believe this is something all of us can do: Try to be happy within the context of the life we are actually living. Happiness is not a situation to be longed for or a convergence of lucky happenstance. Through the power of our own minds, we can help ourselves. This I believe.
— Wayne Coyne
What the winner don’t know, the gambler understands.
— Heart
Switching it over to AM, searching for a truer sound. Can’t recall the call letters. Steel guitar and settle down, catching an all-night station somewhere in Louisiana — It sounds like 1963, but for now it sounds like heaven.
May the wind take your troubles away. May the wind take your troubles away. Both feet on the floor, two hands on the wheel, may the wind take your troubles away.
— Jay Farrar
One thing I have found there are just two ways to go. It all comes down to livin’ fast or dyin’ slow.
— Robert Earl Keen
Michael Jackson in Disneyland. Don’t have to share it with nobody else. Lock the gates, Goofy, take my hand and lead me through the World of Self.
— Warren Zevon
I’m very well acquainted with the seven deadly sins. I keep a busy schedule trying to fit them in. I’m proud to be a glutton, and I don’t have time for sloth. I’m greedy, and I’m angry, and I don’t care who I cross.
— Warren Zevon
Enjoy every sandwich.
— Warren Zevon
Sometimes you’re 17. Sometimes you’re 65.
— Old 97′s
One thing I have found there are just two ways to go. It all comes down to livin’ fast or dyin’ slow.
— Robert Earl Keen
Like a dull knife, you just ain’t cuttin’. You’re just talkin’ loud and sayin’ nothing.
— James Brown
So when the taxman calls, or rent gets late,or we’ve played a show, and we didn’t get paid, I think, “Well it ain’t no chainsaw-bearing clown, so what do I got to fear?”
So don’t turn away, you don’t have to run; every day brings a rising sun, and one day yours is gonna come and take your blues away. So don’t turn away, keep your toes on the line, keep your head up kid, everything will be fine, those bitter grapes are gonna turn to wine, and take your blues away.
— The Lost Trailers
How the hell can a person go to work in the morning and come home in the evening and have nothing to say?
— John Prine
If you’re not gonna make your dreams epic, why bother to dream anything at all?
— Scott Miller
Now I’m big and important. One angry dwarf and 200 solemn faces are you. If you really want to see me check the papers and the TV. Look who’s telling who what to do
— Ben Folds
Send lawyers, guns and money. The shit has hit the fan.
— Warren Zevon
Father forgive us for what we must do. You forgive us we’ll forgive you. We’ll forgive each other till we both turn blue. Then we’ll whistle and go fishing in heaven.
— John Prine
It takes a worried man to sing a worried song.
— Traditional folk lyric
Sometimes all it takes is a leap of faith.
— Delbert McClinton
Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.
— St. Augustine