Steve Earle Quotes
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Part of it is, I think, just to let people know you've got a record out there and that you're still alive requires more work than it used to, because the traditional radio, bug chains of record stores, all of that, that doesn't exist anymore.
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The drama teacher that I had in high school, back in Texas, was the only teacher who didn't kick me out of his class. He turned me on to 'The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.' I had picked up Dylan with 'Bringing It All Back Home,' and he turned me on to the first couple of albums, which I hadn't heard.
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I'm supposed to make people cry, but not by manipulating.
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I'm trying to make records where people don't feel cheated. Nashville has been guilty of insulting the Country Music audience for years and years.
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I was comparatively late in understanding Bob Dylan's overwhelming importance as a songwriter. Everybody who does my job exists in the shadow of Bob Dylan. There are two categories: Dylan and everybody else. It's as simple as that. And it's going to be that way until he dies.
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I'm not a Democrat; I'm something well to the left of a Democrat, but I'm just realistic about the system.
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You know, I'm not comfortable with people whose politics are static in a democracy.
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America's criminal justice system isn't known for rehabilitation. I'm not sure that, as a society, we are even interested in that concept anymore.
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Actually, in its purest form, Islam is incredibly tolerant. That makes what's going on in the world really bizarre.
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I make an embarrassing amount of money for a borderline Marxist, just by selling 100,000 records. I don't sell millions of records, and I don't need to.
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Every day on Earth is another chance to get it right.
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I can deal with conservatives in a democracy. With real conservatives, I don't agree with them, but I understand why they believe what they believe and I believe they're being honest with me about it.
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Bob Dylan is one of the very few people in the history of popular music who you can unquestionably apply that word genius to.
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Politics has always been in my music. Anybody who doesn't understand how political "Copperhead Road" is isn't listening very well.
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I grew up counterculture. I'm essentially a hippie, and I'm essentially a folkie.
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My dad was in a wheelchair and on oxygen for the last few years of his life.
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Poetry is the hardest thing that there is. It fascinates me, so I want to write more of it.
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I don't care what's happening in the mainstream of country music. I haven't in a long time.
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I've been a serial husband, and I've done it badly every time.
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You know I ain't never prayed before 'Cause it always seemed to me That prayin's the same as beggin' Lord, I don't take no charity.
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My main area of activism is the death penalty, and it will continue to be once this crisis is over with.
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The stupidest thing that a writer can do is write a memoir I think, unless it's right before you die -- maybe.
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I wish I was as sure about things as Bill Monroe was sure about things.
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I had everything I need to get me killed.