John Prine

“Johnny Cash was like Abraham Lincoln to me.”

“I started out in the folk music world only because of the way my songs were written and performed, with just an acoustic guitar, but I always related to the rock n' roll lifestyle.”

“I always had an affinity for older people. I had a job delivering newspapers, and one place I had to go was an old people's home. Some people would introduce you to their neighbors as if you...”

“I feel basically good about my career because it's remained constant. What I do has never been especially in vogue or gotten high on the charts. At the same time, I haven't had to stop perfo...”

“I never gave up on 'Archie.' I started picking up 'Archie' comics when I was in my thirties, and then I started subscribing to them.”

“Yeah, early '71 is when I got my record contract. I had a record come out by August of '71. Things happened really fast.”

“There is a certain comedy and pathos to trouble and accidents. Like when a driver has parked his car crookedly and then wonders why he has the bad luck of being hit.”

“I thought I was grounded. I thought from my kinda blue-collar outlook on life that I would call myself a grounded person. I was not. I was like a balloon flying around in the air. And as soo...”

“I'm kind of like the Lone Ranger or Batman. I can just go to my mansion and jump out in my uniform and sing on weekends.”

“I think of the Bible as an unauthorized biography.”

“I used to read a lot of Steinbeck, and I admired Roger Miller and Bob Dylan.”

“Man, I hated school. I'd stare at the buttons on the teacher's shirt the whole class.”

“When I turned 40, I invited Johnny Cash to my party, even though I knew there was gonna be 200 people roasting a pig and wild as can be. He didn't come, but the next day, I got a bowl of chi...”

“Soon as I could play one guitar chord and laid my ear upon that wood, I was gone. My soul was sold. Music was everything from then on.”

“I like doing chores.”

“I had a year-round Christmas tree with nothing but colored vinyl 45s hanging on it, like, old Elvis records and stuff.”

“The best way to write a song is to think of something else and then the song kind of creeps in.”

“I'd rather get a hot dog or a doughnut than write a song.”

“I was in the Army in the 1960s. I didn't go to Vietnam. I went to Germany, where I drank beer. But I did have an empathy with the soldiers in Vietnam.”

“I think the best duets are those where there's a dialogue back and forth, and then the two singers go into a thing together.”