John Prine Quotes

Author Image

John Prine

Profession : Singer

Birth : October 10, 1946

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

John Prine

I guess I just process death differently than some folks. Realizing you're not going to see that person again is always the most difficult part about it. But that feeling settles, and then you are glad you had that person in your life, and then the happiness and the sadness get all swirled up inside you.

John Prine

There's only two things. There's life, and there's death.

John Prine

It's usually drawing on personal experience. I don't think I could dig deep enough trying to get into somebody else's life. Like 'Far From Me' - I wrote it about this waitress that I was dating when I was fifteen or so, and she broke up with me.

John Prine

I could never teach a class on songwriting. I'd tell them to goof off and find a good hideout.

John Prine

Some voices don't blend. They just kinda rub against each other.

John Prine

Kris Kristofferson and Steve Goodman were the two most unselfish people I ever met.

John Prine

My fans have always taken care of me.

John Prine

If some part of the review is true, those are the ones that sting.

John Prine

I don't concern myself with where I fit in. I just keep my head down and keep doing whatever it is I'm going.

John Prine

As far as guitar picking, if I make the same mistakes at the same time every day, people will start calling it a style.

John Prine

In my songs, I try to look through someone else's eyes, and I want to give the audience a feeling more than a message.

John Prine

I was kind of shy as a lad, and a lot of things that made me laugh, I found, did not make other people laugh.

John Prine

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 chili he'd made and a note that said, 'John, I'd love to come to your party, but that would mean I would have to leave my house.'

John Prine

Never wear your necktie while you're operating a lathe.

John Prine

I think if you write from your own gut, you'll come up with something interesting, whereas if you sit around guessing what people want, you end up with the kind of same schlock that everybody else has got.

John Prine

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.

John Prine

People thought we were crazy for starting a record company. They really thought I was shooting myself in the foot.

John Prine

I try to write about things that actually happened so that I know it's real before I put it down on paper.

John Prine

When I was a boy, my family used to watch a lot of Laurel and Hardy.

John Prine