John Prine Quotes

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John Prine

Profession : Singer

Birth : October 10, 1946

I was a mailman walking in the snow six days a week, 12-hour days. Every two weeks, I'd get a check for $228.

John Prine

I always feel like every song is the last song.

John Prine

I grew up in Chicago, but I spent a lot of time down in Kentucky, and Kentucky was about 20 years behind the life that was in Chicago.

John Prine

I'll go to the movies and hear 'Angel From Montgomery' in some film, and nobody ever even told me about it. They don't tell you your stuff is going to be in a movie. They don't have to, so they don't tell you. You get paid eventually.

John Prine

Writing songs used to be my hobby; it used to be my getaway.

John Prine

I can blame a lot of things for not writing songs, but cancer isn't one of them.

John Prine

If you listen to people talk, when people actually talk, they talk in melodies. If they get angry, their voice rises, and it's more of a staccato thing. When they ask for something, they're real sweet. It's all music.

John Prine

I'm not good at remembering things, in general.

John Prine

When I was a mailman, writing songs was my escape from the regular world, and now writing songs is my job. And I've always been one to avoid my job.

John Prine

In the Army, I was very good at avoiding my job!

John Prine

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.

John Prine

I never fit in with straight country. I never really fit in with rock n' roll. I've always been somewhere in between all this stuff.

John Prine

When I'm making my own record, it's real work for me.

John Prine

I can't really sit around and talk with people who believe that the Bible is the way it happened, because that's man-made. I'm a writer, too; that's how I look at the Bible. Like, 'I could've written a better version than that,' you know? At least a more interesting one, and then maybe more people would go to church. I could definitely do a revamp.

John Prine

I found it easier to make up songs than to learn other people's songs.

John Prine

The Songwriters Hall of fame, that's the one all the big-time writers get into, the really great stuff, the Broadway stuff and all that. That would be something, to get your name in there.

John Prine

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.

John Prine

I guess what I always found funny was the human condition.

John Prine

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.

John Prine