John Mellencamp Quotes

When you live life for yourself it's hard on everyone. And that hasn't changed. For me, if anything, it's gotten worse.

It's a lonely ol' night. Can I put my arms around you?

I'm using my art to comment on what I see. You don't have to agree with it.

Future generations, riding on the highways that we built, I hope they have a better understanding.

She chased after her dream with much desire, but when she got to close to her expectations, well the dream burned up like paper in fire.

I just think if the song's good, sing it. I don't care who's doing it. I don't care if it's a country act. I don't care if it's a rock act. If the song's good, sing it.

Now more than ever the world needs love, not just a slogan.

People have the right to say what they want to.

All I can do is repeat what I think is the best information that anybody ever gave me.

Hold on to 16 as long as you can.

I want to sell to people my own age, because that's the way I write songs.

I look at some of my contemporaries trying to emulate what they were 30 years ago and just because of the age factor alone, they look silly.

I've just been fortunate to havehad a lot of hit records, though Human Wheels doesn't qualify as a hit record-but it's really the best single I've ever had.

All I'm doing is painting. It's my hobby. And that's that.

I'm looking for trouble. A lot of people get to be a certain age and they just kind of lose interest or they give up. But I'm looking for trouble.

All my friends are so small town.

Check it out, forgot to say hello to my neighbors. Check it out, sometimes I question my own behavior.

I went to New York in 1974, to either try to get a record deal, get into the New York Art Student League, or be a dancer. So that was my plan. Some plan. And I had no money.

There's a young man in a T-shirt listening to a rock and roll station. He's got greasy hair, greasy smile, he says, Lord this must be my destination.

I fight authority and authority always wins.

Nobody wants to make great albums now because nobody wants to buy them and there's no place to sell them.

We have been lied to and terrorized by our own government, and it is time to take action.

My thought was I should try to stick with names that people may recognize like Robert Johnson, Son House, and Hoagy Carmichael, so if somebody cared to research, they would find a wealth of material.

His frustration running very high, he takes it out on the ones he loves because it's safe.

Back in the '80s and '90s, when there was still a record business, there was pressure on anyone who was fortunate to have a few hits on a major label to continue that success.

For me or a Bruce Springsteen to sit up in our ivory towers and make comments about racism, well, were not really in it, are we?

You have to reinvent yourself.

Rock'n'roll starts between the legs and goes through the heart, then to the head. As long as it does those three things, it's a great rock song.

Want me to spend the night? Hey lover boy, you know I will, and my best girlfriend lives down the road, together we will thrill you.

This is about black people selling out other black people.

In so many musicals today, the story is moved forward by a song. I don't think we're gonna try to do that.

I know a lot of funny people in a lot of funny places.

Nobody heard anything ahead of time.

Go to work and be a Hollywood stud, drive your four wheel drive right into the mud.

All the women in the world want a phony rock star who plays guitar.

Give me someone I can look up to, show me someone I can love.

I'm not a nostalgic person. I'm not nostalgic about much of anything.

Turning music into digital was just a con, a record-company con.

Dear Mr. President, can I ask you a question, when the bombs fall down will they hurt everyone in my family?

The Internet is the wrong direction for music.

Mama, why do I always fall for the crazy ones?

With no bottom line, it's hard to know wrong from right. But I ain't ever satisfied.

The reason I said the Internet is dangerous is that a couple smart guys could hack into a computer and shut down the Eastern seaboard if they wanted to. It's a terrible, out-of-control thing.

She said she wasn't afraid of Satan, in fact, she thought he was a joke. She said she'd tear his tail off and run her fist down his throat.

You can't tell your best buddy that you love him.

What's the difference? One guy's the same as the other.

You shouldn't even be in a band if you can't play Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away.

The dust to which this flesh shall return, it is the ancient dreaming dust of God.