I'd like to write some songs that are so good that nobody understands them. Not even myself.

Aloneness is a state of being, whereas loneliness is a state of feeling. It's like the difference between being broke and being poor.

There are only two kinds of songs; there's the blues, and there's zip-a-dee-doo-dah.

I don't think you can ever do your best. Doing your best is a process of trying to do your best.

I've met Bob Dylan's bodyguards, and if Steve Earle thinks he can stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table, he's sadly mistaken.

What I do is between me and the Lord, to examine and possibly alter the state of grace in which I live, and thereby the state of grace of anybody who listens.

Sorrow and solitude, these are the precious things/ And the only words that are worth remembering.

I don't know why I write really depressing songs. I'm a kind of melancholy guy, I suppose. But I figure I'm about normal.

Human's can't live in the present as animals do; they just live in the present. But human's are always thinking about the future or the past.

Im the mold that grunge was grown in.

There's only two kinds of music: the blues and zippety doo-dah.

Whatever you are pursuing don't stop, or you will forever be wondering how it would've turned out. Even if no one else believes, never give up on yourself.

No amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.

Only the weak invite their demons to live with them. Isn't that right?

It isn't tying himself to one woman that a man dreads when he thinks of marrying it's separating himself from all the others.

Bosons love to come together; fermions can't stand each other

It is insanity to run from God and search for love.

I don't know if I'm teaching my kids right, but you have to go with your own instincts. You can't be so sure that other people are going to do right by you.

There is no more unfortunate creature under the sun than a fetishist who yearns for a woman's shoe and has to settle for the whole woman.

[In 2004] That's how I got a relationship with Steve Jobs. Because I listened really hard to him cause he's the smartest guy I ever worked for.

It is only after that we understand what has come before, then we understand nothing. Thus we shall define the soul as follows: that which precedes everything.