Now you wear your skin like iron

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.

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

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.

Wealth and Content are not always Bed-fellows.

Co-leadership should permeate every organization at every level.

Life is so horrible that one can only bear it by avoiding it. And that can be done by living in the world of art.

One of the joys of reading is the ability to plug into the shared wisdom of mankind.

My writing is extremely important, so I write every day. I just enjoy it. I get a kick out of it.

I don't take myself terribly seriously. It's why I can be incredibly honest about my life.

True compassion is more than throwing a coin to a beggar. It demands of our humanity that if we live in a society that produces beggars, we are morally commanded to restructure that society.

Christianity is not about learning how to live within the lines; Christianity is about the joy of coloring.

All good things have to come to an end, and the male cheerleader has come to an end

An army may be likened to water, for just as flowing water avoids the heights and hastens to the lowlands, so an army avoids strength and strikes weakness.