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.

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.

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.

you're entirly bonkers but I'll tell you a secret all the best people are

Of all the journeys to undertake, the one of self-compassion is one of utmost importance for long-term well-being.

The old forms of entertainment are not extinct. Live performances are the pinnacle. If you can something that people want to see live, then you have a great career.

Curiosity provoked me to lay a lot of our country stuff on our predominantly black audience and some of our black audience began whispering "who is that black hillbilly at the Cosmo?"

Stones in the road? I save every single one, and one day I'll build a castle.

I dive all over the world: Fiji, Australia, the Caribbean, Hawaii, and many other places.

Dissent... is a right essential to any concept of the dignity and freedom of the individual; it is essential to the search for truth in a world wherein no authority is infallible.

We cannot tell some people what it is believe, partly because they are too stupid to understand, partly because we are too proudly vague to explain.

Civil officials have no business meddling in private religious affairs.

Christianity stretches back through the ages, but in essence it exists only at one time: right now.