133 Quotes by John Prine

Bowl of oatmeal tried to stare me down... and won.

Now Jesus, he don't like killing, no matter what the reason is for, and your flag decal won't get you into heaven anymore.

I think the more the listener can contribute to the song, the better; the more they become part of the song, and they fill in the blanks. Rather than tell them everything, you save your details for things that exist. Like what color the ashtray is. How far away the doorway was. So when you're talking about intangible things like emotions, the listener can fill in the blanks and you just draw the foundation.

I always knew Gordon Lightfoot was a really great songwriter, but his stuff even sounds better and better all the time. It's just so really good to me. It's just like that's what should be in a dictionary, you know, next to a really good contempory folk song, is a Gordon Lightfoot song.

Some of the songs come so fully, it's like they are pre-packaged. There have been a couple that came in the middle of the night. And I thought, jeez, I'll never forget that. And went back to sleep, and it was gone. You'll hear something years later that another songwriter that you respect writes, and you go, jeez, I think that was the remnants of that song that got sent to me.

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

MAKE ME AN ANGEL THAT FLIES FROM MONTGOMERY, MAKE ME A POSTER OF AN OLD RODEO JUST GIVE ME ONE THING THAT I CAN HOLD ON TO TO BELIEVE IN THIS LIVIN' IS JUST A HARD WAY TO GO.....

You can fool some of the people part of the time in a rock and roll song, fifty million Elvis Presley fans can't be all wrong.

How the hell can a person go to work in the morning And come home in the evening and have nothing to say