148 Quotes by Justin Vernon

Licensing is how indie rock people make a living these days, so whatever about that. But I want good films and good placement for the songs because I want to be exclusive. I don't want to just sign it away because I don't want songs to lose meaning, but I'm also...I don't care [that] Wilco sold songs to Volkswagen. That's great. They probably drive Volkswagens.

I've been trying to catch up to it. Just trying to get with it, feel behind it a little bit, but that's good actually, probably. That way, I'm still sort of understanding it.

I think subconsciously or selfishly I knew that I was supposed to do something. It was like a thumping or a throbbing saying, "Yes, this what you've been waiting for." But you're a little dim to those spiritual thoughts when you're dumb like me. So I did have to get a little bit of a kick. I played it for a bunch of people and I think their reactions were warm and deep enough that they gave me the courage to get [the record] out there.

I'm super happy to see the record doing its thing and for people to like it, but for me, I had a great victory just as a person. I overstepped countless obstacles by creating that record. And the record's a metaphor for the personal steps I [took] throughout the past year.

I feel like this thing [that] we're rocking back and forth like we're stuck in a snow bank and we all sort of know it. I feel like people are getting less and less pretentious and less and less hip - hopefully.

I'd have to think about it, but I was listening to this Johnny Cash song today that Tom Waits wrote for him - I think that's the story. For some reason it's a thing that sticks in my brain. He's describing this scene where he sees all these almost biblical images happening kind of in this burrow where this biblical train runs through this yard.

I won't forget those kind of things, but I just want to write them down and look at them. It's almost like when things like music come out and you're listening to a song and you have experiences with art or phenomena that supersede your simple relationship with them as just a piece of art. They're more than that. That's just what those quote are for me. They're big, they're important.

I think I've always been aware of it with my music. I think growing up basically and having a lot to deal with and just slowing down and having something to say and something to retract from, I think I just knew that what I was doing was extremely honest.

It was all the things I wanted my music to be, but yet it wasn't grand and it wasn't obtuse - it wasn't overshooting, it wasn't undershooting, it was precise. The lyrics and the way that I was able to extract and excavate emotion within me.