140 Quotes by Will Oldham

I was worried before I saw the play, thinking I don’t really want to see a play about Thomas Merton. He probably wouldn’t have either, ideally. Then it isn’t. It’s more about us and it’s about our relationship to what he may or may not have thought about. It’s its own thing completely.

Sometimes we need to tell ourselves that we’re not going to do certain things, just in order to stay sane.

It’s good when someone says, “Would you write a song for this purpose,” or “would you record a song for this purpose,” or “would you help me realize this song,” again, for this purpose.

I feel like, for me, reading Thomas Merton is like that. When you’re a ways into it, you’re five pages in, 20 pages in, 30 pages in, it seems like one of the more oxymoronic undertakings you could attempt.

It’s definitely important to be open enough to seize an opportunity when the opportunity is there.

I have more respect for somebody who points at his ideal – in this case, the ideal of the pirate – and then becomes something that’s more radical, more exciting, more subversive than a pirate could ever be.

I don’t like going to cities. I don’t mind maybe being in a city sometimes for a few hours, but I pretty much don’t like cities. I don’t even like passing through them.

Writing songs is a profession; so it’s not an attempt to take things from my interactions with other people and for some reason give them to a total stranger to listen to. I find it offensive to hear other people do that.

Sometimes it will be for more money than I’ve ever been offered before. I mean, am I an idiot again for not doing that?