Steve Earle

“I love 'Harry Potter.' I love those books. That started because I lived with a woman who had kids who were, like, 10 and 7 when they moved in with me.”

“My audience is, you know, pinkos in big cities.”

“I've never made a record that I'm ashamed of.”

“My politics were really radical when I was younger, and then I moderated like everyone else does when they start having kids.”

“Sympathetic characters usually have a voice. They usually don't have any trouble being heard.”

“At home, I'm lucky if I can write three or four hours before the phone starts ringing and the kids want to go to soccer.”

“Truman Capote is really an interesting cat.”

“You know, I'm not comfortable with people whose politics are static in a democracy.”

“Like most kids, I grew up singing 'This Land Is Your Land' in grammar school, but with the most radical verses neatly removed. This was before I knew it was a Woody Guthrie song.”

“It amazes me that the most Christian funerals are the most barbaric funeral rites of passage that are celebrated anywhere in the world.”

“The drama teacher that I had in high school, back in Texas, was the only teacher who didn't kick me out of his class. He turned me on to 'The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.' I had picked up Dylan with 'Bringing It All Back Home,' and he turned me on to the first couple of albums, which I hadn't heard.”

“San Antonio is like a military town. It's like literally - when I was growing up there, there were five Air Force bases, plus Fort Sam Houston. I was always sort of near the military.”

“America's criminal justice system isn't known for rehabilitation. I'm not sure that, as a society, we are even interested in that concept anymore.”

“Poetry is the hardest thing that there is. It fascinates me, so I want to write more of it.”

“My dad was in a wheelchair and on oxygen for the last few years of his life.”

“I've been a serial husband, and I've done it badly every time.”

“I don't really think in terms of obstacles. My biggest obstacle is always myself.”

“I love baseball. I'll probably end up one of those old farts who go to spring training in Florida every year and drive from game to game all day.”

“Gregory Corso used to get really pissed when people called Bob Dylan a 'poet.' After writing poetry for a few years, I can understand that.”

“Having a child at 55... that's optimism.”