Top 90 Steve Earle Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “I think the music business is changing. Artists that don’t want to tour and just want to collect royalty checks and stay home are not going to be able to do that.”

— Steve Earle

52. “Funerals are a pagan rite. There’s not any doubt about it.”

— Steve Earle

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

— Steve Earle

54. “I wasn’t raised to not write about issues, and I’m just living in really politically charged times. You know, I’d rather write songs about girls, but it’s just hard to do.”

— Steve Earle

55. “Becoming interested in poetics got me interested in theater. Theater is supposed to be poetry, you know, before it’s anything else. It just doesn’t fly if it isn’t musical.”

— Steve Earle

56. “I really believe that if I make records that are indispensable to my audience, they’ll go out and spend money to buy them, even if they’ve already downloaded them. If they can afford it. If they can’t, I’d rather they be able to download it than not get it at all.”

— Steve Earle

57. “My main area of activism is the death penalty, and it will continue to be once this crisis is over with.”

— Steve Earle

58. “I don’t type fast. I type with three fingers – two on one hand, and I only get one going on the other. I think my thumb’s in there, but I’m not sure. I may be no better than an orangutan when it comes to that.”

— Steve Earle

59. “Woody Guthrie was what folks who don’t believe in anything would call an anomaly.”

— Steve Earle

60. “Politics and music don’t necessarily go hand in hand. They just do for me...”

— Steve Earle

61. “I’m not a Democrat; I’m something well to the left of a Democrat, but I’m just realistic about the system.”

— Steve Earle

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

— Steve Earle

63. “I don’t believe that songwriting has to be profound, but I truly believe that it’s a crime for you to go outta your way for it not to be.”

— Steve Earle

64. “Fundamentalism, as practiced by the Taliban, is the enemy of real thought, and religion too.”

— Steve Earle

65. “The creative core of New York has never been native New Yorkers; it’s people from all over the world.”

— Steve Earle

66. “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.”

— Steve Earle

67. “I just had a child on purpose at age 56, I’m pretty f – ing optimistic.”

— Steve Earle

68. “I love theater. I go all the time. It’s one of the reasons I moved to New York. But I understand that I have limited range as an actor. I can only play people who talk like me.”

— Steve Earle

69. “I still write more songs about girls than anything else.”

— Steve Earle

70. “I have a theory that the people who cook in jails are British chefs.”

— Steve Earle

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

— Steve Earle

72. “I think the criticism that I take to heart is from other writers that I respect.”

— Steve Earle

73. “My audience doesn’t agree with me on everything, but I love my audience, because they’re totally okay with us having a dialogue.”

— Steve Earle

74. “Greg Trooper writes great songs, including one of my very favorite songs in the world, Little Sister. On top of all that, there’s his voice – an instrument I have coveted for 15 years.”

— Steve Earle

75. “I think it’s obvious that democracy is something that is contagious, and it always has been.”

— Steve Earle

76. “There’s a long tradition of people from the South living in New York City.”

— Steve Earle

77. “I’m used to writing stories with a beginning a middle and an end in four minutes.”

— Steve Earle

78. “I’ve never known of Wal-Mart to be a good neighbor in any town it’s ever moved into.”

— Steve Earle

79. “I can deal with conservatives in a democracy. With real conservatives, I don’t agree with them, but I understand why they believe what they believe and I believe they’re being honest with me about it.”

— Steve Earle

80. “I don’t care what’s happening in the mainstream of country music. I haven’t in a long time.”

— Steve Earle

81. “If there is such a thing as a workaholic, I’m it, and that’s what passes for leisure.”

— Steve Earle

82. “The stupidest thing that a writer can do is write a memoir I think, unless it’s right before you die – maybe.”

— Steve Earle

83. “I’m one of the few people that I know that sings better than they did 20 years ago.”

— Steve Earle

84. “I mainly read non-fiction, and that’s probably because I have a huge amount of insecurity about my lack of education and the things I don’t know.”

— Steve Earle

85. “Songwriters are expanding time rather than compressing time. My short stories tend to be old fashioned, with a beginning, middle and end.”

— Steve Earle

86. “All we do as songwriters is rewrite the songs that have impressed us till we find our own voice. It’s part of learning the craft.”

— Steve Earle

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

— Steve Earle

88. “If I can get Me out of the way, I can do anything.”

— Steve Earle

89. “I feel like I owe my audience something. They feed my kids. And I really like my job, a lot.”

— Steve Earle

90. “I don’t think I’m a political songwriter as much as I am just a political person. I think it’s in my fabric.”

— Steve Earle

91. “I don’t usually read reviews.”

— Steve Earle