I think people are losing that sense of security pretty fast, frankly.
A lot of my heartbreak songs are inspired by things my sisters are going through, or friends.
I was born with a happy heart, and I try to keep a good attitude. It's not true that I'm happy all the time because nobody is, and we all go through our things.
I make jokes about it, but it's the truth that I kind of patterned my look after the town tramp. I didn't know what she was, just this woman who was blond and piled her hair up, wore high heels and tight skirts, and, boy, she was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen. Momma used to say, "Aw, she's just trash," and I thought, That's what I want to be when I grow up. Trash.
Oh, I can spot a phoney a mile away.
A lot of people have said I'd have probably done better in my career if I hadn't looked so cheap and gaudy. But I dress to be comfortable for me, and you shouldn't be blamed because you want to look pretty.
You can do anything you want to do as long as you keep a good attitude and keep working at it. But the second you give up, you’re screwed.
Perhaps one would be wise when young even to avoid thinking of oneself as a writer - for there's something a little stopped and satisfied, too healthy, in that. Better to think of writing, of what one does as an activity, rather than an identity - to write, I write; we write; to keep the calling a verb rather than a noun; to keep working at the thing, at all hours, in all places, so that your life does not become a pose, a pornography of wishing.
I never had a brain until Freak came along and let me borrow his for awhile, and that's the truth, the whole truth. The unvanquished truth, is how Freak would say it, and for a long time it was him who did the talking.
How do you know that the incessant progress of science will not compel scientists to consider that life has existed during eternity, and not matter?
Choice is the only tool we have that enables us to go from who we are today to who we want to be tomorrow.