I never set out to write songs about the world around me... it just kind of came about as a result of paying more attention to things.

Most of the music you hear on the radio today is developed for making money. It doesn't feel true or honest. You can feel it in the music.

Maybe I spent more time dwelling on emotions than some people, and maybe that's why I ended up writing.

Writing, overall, has never been what I'd call fun. It's fulfilling. It doesn't come real easy for me.

I've always been aware of having feelings that were pretty intense at times. I imagine most people have had that, or they wouldn't be human.

This is how it has been since time began: If you want to make something really worthwhile and true, then you have to suffer for it.

If something bothers me, it bothers me for a long time until I find a way to work it out. Music provided me with a means of working things out.

My guitar is really tempermental. I don't give up on it though, I'm close to my guitar!

I don't know what other people are like, I haven't been able to crawl inside anybody else.

I've always written about things that cause me to feel something.

I don't describe myself as a Christian or religious, but I like to think that how I live my life is honest.

I was mainly influenced by the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, and others like Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash.

Turn off the TV and start digging around for information that's not from a corporation trying to make money.

For a long time I was interested in being a social worker. In a lot of ways I feel that that's all my music is, trying to help people.

I honestly don't listen to a lot of music - I spend so much time working at my own music.

I never set out to write songs about the world around me... it just kind of came about as a result of paying more attention to things.

Making the record was tons of fun, the most fun I've ever had.

The bronze powder business, however, no longer required my personal attention, and was well managed by those I had chosen as the guardians of a secret, which was long and honourably kept.

The kinds of shows that seem to work now, the comedy shows, are those which require very little attention. They're superficial and I like articulate comedy.

The constant attention is what is so difficult.

As a scientist, my attention became totally focused on global warming some 15 years ago by the elegant and powerful measurements of carbon dioxide trapped in ice cores taken as much as 2 miles deep from the great East Antarctica ice sheet.

Anytime you have a difficult encounter with your child, there is a good chance that at least one of these factors is bringing out the worst in him or her: transitions, time pressure, competition for your attention, conflicting objectives.

I think it would have been a lot better for him to say, I did it and I'm sorry, McGwire was never one to show a lot of emotion on the field, not a player who sought attention and craved to be thought of as a nice guy.

I wanted to write a story that demanded the viewer's attention.

After some minor pieces of theoretical study that I worked on, a student in my statistical mechanics class brought to my attention a problem in polyelectrolytes.

I don't want to come off like the jealous brother who wasn't getting the attention, but it was like no one was really into me anyway. I wasn't really a priority.

If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice, or representation.

There's a lot of other movies I like, but I don't even pay attention to directors to tell you the truth.

The genius of the economic machine is in its ability to convert these indulgences into profitability. It converts desire into attention, a grip on our eyeballs and eardrums, which in turn can be marketed to advertisers.

The police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.

The poet produces the beautiful by fixing his attention on something real.

The nation did not begin to realize the extraordinary possibilities of the vast Western territory until its attention was thus suddenly and definitely concentrated on the Pacific by the annual addition of over fifty million dollars to the circulating medium.

Movies absorb our attention more completely, I think.

I guess because I pay so much attention to the physical part of the character, I don't look upon it as like Charlize Theron up there. I don't think of them as like Charlize Theron films.

They cannot count on the press and they cannot count on Congressional committees to bring the problems of the scientific community to their own attention, or to police the scientific community.

The difference between something good and something great is attention to detail.

For the past several years, the Meth Caucus has worked to engage the Office of National Drug Control Policy on this issue. We have tried to get their attention that meth requires a strong, comprehensive Federal policy.

Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a wise passage when it is quoted than when we read it in the original author?

I suppose that I was a kind of consultant for taste. Is it good taste? Or bad taste? I had an attention to detail, to what would tell best the story. Because many people get excited about the work and drift off from the story.

Terrorism is in good part an effective government propaganda; it serves to deflect attention from governmental abuse toward a mostly imagined, highly dangerous outside enemy.

If you are looking for smart judging based on merit, skip the Academy Awards next year and pay attention to the Independent Spirit Awards.

A surprising number of government committees will make important decisions on fundamental matters with less attention than each individual would give to buying a suit.

Attention to health is life greatest hindrance.

The attention of a traveller, should be particularly turned, in the first place, to the various works of Nature, to mark the distinctions of the climates he may explore, and to offer such useful observations on the different productions as may occur.

We are a business, and you do a little of what you think's right, pay your bills, and attract... a single record attracts attention to your concerts and your albums.

You're a wise person if you can easily direct your attention to what ever needs it.

That's the motivation of an artist - to seek attention of some kind.

The fact is five months ago this was an issue that people weren't really talking that much about. Because of the president's leadership, because he's brought it to people's attention, it's now a top issue.