“Well you say that it’s gospel, But I know that it’s only church.”

Don’t look back, because someone might be gaining on you.

It’s rather mystifying when you think about writing songs – where they come from, and how they’re born.

You learn as much from your kids as they learn from you.

They say that I have no hits and that I’m difficult to work with. And they say that like it’s a bad thing.

I’d rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy.

I never told the truth so i can never tell a lie.

Most of the people I admire, they usually smell funny and don’t get out much. It’s true. Most of them are either dead or not feeling well.

The Universe is making music all the time.

Their memory’s like a train: you can see it getting smaller as it pulls away And the things you can’t remember Tell the things you can’t forget that History puts a saint in every dream.

But then I’m one of those guys that is still a bit afraid of the telephone, its implications for conversation. I still wonder if the jukebox might be the death of live music.

I like turning on two radios at once. I like hearing things wrong. I get a lot of ideas by mishearing things.

When your down on your luck and you’ve lost all your dreams theres nothing like a campfire and a can of beans.

We are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance and wealth with happiness.

The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering.

Most of the things you absorb you will ultimately secrete.

For a songwriter, you don’t really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take them apart and see what they’re made of, and wonder if you can make one, too.

The gospel humbles us into the dust and at the very same time exalts us to the heavens.

Those who understand the gospel cannot possibly look down on anyone.

The gospel does not promise you better life circumstances; it promises you a better life.

I’ll only retire in the day I should be dead and they have me buried, and some idiot spell over my casket some stupid gospel stuff.

I think the Polynesian people and the gospel are in harmony. We’re very respectful people, and very humble people… and I try and let that shine through as much as possible.

Left ear, I wear four earrings. The four is symbolic of the four seasons, spring, winter, summer and fall, the four directions, north, east, south and west, the four gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

The quest for heroic adventure then is a quest for the gospel, although it might not be seen that way by everyone.

Interestingly, it’s as though the gospel story of Jesus is the archetypal heroic journey.