Jackson Browne Quotes

Who said that artists should sell their soul, expose everything about themselves?

I've found that in now having experienced what it's like to make records and just through growing up in general that you should be expressive about what's affecting you instead of trying to sing about a subject just for the sake of other people getting something from it.

If you start to just aim for what the audience wants to hear, you're already hamstrung because you don't have any freedom.

You can't make your choices based on what critics think. You have to make your choices based on what's honest for you.

You know, we have our own audience, and it's not like - they just know we're not going to do certain things.

I have a repertoire of songs that I'm proud of, that I've written for my own band. When I do a cover, something that somebody else has written, I think about it very carefully before I sing that song. I have to really get behind it and understand it and like it. And that's how I pick roles. I don't want to play just anything.

I am myself sometimes, and I do state my opinions, but not in a comedy routine and not in my character. There always has to be some sort of layer to it.

I don't want people to just hand me music and be like, 'Here, you sound good on this. Sing it.' I want to be able to say, 'This is me.'

What I've noticed about Hollywood is, if you go out there shouting about who you are, they will love you for it. But if you go out not knowing what it is that you're representing, and you are just a canvas, they will make you into the thing they need you to be.

Writing is about bringing something from inside you that you're trying to say, and not just trying to say something to please someone else.

I've never said anything that I didn't want to say on a record, ever.

My work is trying to at least define myself on my own terms, and then if other people enjoy things that's a lovely addition.

Painting myself for others, I have painted my inward self with colors clearer than my original ones. I have no more made my book than my book has made me--a book consubstantial with its author, concerned with my own self, an integral part of my life; not concerned with some third-hand, extraneous purpose, like all other books.

I've failed a million times on stage. I've listened to notes that I knew weren't right. I've pitched ideas and let other people change them, knowing that it was the wrong choice. The question you have to ask yourself is: How do you want to fail? Do you want to fail in a way that feels like it respects your tastes and value system?

You've got to be in a place where you can put your guard down. I've got a long list of things I consider to be selling out. But amongst that list, one of them is when you make art without putting your guard down.

I always thought it was a trap to fit into ideologies, and maybe that's a luxury position, but my work is a reflection of my being here. My being here is not a reflection of an idea.

As much as I can give of myself I give of myself. There's no reason why not. And when I have to hide something, I let the character speak.

There are quite a few honest songwriters out there writing about relationships and their own personality traits. But for some reason, once they step out of the bedroom, their honesty doesn't seem to come with them.

You can't write something to please someone.

I want to make music that I like; not something that I have to make because I think it's going to sell.

Write what you think is good, is the whole of the law.

I'm giving into my tendency to want to blur and blend the lines between art and life, and privacy and sharing.

When I'm writing music, I'm not playing a character. I'm not Alice Cooper or Gene Simmons or someone like that, who has acknowledged that they are writing music for a character.

My greatest achievement is being able to write records that are real snapshots of what's going on in my life. I won't repeat myself for the sake of commerce, or to please other people.

I don't think songs have to be like these super-#1-smash-hit-sounding songs, because I think it's more important that it's like, 'Hey! This is coming out of me. This is something I connect with. This is something that I like to sing.'