Mat Kearney Quotes

The reason I don't play any of the old songs is because I really honor my old band, and I think that those songs are best served within the context of that band.

It was so strange. I knew that Josephine Baker had performed on the same stage but that night I felt it. Many of the same people who worked with Josephine Baker are still here. They know what they're doing. And that was a very comfortable feeling.

Standing center stage in the six foot circle of wood cut from the stage of the Ryman is something I never take for granted. The history and legacy of that circle is awe-inspiring.

People don't understand why guys keep coming back, why a lot of older players who played for the Celtics keep coming back. It's the tradition.

When it comes to our cultural values, I would love to hold on to the past because Nokia had some of the best spirit ever. Having grown up in the company, I loved it for the value and culture, which matched my own.

But there were years when, in search of what I thought was better, nobler things I denied these, my people, and my family. I forgot the songs they sung - and most of those songs are now dead; I erased their dialect from my tongue; I was ashamed of them and their ways of life. But now - yes, I love them; they are a part of my blood; they, with all their virtues and their faults, played a great part in forming my way of looking at life.

And there are certain songs that are really timepieces and shouldn't be touched. But some of them are a celebration of good humour and sensibility and I think that's okay. I don't care about the past, I'm a musician with ambition.

With smoking axle hot with speed, with steeds of fire and steam, Wide-waked To-day leaves Yesterday behind him like a dream. Still, from the hurrying train of Life, fly backward far and fast The milestones of the fathers, the landmarks of the past. But human hearts remain unchanged: the sorrow and the sin, The loves and hopes and fears of old, are to our own akin; And if, in tales our fathers told, the songs our mothers sung, Tradition wears a snowy beard, Romance is always young.

Old friends are best. King James used to call for his old shoes; they were the easiest for his feet.

Remember Old Nan's stories, Bran. Remember the way she told them, the sound of her voice. So long as you do that, part of her will always be alive in you.

It's wonderful to look back and think you were part of a force that shaped modern music and influenced the public in so many ways. However, that's all in the past.

I wrote my first song when I was seven and that was kind of country. Now I'm just like 'No! Why did I play country?'

It is of no account; after all, the old bird does not fly far from his nest.

The world belongs primarily to the dead, and we only rent it from them for a little while. They created it, they wrote its literature and its songs, and they are deeply invested in how children are treated, because the children are the ones who will keep it going. The idea that each of us has the right to change everything is a deep insult to them.

We always spend the summer together. My wife and kids, we always go back to Massachusetts and spend the summer there near where my wife and I both grew up. I wasn't willing to sacrifice the summer to go elsewhere.

Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart. The nearer I approach the end, the plainer I hear around me the immortal symphonies of the worlds which invite me. . . . For half a century I have been writing thoughts in prose, verse, history, drama, romance, tradition, satire, ode, and song. I have tried them all, but I feel I have not said a thousandth part of that which is within me. When I go down to the grave, I can say "I have finished my day's work," but I cannot say "I have finished my life's work."

Somebody under 30, if the name Frank Zappa came up, they would just say, "Who?" To me that didn't sit well, because I felt my dad's accomplishments in music should be better known, not just in a popular way, but better understood.

My kids learned to color on this table. There's been a lot that's went around this table. Waylon Jennings sat right there in that chair and showed Miley the chords to 'Good Hearted Woman.' Sitting in that chair. This table's a bit like life. It's a circle. And I believe everything in life is a circle. You come into this world a little teeny wrinkled-up fetus

If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?

Goodbye, Papa, you saved me. You taught me to read. No one can play like you. I'll never drink champagne. No one can play like you." -Liesel

Ah, the old questions, the old answers, there's nothing like them!

It was as familiar to me as a song I'd been hearing my whole life, covered by various people but the basic tune the same.

I like to read things I've read before. It's like listening over and over to your favorite song.

Humanity's legacy of stories and storytelling is the most precious we have. All wisdom is in our stories and songs. A story is how we construct our experiences.

The golden age of Luncheon Vouchers ended ten yearsago. For ten years Mickey had been saying, "The goldenage of Luncheon Vouchers is over." And that's what Archieloved about O'Connell's. Everything was remembered,nothing was lost. History was never revised orreinterpreted, adapted or whitewashed. It was as solid andas simple as the encrusted egg on the clock.