John Prine Quotes

When I finished a song that I thought was good, I thought, I don't know where that came from, so I have no idea if I can do that again. I'm talking like, a hundred and fifty songs down the line. I still feel that.

When I start writing songs and it turns into an overly belabored intellectual process, I just throw it out.

Sometimes I'll go without writing for a while and I'll start to be driven nuts. I start doubting my writing ability. So I'll sit down and a dozen songs will pop out. It's fun.

I've never had a writer's block, but still I think: 'Is it going to happen this time?' You never know what you're going to get; you just put your fingers on the keys and hope.

Sometimes, writing songs is like waiting in for deliveries. They give you a window, and your washing machine is going to show up, whether the window is the album or something you're thinking, like, 'This thing is going to come to me.'

We all love to sing, and when we sit down to write a song I think it kind of shows itself to us.

No, no, the songs write themselves, almost.

When we start to write for a new record, we never really know what we're doing. We don't come into the room with a set of ideas, but miraculously, a song comes out of it.

When I do write, it happens really easily. I'll just kind of sing along to whatever I'm playing, then find a line to build off of, then sit down and write. When I do write, I take care of business!

U2 is sort of song writing by accident really. We don't really know what we're doing and when we do, it doesn't seem to help.

None of my books has been ever in my head; after they're finished, they go. It's like being a sort of medium; you just grab it when it's there then just release it when it's time to go. There's a lot of instinct, not planning.

I don't have any particular methodology, to tell you the truth. 'Silver Blue' took exactly the amount of time to write that it takes to sing it, and 'Prisoner in Disguise' took about a year and a half. So you just never know.

The great songs just come out. If it comes quick, just leave it that way.

You can't manufacture inspiration, so a lot of it is still a waiting game for me. There's still a lot of mystery to songwriting. I don't have a method that I can go back to - they either come or they don't.

Writing songs and looking for ideas is like blinking my eyes. It's an involuntary muscle. I do it without thought.

Sometimes when I write songs, I don't know what they're about, and it just suddenly comes to me.

There's an element to songwriting that I can't explain, that comes from somewhere else. I can't explain that dividing line between nothing and something that happens within a song, where you have absolutely nothing, and then suddenly you have something. It's like the origin of the universe.

I don't know what the inspiration for most of songs really mean until I finish them. For the most part, I'm going for a visceral impression, and I write the words last.

Songwriting isn't always something that's directly proportionate to the experience.

There are days when I'll write for 15 minutes and have to give up and move around, and I'll write another paragraph and give up again. On other days I get intensely - focused on the process, sit down at 8 A.M. and won't get up until 8 P.M.

Every film is a crapshoot. It's a mystery when a movie comes together. I've never been able to figure it out. I don't know how I make my choices. The only thing you can do is know there's something about a character that you really want to experience.

I don't know - it's a bit of a mystery of how things come about when they do. I don't have a scientific explanation for it. Sometimes when you're writing a song, you don't know where you're going.

I don't actually have to think very hard when I'm writing. I mean, there are times where it's a task, and you have to plug away and plug away. But then there are times when a song writes itself in 15 minutes, and you're just struggling to keep up with it.

I don't think I'm a great songwriter, but I think I've learned a lot about it, and I don't think there's any one way to do it. I don't think I can control it at all. I can just kind of hope that it happens.

The writing that feels the best to me, I experience sometimes, is a kind of weirdly deep listening - like, it feels like if you just listen hard enough, the next sentence will tell you what it needs to be.