Steve Earle Quotes

What I've observed and what I've imagined - and definitely what I'm hoping - happens as you get older is that there's a mellowing, an acceptance that comes with time. I guess that I'll find out.

One wouldn't want to have the same dilemmas at 50 as one had at 15. And indeed I don't. I have a very different take on life.

When I was at drama school, I wanted to change the world, and thought I had some great wisdom to impart to people about humanity. Now that I'm older, I know enough to realise that I know nothing at all.

I think you get better as you get older.

You have to treat people gently because we're all in a process. What might seem like a good idea to somebody at 21 is probably not going to seem like a good idea at 50, but you don't know that until you get there.

As you get older, you come to a place in life where you can't just live in the present.

I've become a lot wiser over the years.

When I was younger, I took everything seriously, and I still do to some degree.

I don't know if it's that the scripts are evolving or just that I'm getting older, but the characters become more interesting as you get older because you've lived more life at different stages. You've loved; you've lost; you have more of that journey.

What's that line from TS Eliot? To arrive at the place where you started, but to know it for the first time. I'm able to write about a breakup from a different place. Same brokenness. Same rock-bottom. But a little more informed, now I'm older. Thank God for growing up.

My overall look on things is a lot more mature than it used to be.

At the age of 60, I am less experimental and more mature. I want most of all to convey my understanding of life.

Life is not quantifiable in terms of age, but I suppose in my fifties I am more grounded and more at ease in my own skin than when I was younger. I have a confidence that I didn't have before from the experiences I've had.

I suspect I was not the first 21-year-old who thought he knew more than he did. And one of the virtues of age, one of the virtues of getting married and becoming a father, is it often leads one to take a more measured approach to life.

And maybe I'm a little smarter now than I was before for all the stupid things I've done.

So, do I think I'm missing something? I really don't, and I think that comes with age.

I'm beginning to understand myself. But it would have been great to be able to understand myself when I was 20 rather than when I was 82.

As you get older, you look at things differently.

I find myself thinking more about the past as I get older... maybe because there's just more of it to think about. At the same time, I'm less haunted by it than I was as a younger person. I guess that's probably the ideal: to reach a point where you have access to all of your memories, but you don't feel victimized by them.

The real sadness of fifty is not that you change so much but that you change so little.

As you age, you have this vast cauldron of experience to draw from. Some of the experiences are great; some of them you wish you'd never had. But all of them shape the work that you do and the person you become. It's just inevitable.

By the time we hit fifty, we have learned our hardest lessons. We have found out that only a few things are really important. We have learned to take life seriously, but never ourselves.

By the time we've hit fifty, we have learned our hardest lessons.

I actually think there's an incredible amount of self-knowledge that comes with getting older.

Many years ago, I used to say, 'I haven't lived long enough to be great.' Now I don't say that.