Top 130 Quotes & Sayings by Jason Isbell

I've always wanted to pull off 'No One is to Blame' by Howard Jones. I've done that a couple times in solo shows, but I can't figure out how to do that with a full band and make it work.

I think sometimes I write to impress my influences. Whether they're actually acquaintances of mine, people that I think will hear the record or not, I still write - not to imitate my influences - but to write something that would live up to their standards.

There are so few people that wake up every day and go do something that they don't dread... I'm very lucky.

I write pretty much year-round, but I definitely do more when a deadline is looming.

I think a lot of people are scared, and I know I was scared to get sober, at least using this as an excuse; 'I don't want to be one of those sober people.' And I don't think you have to be. I think you can be one of those people who happens to be sober.

I think Spotify is honestly just another one of Sean Parker's ways of ripping musicians off.

I'd rather have 1000 of our fans than 10,000 Kid Rock fans!

As my life changes, it gives me new things to write about.

As you get up in your thirties, the van touring is not a possibility anymore. We can't all be Mike Watt.

I like a cliche if it's sort of turned on its head.

I like those kinds of songs that have details that you remember and that have stories that mean something and that open up into different levels philosophically. I like those kinds of movies, and I like those kinds of books.

I'm not trying to steer people in a direction. I'm just trying to move them. Wherever it takes them, it doesn't matter to me. I just want them to be moved in one way or another, and that's a hard thing to do, I think.

I think I'm a common man for the most part, but I don't work as hard as most people that I know.

Every time I'd get a job, they'd say: 'You'll be good at loading trucks.' I couldn't explain that there was more to me than carrying things.

I don't believe all music is good. I believe some music is bad for people to listen to. I think it makes their taste worse, I think it makes their lives worse, I think it makes them worse people.

I went to school for creative writing in college, and I wound up about six hours short of my degree.

Sometimes a song becomes rhetoric, but you have to really empathise. You also have to leave room for both sides of the argument: even if you're not telling the other side, you have to put that part in parentheses and make sure it's understood.

I've dealt with a lot of physical pain, with a lot of emotional pain; anybody's who's ever been an alcoholic has handled both of those in extreme.

I think for anything to be successful, your problems have to become different problems over time.

I know people who have written big hit country songs that are really kind of terrible songs, but for the rest of their life, they're the guy who wrote that. You've got to be careful; if you don't want that to happen, don't write those songs.

The south is very focused on family... the musical heritage of Muscle Shoals especially and the bands from the region.

I have modes, mental modes that I get in, and when I'm on the road, I focus very much on doing the work. On playing the show, on being good every night. And part of me just gets switched off. The part that's very private and very personal and very intimate. That especially, that part of me gets shut off.

Songs like 'Outfit' and 'Decoration Day' and 'Dress Blues,' those were good songs, but the output wasn't as consistent in those days.

I didn't grow up with a lot of money, but I grew up with a lot of opportunities that many people don't have.

You can be very honest without telling the truth, at least in art.

Whatever needed to be done, I need to know how to do it just as well as my wife. You know, for us to be able to really balance the parenting. It was very humbling, and it was also, um - terrifying. Because, you know, giving a baby a bath for the first time is one of the scariest things you can do on this whole earth.

I'll take a certain concern of my own or a situation and try to frame it around a fictional story, but sometimes just straight-up autobiographical songs work well, and sometimes a story is better. I like stories. I like to hear them. I don't think there are enough of them in songs anymore.

For a lot of folks who get sober, the process of getting and staying sober becomes their higher power, and it becomes a religion that sort of consumes a whole lot of them. I just don't think that that's necessary. I think that that can be a side note rather than the story of your life.

My favorite thing about going to concerts has always been looking around and thinking that there's a lot of people in here that are very much like me, a lot of people in here I could have a full conversation with.

I need enough room to eventually throw a baseball with a child; that's all the yard I need. That's all I want.

When I was still drinking, I thought I was kind of in control of everything in my life and other people's lives and realized at some point that that just wasn't the case at all.

I don't think I'd be happy if I were satisfied. I enjoy challenge, and I wouldn't say that I'm an ambitious person career-wise or financially, really. I would like to travel more comfortably, but that's really about all I need.

I spend a lot of time wondering how to best support the people that I love, because I think sometimes that means getting out of the way. When should I leave them alone to have their own life?

If you're somebody who writes songs or writes fiction, a writer that people pay for your opinion in any way, you shouldn't be the least bit uncomfortable giving it to them. People want songwriters to tell them how they think and how they feel. That's what a song is. That's what I want to hear in a song.

As far as being satisfied, I just don't think you should work towards being satisfied. If everybody were satisfied, we'd never get anything done.

I didn't know what to expect when we first started touring behind 'Southeastern' because you don't want to lull anybody to sleep or lose their attention. But it's really been incredible how the crowds seem to be just as excited for the slow, sad songs as they are for the old rockers.

At the end of the day, I'm just trying to write a song that I like, that I'm not afraid to turn loose on the world. I do read a lot. I know a lot of people who read more, but I do try to keep a book in my hand most of the time, and I think that informs any kind of output that I'm going to have.

When I stopped drinking... there were so many things I had to face that I didn't even realize were part of my makeup before. When you do that and have any changes that severe, you lose a lot of things, both good and bad.

I go to the movies a lot on off days. I exercise. I have routines that I go by.

An incredible number of people have raised children who aren't too screwed up. Surely, I won't be the worst at it.

My dad, he worries a bit, usually with good reason. There were quite a few years there where he was probably trying to resign himself to fact that I wouldn't live too much longer, just because of the way I was living.

A lot of the world turns into checklists for me when I'm on the road. Like, OK, this person's alive, this person's fed, this person's good. Soundcheck is done. Everything becomes a checklist except for the actual show.

When I was writing 'Southeastern,' I'd just recently gotten sober. For me, that was a major turning point in my life. It changed things I did on a day-to-day basis. My whole routine was upended. It took me some time to get used to that and figure out how do I keep myself entertained.

You don't have any kind of control ultimately. Things are just going to happen as they will. And I think your best option sometimes is just to react rather than try to plan everything out in advance.

I've never been someone who's very prone to boredom. I don't know, boredom seems like something you should grow out of at about 15 or 16. There's so much that needs to be done.

The good thing about songwriting is you don't have to delineate between what's true and what's fiction; records aren't put on the shelf that way. Books are, movies are, but records aren't.

I think great songs appeal to people at any age. Kids love the Beatles, too. Kids love Tom T. Hall. Of course, Tom T. wrote some things that were specifically for kids. But I think kids recognize quality more than they get credit for sometimes.

My wife is so very important to me that it's made my mom more important to me. It's made every woman I know more important to me.

When somebody asks me what a song or a line is about, I feel like I'm not done writing it yet.

It's not easy to sit down and open yourself up and say, 'This is how much I love you,' you know? It's scary to do that.

Good sounds, they just make you feel good.

There was a point when I told my daddy I didn't want to go hunting anymore.

I know it's financially lucrative to go out on my own, but I don't like it. It's really hard work, just the performance aspect. I like people who look like they've been together for too long and sound like they've been together too long. I like rock n' roll bands.

Democracy can tie your hands in a rock 'n' roll band, you know? It can be a great thing, but if you've got a certain amount of vision and you write a lot of songs, it's sometimes better to have your own band and make your own decisions.

I don't remember a lot of the good times from my days with the Truckers.

The idea of growing up in the South and being a man is an interesting thing; there's a lot masculinity involved, with hunting, fishing, and playing sports that rural people take pride in, but at the same time, I grew up really not wanting to hate anybody.

People love to be listened to and represented, and they love it when they feel like you have some of the same problems that they do. Everybody deals with things like romantic difficulties in relationships and death and cancer and abuse.

My dad, as much as I love him, has one of those signs - 'The Isbell's' - on his front door, and he's got the damn apostrophe in there. I haven't strangled him yet.

I think I'm writing for an intelligent stranger - you know, in my mind I can't remember who coined that phrase first. I don't want to write anything that makes me cringe, first of all. I cringe a lot - mostly when I hear popular music.

When I joined the Truckers, I was 21 and riding in the van with guys who were a generation older than me.