Top 20 Quotes & Sayings by Townes Van Zandt

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American musician Townes Van Zandt.

Last updated on December 21, 2024.

John Townes Van Zandt was an American singer-songwriter. He wrote numerous songs, such as "Pancho and Lefty", "For the Sake of the Song", "If I Needed You", "Tecumseh Valley", "Rex's Blues", and "To Live Is to Fly", that are widely considered masterpieces of American songwriting. His musical style has often been described as melancholy and features rich, poetic lyrics. During his early years, Van Zandt was respected for his guitar playing and fingerpicking ability.

American - Musician | March 7, 1944 - January 1, 1997

Source: Wikipedia

Human's can't live in the present as animals do; they just live in the present. But human's are always thinking about the future or the past.

Townes Van Zandt

I don't know why I write really depressing songs. I'm a kind of melancholy guy, I suppose. But I figure I'm about normal.

Townes Van Zandt

I'm the mold that grunge was grown in.

Townes Van Zandt

I don't think you can ever do your best. Doing your best is a process of trying to do your best.

Townes Van Zandt

I'd like to write some songs that are so good that nobody understands them. Not even myself.

Townes Van Zandt

I was just tapped on the shoulder from above and told to write these songs, as opposed to wanting to be a success in the music business.

Townes Van Zandt

What I do is between me and the Lord, to examine and possibly alter the state of grace in which I live, and thereby the state of grace of anybody who listens.

Townes Van Zandt

I don't envision a very long life for myself. I think my life will run out before my work does. I've designed it that way.

Townes Van Zandt

Aloneness is a state of being, whereas loneliness is a state of feeling. It's like the difference between being broke and being poor.

Townes Van Zandt

Well I was born a rambler friends, and I intend to die that way. It could be twenty years from now it could be most any day. But if there ain't no whiskey and wimen lord behind those heavenly doors, I'm gonna take my chances down below and of that you can be sure.

Townes Van Zandt

All of a sudden there's a song - there in your hotel room playing your guitar - and you write it, and two or three years later it will come true. It keeps you on your toes.

Townes Van Zandt

Humans can't live in the present, like animals do. Humans are always thinking about the future or the past. So it's a veil of tears, man. I don't know anything that's going to benefit me now, except love. I just need an overwhelming amount of love. And a nap. Mostly a nap.

Townes Van Zandt

Sorrow and solitude, these are the precious things/ And the only words that are worth remembering.

Townes Van Zandt

Im the mold that grunge was grown in.

Townes Van Zandt

There's only two kinds of music: the blues and zippety doo-dah.

Townes Van Zandt

There are only two kinds of songs; there's the blues, and there's zip-a-dee-doo-dah.

Townes Van Zandt

I've met Bob Dylan's bodyguards, and if Steve Earle thinks he can stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table, he's sadly mistaken.

Townes Van Zandt