Top 109 Quotes & Sayings by Dar Williams

A song versus an album is not like a scene versus a play.

If you're looking for can-do, earthy-crunchy attitude then you've got to go to Wisconsin.

The very best thing for music would be to live next door to a person who listens to loud music so you could mishear music everyday and mutate it to your own means.

The first concert I saw was Cheryl Wheeler.

You'll almost encounter a superstition amongst musicians, people sort of go through strange rituals, what they need to do to write a song.

The funny thing is musicians often love to go to see visual art because you've got all these pictures to turn into metaphors.

If a war has to happen, a war has to happen.

I was raised by parents who really admired the religious leaders of the left, as many 60s and 70s liberals did.

Everyone has to decide how they're going to appear in their lives, how they're going to put themselves out there to the world.

But if you're looking to be spooked by really tall trees then you've got to go to Washington State.

I really value people besides parents who nurture kids.

Writing 'February' made me realize that breaking form is a way of letting the song be human.

The very best thing you can do is to try to write a song that has some sort of impact.

Sometimes I see myself fine, sometimes I need a witness. And I like the whole truth, but there are nights I only need forgiveness.

How I long to fall just a little bit, to dance out of the lines and stray from the light.

But social justice and the environment are very tied together in my head.

In the laughing times we know that we are lucky, and in the quiet times we know that we are blessed. And we will not be alone.

I try to be careful not to do single concerts where I fly out, do my show, turn around and go home.

And where does magic come from? I think that magic's in the learning.

Therapy was the biggest romance of my life.

I'm becoming a professional nomad and enjoying that whole part of my life.

Milwaukee one of my favorite cites; I think Milwaukee is #1.

Being told that you are good at banter is like being told that you are a good person.

But I benefit from the taxes I pay because I know how to access the benefits of the taxes.

Arizona is really cool but I couldn't stay there for too long.

Sometimes life gives us lessons sent in ridiculous packaging.

I think music is another language.

You always have to wrestle with chaos.

I have a sordid past.

I watch people throw aluminum cans in the trash, and I think of all the stories I've heard about the over-mining of aluminum, the erosion that happens, and the trees that fall down.

What we need to do is pull the rug out so billionaires in our country wake up one morning and say, wow, 80 percent of the country has a solar panel, and we can't make our billions anymore because other people are making millions, but not billions, on alternative energy that doesn't require war. Suddenly, the war-making machinery is not necessary.

If you're lucky you find something that reflects you, Helps you feel your life, protects you, Cradles you and connects you to everything.

Guiding the ship takes more the your skill. It is the compass inside as the strength of your will.

The only word for love is everybody's name.

God looks like a guidance counselor, God's got that smile. God says, 'How could this be? That's really odd I guess I'll have to check my records, silly me, you know, I'm only God.'

Youll almost encounter a superstition amongst musicians, people sort of go through strange rituals, what they need to do to write a song.

Slavery doesn't have any positives.

Every once in a while I check and I say, do I still believe in God? And the answer is absolutely yes. And then I think, I suppose I should go to church now. But after going to so many churches in my life and trying to go with the flow with so many denominations, Eastern and Western, I don't really feel I need to go to church at all.

And I'll act like I have faith, and like that faith never ends, but I really just have friends.

But where do we come up with this notion of a woman in which the less space you take up, the more you're worth?

The light that stopped the night felt like forgiveness.

Basically, I have found that people who have tried to start communities out of good feelings or hippie-dippie abstract concepts of love - it doesn't work. But if you just concentrate on what is the identity of your town - its waterfalls, its battles, its notable mill strike or those things - you dig into what your town is from its rock formations to its history to its food. Then this thing called community happens all the time.

Some of us have such incredible things that can keep us from acting. We have the luxury of drinking such good wine, and having such good information at our fingertips. I can look up anything on my computer. And I can call any friend at the drop of a hat on my cell phone. And I can have beautiful clothing and great food in a world where people are being tortured. I have some responsibility for that.

When we learn about ourselves, we can evolve.

And you bring your words, But you're just like them, You're unprepared 'Cause you don't know the terrain

There's the wind And the rain And the mercy of the fallen Who say, "Hey, it's not my place To know what's right" There's the weak And the strong And the many stars that guide us We have some of them inside us

They preach that I should save the world. They pray that I won't do a better job of it.

Sixties folk rock was my original muse and the folk audience-people who listen to music off the beaten track-fostered my career. I definitely don't want to abandon the genre but I also need to make sure I'm Dar Williams first.

There's always people who came 600 miles to hear the song you didn't play.

The summer ends and we wonder who we are And there you go, my friends, with your boxes in your car And today I passed the high school, the river, the maple tree I passed the farms that made it Through the last days of the century And I knew that I was going to learn again Again, in this less hazy light I saw the fields beyond the fields The fields beyond the field

Go ahead, push your luck, find out how much love the world can hold.

And if I had a camera Showing all the light we give And showing where the light extends I'd give it to my friends

All the things you treasure most will be the hardest won I will watch you struggle long before the answers come But I won't make it harder, I'll be there to cheer you on I'll shine the light that guides you down the road you're walking on

...we're all in a soup of trying to live by words, and trying to live by poetry. It's both humbling, and really flattering to know that my words are part of all that.

"Is it how she moves, or how she looks?" I say it's loneliness suspended to our own like grappling hooks, And as long as she's got noise, she's fine. But I could teach her how I learned to dance when the music's ended.

The best, most solid place to stand as you look at our present situation is on a foundation of history. The Roman Empire, the British Empire, and the Nazi empire all have things in common.

In terms of our democracy, we are sort of shrugging our shoulders and saying, oh dear, Guantánamo, that's so awful, that's so awful, but it's here. The pendulum usually swings from left to right and then right to left, but there are so many people in power who have taken the pendulum and just pinned it to the right that there is a fear that it's never going to swing back.

There's a marketing scheme that tells you that pregnancy and child rearing will make you into a moron, that your kids are only happy when you're buying them stuff. It's hard being a parent, but I laugh a lot and smile a lot and really enjoy it. The ratio of laughter to sadness is higher. There's part of me that wants to broadcast that. Parenting only affirmed what I already cared about, and that's good.

I really lucked out with that song ["As Cool As I Am"]. Men were becoming much more comfortable with all the different facets and parts of their identity, including their gentler, funnier, sillier, nurturing parts. They started showing up. There was so much exploration of gender at that time. Women were showing up with the range of ways of being female in the world and men were showing up with the range of being male in the world.

At this point, I feel like I have roots in a lot of places. I have friends who have put down roots, in Seattle and San Francisco and Portland, and I feel very close to them.