A Quote by Valerie June

When I was 15, I begged my grandfather to give me this guitar he'd always had in the back of his closet. I promised him I'd learn to play it, but I never did. Then my grandfather died, and I felt so guilty. So I started playing.
I know my grandfather drank occasionally socially, what we call "taking a sip." And my father never touched the bottle. He condemned my grandfather for doing that, and his punishment to his father was when my grandfather came to visit him from Georgia, he would not allow my grandfather to preach in his church.Even though my classmates very often drank alcohol in my presence and they would try and get me to join in, I felt, no, I didn't need that.
My grandfather killed my father in my mind. I know he died of cancer-but it was because of what my grandfather did to him.
My dad died, and my grandfather died, and my great-grandfather died. And the guy before him, I don't know. Probably died.
He was very supportive of me, ... He saw every single play I did in New York. Ill never forget looking out into the audience and watching my brother, who was 40 years younger than my grandfather, sleeping in his chair during some of my early plays. My grandfather Alex never fell asleep.
I come from Surajpur, a valley in Himachal Pradesh near Manali that is named after my great grandfather Sarju Singh Ranaut. He was a minister for 15 years…I come from a big family not in terms of money, but reputation and grew up in a protective mountain environment…My father slapped me for the first time at 15 and I told him, ‘If you slap me I will slap you back’. I felt raising your hand on anybody is inappropriate and always had a high regard for my self. My dad asked me to leave the house and I did so without a single penny in my pocket.
My great-great-grandfather lived to age 28, my immigrant great-grandfather Pedro Gotiaoco died at 66, my grandfather was 68, and my father died at 34.
My grandfather died before I was born, so I never had the chance to speak with him about his father. But I learned about him from books.
If the grandfather of the grandfather of Jesus had known what was hidden within him, he would have stood humble and awe-struck before his soul.
For me, the guitar was just a tool to make songs. I started when I was 10 - I learned what I had to learn to get my ideas across. I always felt I was a weak guitar player, but now I realize with the finger-picking stuff, I actually know how to do what I do with my songs, but I couldn't step in and be an overall guitar player. But my guitar playing has always been driven by the need to write songs.
After my grandfather died I went down to the basement of my family house where my family kept books, anthologies and things and there was an anthology without any names attached to it and I read a poem called Spellbound and I somehow attached it to my grandfather's death and I thought my grandfather had written it.
My grandfather was a healer, and he used matches often. Once, he burnt a wart off my finger and then rubbed the ash deep into it, and it never did come back. When he worked at a factory, people would line up next to his truck to be healed. He died before he could teach us any of his secrets.
When my grandfather died, I started adopting some of his accents, to sort of remind myself of him. A homage. He was a war hero, and he was really great with his hands.
My grandfather, Harry, died when my dad was in his early 20s, so I never met him. Amazingly, he was 6ft tall. That gene definitely never filtered down to me!
When the oldest Chatwin, melancholy Martin, opens the cabinet of the grandfather clock that stands in a dark, narrow back hallway in his aunt’s house and slip through into Fillory...it’s like he’s opening the covers of a book, but a book that did what books always promised to do and never ac tually quite did: get you out, really out, of where you were and into something better.
I wrote "Miner's Prayer" after [grandfather] died. I'd gone back to his funeral, and he died in 1979. And I came back to California, and I think a couple of weeks after that funeral wrote that song thinking about him, his life.
My father was always respectful to my grandfather. I really wanted that to be known because I never saw him disrespect my grandfather, and I never saw them have a cross word.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!