Quotes

I came here as a guy with a pretty deep knowledge of music, but I hadn't started writing my own. I hadn't found my voice and my vision, and I was lucky enough to fall right into this creative group of poets. Johnny Cash was a poet, more powerful than his global Man in Black persona.

There are those things that I've cobbled slowly, one couplet at a time, and labored over, and then poof! one day there it is, and it takes on life. Truman Capote said great books aren't written, they're rewritten.

I don't really invite myself to take full ownership of what I've accomplished because the carrot is still way out there in front of me. I like it that way because it seems to me that if I ever had any self-satisfaction that would be the kiss of death for the artist's life that I want to lead and that I love to lead.

I was raised on country music, not quite Appalachian but certainly the Roy Acuff, Hank Williams version of it. Of course I was just of an age when all the good music that came along inspired me too.