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" As I've matured as a songwriter, I realize that if it's out there, it's mine. "

John Mellencamp

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" When you live in hysteria, people start thinking emotionally. "

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" I wish my grandmother and grandfather were still alive, because they were able to keep me grounded. "

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" It sounds funny, but I always try to keep an open mind about what I'm writing about. Sometimes I squeak my opinions in there, but generally I don't. I try to be objective about things that I'm writing about. "

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" Radio was my friend after 'Jack & Diane' and 'Hurts So Good.' "

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" I went to New York in 1974, to either try to get a record deal, get into the New York Art Student League, or be a dancer. So that was my plan. Some plan. And I had no money. "

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" Regret should be handled swiftly, and you shouldn't hold onto it. People spend their entire lives regretting what they didn't do and what they should've done. Hey, man, you did what you did. "

John Mellencamp

" I've just been fortunate to havehad a lot of hit records, though Human Wheels doesn't qualify as a hit record-but it's really the best single I've ever had. "

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" People in Indiana have known me for 25 years. They've known George Bush four. "

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" Broadway is a very different kind of place. It's kind of like Nashville in that there's a certain amount of people that are involved, and those people are what run it. "

John Mellencamp

" We could walk 3 minutes and be on the beach. I think the music kind of suffered because of it. It kind of smelled like Jimmy Buffett, which is a bad thing. "

John Mellencamp

" When did Jimmy Stewart not play Jimmy Stewart? When did John Wayne not play John Wayne? But that's what we like about them. When you talk about acting, you really have to respond to somebody's personality. "

John Mellencamp

" In so many musicals today, the story is moved forward by a song. I don't think we're gonna try to do that. "

John Mellencamp

" You cannot expect the guy who drove the car into the ditch to navigate it out of the ditch. You have to put a new driver in the seat. I'm not saying the new driver is going to be any better, but we need a new driver. Kerry is the only choice. "

John Mellencamp

" People have the right to say what they want to. "

John Mellencamp

" I'm wide open and will entertain anything anybody has to say, but if it's MTV and radio, well, they're great things, but can't be the only thing. I don't know that it would work even for the Beatles. "

John Mellencamp

" Unemployment is sky-rocketing; deflation is in our future for the first time since the Great Depression. I don't care whose fault it is, it's the truth. "

John Mellencamp

" I have to say when a man lives for himself, it's hard to live with him. That's pretty much the story of all my divorces. I've been making records since I was 22 and done things my way, and it's hard for me to compromise. And of course, to have a successful relationship, one has to compromise. Sometimes I'm not good at it. "

John Mellencamp

" Wait a minute, guys, I have always been on your side. I have always spoken for you, always tried to put on a good face for the state of Indiana. All of a sudden, some of you people think I'm a bad guy? "

John Mellencamp

" I thought I knew a lot about music. Then you start digging and the deeper you go, the more there is. "

John Mellencamp

" Everything I have is for sale. Material items are just things that pass through your hands that mean very little or nothing. "

John Mellencamp

" I'm using my art to comment on what I see. You don't have to agree with it. "

John Mellencamp

" If you hide information from people, don't want people to see the Ten Commandments or don't want people to hear about Darwin, aren't we hiding things that we know from our future generations? I just think that that's incorrect. "

John Mellencamp

" As I get older, I have a different look on life. I just try to be a little more tolerant and a little bit more centered about what's going on around me and not so emotional. "

John Mellencamp

" I think Roosevelt had four terms, didn't he? I think we should go back to that, and we should go back to four years for a senator, four years for a congressman, and I think we'd see a huge change in our society. "

John Mellencamp

" Everything I see and hear... I will take ideas from anyplace, anywhere, anytime, and life has become a song to me. I'm always looking for a song. "

John Mellencamp

" I couldn't have recorded this record 15 years ago. My voice didn't have the depth to pull these songs off. "

John Mellencamp

" One quality of a good songwriter is to be vague. A vague notion, a vague image, but enough to give the listener the opportunity to make more out of what's being said than is there. That's the great thing about Bob Dylan's songs: We the listeners have made more out of them than he ever intended. "

John Mellencamp

" This is not a rock opera. This is not Tommy. I can write songs that emote, and that's it. "

John Mellencamp

" If I laugh a couple of times a day, I'm doing good. People think it's their God-given right to be happy, and it's just not. It's something you've got to work at. I like to paint the human condition, and the human condition is not smiles and happy people. "

John Mellencamp

" Do I think it's OK to fight authority as long as you're only talking about the high school teacher? No. "

John Mellencamp