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" Fundamentally, our job as songwriters is to sit down and listen. "

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" We can't see ourselves very clearly. This I learned as a songwriter. I'm forever trying to figure out what my own truth is. "

" Music had always been a kind of anchor for me. But I didn't write my first song till I was 35. "

" Ultimately, what I want is for my songs to outlive me: I want my songs to keep being played even after I'm gone. "

" Soldiers are trained not to be vulnerable, but when they come home, they've got to learn it. "

" They send women into combat without being prepared for women in combat. The men resented them being there, and it was just very, very difficult for them, and they had to fight for the respect they were earning. And that's all they want is the respect. "

" Melody's like tweezers that go into the infection and pull out the wounded part. You can almost not stay silent in the face of a melody that matches your emotion. You feel seen. "

" I think Bob Dylan showed us that songs can rise to the level of literature, and he proved it over and over again. That's why they keep trying to get him a Nobel Prize for literature: because there is no Nobel Prize for songwriting. "

" I think I'll always draw from being a person that doesn't know how to have a normal life, whatever a normal life is. "

" I've learned our soldiers are so much like everybody else. They're just put into an extreme situation. "

" I'm sort of stuck in adolescence in many ways, like most artists, and march to my own beat. "

" I always knew I was going to make a record called 'The Foundling.' Since I picked up a guitar, I knew it. "

" A lot of time, if you spend too much time in Nashville, songwriters get caught up in charts and numbers and the music business politics. "

" What I really like is this salted calamari - with jalapenos on top. "

" I came to music and knowing a little bit about life, and I came to music knowing a lot about business - and that's a real advantage. By the time I came to music, I had purchased real estate, opened restaurants, and been in the business world, so the music business didn't blindside me. "

" When I first got sober, I hadn't read anything for six or seven years. I didn't have even that much focus. "

" A lot of times, a bunch of songs have to be written to get to the next really good one. "

" I felt my whole life like I didn't have a family, and I needed one. So I had to build one, and you build one with faith, hope, and the healing power of love - or you end up the 'Unabomber.' That's the choice. "

" I don't really write for catharsis; I get that kind of work done in therapy. "

" War is hell. Sending young people to conflicts that are unwinnable and unresolvable - it puts them in a position where they're going to suffer. And yet their experience is that they're proud of their service, and they should be. Service freely rendered is a noble thing. "

" By the time I got to songwriting, I had been faced with a lot of troubles as a result of my own collective of trauma. I was someone who instinctively figured out that writing songs about the struggle helps you with the struggle. "

" In my early years, I couldn't find a community. I couldn't find anybody like me. I felt so isolated. There was nothing but shame and loneliness. "

" I did not know that if a member of a family serves, the whole family serves. I did not know that the spouses of our service members carry such a heavy load. "

" I haven't been in the military, but I've known my share of pain. It allows me to sit with someone who's struggling and not be afraid. "

" I don't know who my dad is. "

" What I was told is that I was born to a mother who was a Catholic, while her boyfriend was not. They couldn't get married unless they put me up for adoption. "

" I think it's a stereotype that soldiers don't talk, because my experience is that they will talk if they are met with empathy and no judgment. "

" I think having near-death experiences, they sure made me free. "

" A song is an emotional lightning bolt - a good one, anyway. "

" It is a form of arrogance to assume that other people are even thinking about you. "

" I feel as though I came to music with something to say. It wasn't like that when I was younger. I didn't have the ability to articulate what it was I wanted to say. "