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" I don't ever want to tie a song in a little bow. Life doesn't work that way, and war doesn't ever work that way. "

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" I guess I find it easier to talk when I have a guitar in front of me. "

" A lot of songwriters have written about soldiers and war, but very few have written with them. "

" Recovery stabilized me; songwriting gave me a purpose. "

" I have such a good life. It's something I couldn't have imagined in my wildest dreams. "

" I've got lots of problems. Being gay isn't one of them. "

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

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

" 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. "

" When you see validation for a life's work and dedication, it's a beautiful day. "

" I got sober at 27 and started writing around 30 and started playing music in public around 32, 33. "

" I spent my 18th birthday in jail. Charges were dropped as long as I promised never to return to the state of Kansas. My parents took me home to Louisiana. I lasted there a week. Then I ran away. "

" I'm a traveler and a vagabond and an observer, and the songs come through that. And that's just the way it's going to be. "

" In a lot of ways, songwriting helped save my life. "

" Art, when done well, creates empathy. "

" I don't have the experience of being in a war. "

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

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

" Music and books, I think, were the two things I trusted the most as a child - songs and books. "

" If I write for beauty and truth, the songs will find their way to me. Then, it's the songs that speak to the audience, and they can become part of the tribe that is into what I do. "

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

" I think if people really listened to what our families who serve go through, we could have a realistic discussion of what it means to send young people to war. "

" I'm from New Orleans, and I have a French last name - although I have no real relationship with my last name because it's not my name. I don't know my name. "

" What I've found at 48 years old is that there's nothing about me that's unique. "

" 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. "

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

" I don't play everything I write. I mean, everything I write is not that good. I bring out into the world the ones I think that are really worthy of an audience's attention. "

" 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. "

" I long for real and true connection. It has been the theme of all the songs in my whole life. "

" There's a lot of vulnerability in songs - I'm not talking about pop songs - from people that are in the art of songwriting more than the commercial enterprise of it. "

" I'm grateful to songwriting and recovery to bringing me to a place of peace. "