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" There's an ocean of misunderstanding. It's called the civilian-military divide. I had a lot to learn about our military - who they are, what burdens they carry. "

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" My experience is that the universal is the personal. If you can get past your navel-gazing into the deepest part of yourself as a writer, you find everyone - we're all there. "

Mary Gauthier

Find

You

Yourself

" 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. "

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

" If I start tracing, I bet I will find a writer in my family tree. "

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

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

Mary Gauthier

Top

Really

" 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. "

Mary Gauthier

Early

Loneliness

" I teach songwriting a lot, and I always tell my students, 'You gotta write the little songs sometimes to get to the next big song in the chute.' You gotta write 'em to get to it. You never know what's going to be a little song or a big song. "

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

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

Mary Gauthier

Silent

Feel

" 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. "

" I was in the orphanage in New Orleans until I was almost a year old. I don't think I ever got held by my mama, so that was completely and utterly traumatic. I think it was trauma from the first breath, and I think I've spent my whole life trying to heal from that trauma. So it shaped my brain. "

" It can take me many months to write one of my own songs. "

" 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. "

" Art, when done well, creates empathy. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

Mary Gauthier

Long

Parents

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

Mary Gauthier

Gone

Even

" I knew I had that Cajun heritage, that Acadian heritage; I just feel it. And my gut says Irish on the other side. Irish and French, that's what I feel. When you're young, it doesn't matter so much, but as you get older, I would suspect part of the ageing process is to wonder about your ancestors - who were they? What were their lives like? "

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

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

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

" If somebody in a family is in service, the whole family is in service. I didn't know that. I didn't know our veterans were being deployed seven, eight, nine, 10 times. It's inhumane. "

" Songs have been my greatest teachers and continue to be really important in my life. "

" 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. "

" I love SongwritingWith:Soldiers. "

Mary Gauthier

Love

I Love

" 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. "

" 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. "