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" When people are afraid, they make emotional decisions. "

John Mellencamp

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" I was one of those guys, you know, playing and singing, and there was no reason for me to write a song, because there were so many beautiful songs out. And Bob Dylan was always the ultimate songwriter, and nobody could ever write a song as good as him, and nobody ever has written a song as good as him. "

John Mellencamp

" Hanging out is a waste of time. The only time I would hang out was when I was a kid, I would hang out in the streets. But once I started making records, I stopped hanging out. "

John Mellencamp

" 'Jack & Diane' was originally about race. I was playing nightclubs, and I was seeing new American couples, mixed-race couples. I thought it was cool. The song was my effort to make a song about that, but of course the record-company guy didn't like it. "

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

" I'm the guy who wrote The Authority Song. Did they think I was kidding? Did they think it was only a song to entertain? "

John Mellencamp

" 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

" 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

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

John Mellencamp

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

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

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

John Mellencamp

" What's the difference? One guy's the same as the other. "

John Mellencamp

" American folk songs were about tragedy, right? They were about suffering and tragedy, and a lot of my songs are about that, even though they were misunderstood. "

John Mellencamp

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

John Mellencamp

" What is there to be afraid of? The worst thing that can happen is you fail. So what? I failed at a lot of things. My first record was horrible. "

John Mellencamp

" For me to pretend I'm the keeper of the small town mentality or that's all I'm interested in is wrong. "

John Mellencamp

" A painting has to be beautiful. Even in its grotesqueness. "

John Mellencamp

" Take 'Jack and Diane.' I was so disgusted with people thinking the line 'Hold on to sixteen as long as you can' meant to stay a teenager forever. What I meant was keep doing whatever makes you feel alive. "

John Mellencamp

" My task with 'Uh-Huh' was to make a more even record and get away from juvenile topics like 'Hurts So Good.' But I also knew if I wanted to continue, I had to have more hits. "

John Mellencamp

" My best songs come from a place outside myself. "

John Mellencamp

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

John Mellencamp

" My thought was I should try to stick with names that people may recognize like Robert Johnson, Son House, and Hoagy Carmichael, so if somebody cared to research, they would find a wealth of material. "

John Mellencamp

" A lot of Woody Guthrie's songs were taken from other songs. He would rework the melody and lyrics, and all of a sudden it was a Woody Guthrie song. "

John Mellencamp

" 'Crumbling' Down' is a very political song that I wrote with my childhood friend George Green. Reagan was president - he was deregulating everything, and the walls were crumbling down on the poor. "

John Mellencamp

" I believe in something, even if it's just me. "

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

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

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

" I've seen beautiful art on the sides of buildings. I've seen beautiful art in museums. I've seen beautiful art in galleries. Beautiful art is everywhere. "

John Mellencamp

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

John Mellencamp