Townes Van Zandt Quotes

I tend to write songs critiquing myself. The best way for me to deal with stuff is to write a song about it... That's not to say all my songs are like that.

When people don't have any curiosity about themselves, that is always a bad sign.

A journal of the 'subjective' kind I have always thought foolish, as nurturing a morbid self -consciousness in the writer; and yet, alone so much as I am, it is well to have some sort of a ventilator from the interior.

I've always internalized things.

I just want to live each moment, but it's kind of hard to do that when you are asked to analyze yourself constantly. But it's also good in that you are forced to think about things that you don't ordinarily think about. I think it's strange.

If you think my music is sentimental and self-absorbed, I agree with you.

I'm hopeless at looking into myself and trying to see how things are working and why.

I think melancholy is part of the natural condition, you know. Anyway, I think it's the artist's function to have their melancholy and not hide it, you see.

I don't analyse myself.

I think I'm pretty self-aware.

Sometimes, when you are not feeling really good is when you tend to write songs because you are internalising everything, and you are examining your thought process, and you are quieter and quite still, so it is when you write things down.

Writing is a type of therapy for me. I'm always trying to break down what happened, and why I felt a certain way.

Writing on 'Love' is so steeped in self-analysis. The writer's room can feel like therapy.

If I'm kind of sad or depressed, it doesn't necessarily help me to write a song about exactly what I'm depressed about.

Coming off 'Reflection,' what we really wanted to do was be more vulnerable.

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 usually look in my eyes to tell the truth of how I'm feeling that day.

I want to clear my mind a little bit and give my mind a little bit of time to breathe so I can pinpoint or at least nail down feelings I'm having and that I've had for the last however long. I need to nail them down long enough to actually write about and elaborate on them.

I've been living with myself all of my life, so I know all of me. So when I watch me, all I see is me. It's boring.

I find myself fascinating.

I spend half my time just living my life, and the other half analyzing it.

You know more about me than I do about myself, that's probably true.

I don't consider myself enigmatic, but I don't spend a lot of time thinking about my public persona.

Whatever one of us blames in another, each one will find in his own heart.

I am really puzzled to understand myself.