Emmylou Harris Quotes

I think musicians are always very generous in promoting anything good they hear. It's just kind of in our nature.

Patriotism can be good or bad. Knee-jerk patriotism can be very bad. I'm patriotic almost to the point of self-consciousness, but I love my country the way I love a friend or a child who I would correct if she was going the wrong way. Who I expect the very best from.

I didn't have any money. I had a sense of terrible loss. But what I also had was a fire in my belly. I wasn't going to go back to waiting tables. I felt I had to be better at fronting a band.

Well I was born to run, to get ahead of the rest. And all that I wanted was to be the best Just to feel free and be someone I was born to be fast, I was born to run .

I look at my voice and my abilities as a gift. I don't feel that I can even take any credit for it, but it's such a huge presence in my life. It is my life. It's my identity, it's everything. And it's given me a great deal of joy and a sense of purpose - I can't imagine my life without it.

I love Chicago, but I didn't think I had enough soul to be a Cubs fan.

Animals have a much better attitude to life and death than we do. They know when their time has come. We are the ones that suffer when they pass, but it's a healing kind of grief that enables us to deal with other griefs that are not so easy to grab hold of.

There's a certain grace in accepting what your life is and embracing all the good things that have been - but there's still an expectation of good things to come. Not necessarily what you expected.

Normal is a cycle on a washing machine.

In 1974 I was trying to get my first little band together. That year marked kind of a traumatic point in my life, but I had a lot of support from friends and family and a lot of good things ended up coming out of it.

It's just a sound, and a feeling that's in the music. And you either hear it and appreciate it, or you don't.

I love singing. The joy of singing live - I don't think I will ever stop that.

I do feel a little embarrassed and ashamed that I was sort of saying, "Oh, yes, I used to do country music, but I didn't inhale." Which is not true at all. I inhaled the hell out of country music.

I don't ever worry about whether I'm being true to my country roots. My country roots were adopted. I never worry about what I can do and what I should do. I just do what I want to do.

I'm not a trained musician. When folks talk about 'Well, you go to this or that' - the tenor, or the third part - I don't really know what they're talking about.

So there'll be no guiding light for you and me We are not sailors lost out on the sea We were always headed toward eternity Hoping for a glimpse of Galilee

If I'm crazy, I'm blissfully so!

I think I can be pretty focused, but as I say, it was more wanting to be the good student, seeing myself as a good student, and also, my parents had expectations. They wouldn't have cared if I got a B or a C or even a D.

To me acting and singing are worlds apart.

Like falling stars from the universe we are hurled Down through the long loneliness of the world Until we behold the pain, become the pearl

I have my own biography of Gram Parsons - I don't want to be part of somebody else's.

The only time I ever appeared in the 'Enquirer' was for a piece about people who let their hair grow gray. I guess I'm not much of a wild child.

It's basically a city of songwriters and that's what gives it it's strength, that's what gives it its lasting ability. You've got people making all different kinds of music and that's what attracts me to Nashville as Music City.

I'm even able to have kind of a little bit of a second career in dog rescue. Doesn't pay anything, but it's become a real passion for me.

Country taught me how to sing, it put me on a path. But I was never going to be locked into a formula. I don't want to be considered a current country artist.

I get a lot of sleep on the bus. I bring two dogs with me, who keep me grounded. I guess that's just in my soul. It's good to know that you're good at something.

I was feeling single, seeing double, wound up in a whole lotta trouble.

You really do learn every day with every dog; they are all so unique and different. But if you're patient and you understand where they're coming from, and if you are consistent, they will be fine. They teach you to give your full attention.

I'm blessed to be able to work at something that I'm good at, and that I love. It's not something I take for granted.

I find with records, they become what they're going to become. They take on a power and a direction of their own. Part of making records is to honor that and not try to force it.

I was a folk singer who became totally over the edge with country music. I found my voice and style working with Gram Parsons. I learned how to listen to George Jones records and the Louvin Brothers.

I'm not going out there and doing the same material every night. I have this amazing audience of fans who have been listening to me, some of them since 1975.

I have to have a guitar sitting around. I sing in the shower. I sing around the house. The music comes secondary. The lyrics come first.

Somehow, when you think about yourself in old age, you think you're going to be this completely different person that you don't even recognize - because you can't imagine it, you know?

When there are dogs and music, people have a good time.

Well, I'm just very blessed that I still love my work and I can still work, I still have an audience and I love what I do.

Well, I've always been eclectic.

The reason you write [songs] is because there's something you want to say that is important to you - enough to go through all the torture of writing.

Yes, I always say that we're a National League band. What I mean is, if you play an instrument, you have to sing. So I always call our drummer up. Even the drummer has to take a turn on the microphone.

I'm just too busy living every day to really spend a lot of time thinking 'am I old?' I'm this age. I am in this moment and in this life.

I like to think about stringing songs together like a string of pearls, or a string of beads, but ultimately it has to be stuff that really works with the band, and gives a spin to the older material.