John Mellencamp quotes:

If you hide information from people, don't want people to see the Ten Commandments or don't want people to hear about Darwin, aren't we hiding things that we know from our future generations? I just think that that's incorrect.

If we have any hope for survival of the music that we all love, compassion must replace name-calling, fairness must replace greed, and we need to come together as a musical community and try to understand each other's problems.

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.

Unemployment is sky-rocketing; deflation is in our future for the first time since the Great Depression. I don't care whose fault it is, it's the truth.

Natalie from the Dixie Chicks could have said what she said before 9-11 and no one would have cared.

I would never say John Kerry would be a great president. I will say that George Bush has divided us; he has filled this country with hatred.

We had an exercise in speech class in school, impromptu speaking, that I was always real good at.

Bob Dylan's first couple of records in the 60's weren't considered cover records, but he only wrote one or two original songs on each album.

Want me to spend the night? Hey lover boy, you know I will, and my best girlfriend lives down the road, together we will thrill you.

Do I think it's OK to fight authority as long as you're only talking about the high school teacher? No.

It's my responsibility as a singer-songwriter to report the news.

Sound quality was supposed to be one of the big selling points for CDs but, as we know, it wasn't very good at all. It was just another con, a get-rich-quick scheme, a monumental hoax perpetrated on the music consuming public.

Wait a minute, guys, I have always been on your side. I have always spoken for you, always tried to put on a good face for the state of Indiana. All of a sudden, some of you people think I'm a bad guy?

Oh, I think country has changed tremendously. I think country has totally changed. Country music when I was a kid was Hank Williams. If you put Hank and Elvis together, there wasn't that musical difference. But as the Beatles showed up and the English invasion, I think country music got pretty far away from rock n' roll.

I couldn't have recorded this record 15 years ago. My voice didn't have the depth to pull these songs off.

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.

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

If fans are going to turn on me because of this, they weren't my fans anyway. I couldn't betray a whole 25 years of record making and not do this. I had to.

Country sure has changed in the last 10 years. It was one thing, then it was another. Country has slowly marched toward a rock beat and rock preservation. Country artists of today. Man! That's how I used to sound in the '80s.

I don't have to worry about any pop sensibility. I can write adult songs, and I don't have to worry about choruses and hook lines.

You can't tell your best buddy that you love him.

My grandmother made sure that I went to church every Sunday. And she'd come over and pick us boys up, and we would go to the Nazarene church. And back then, that was about as close to heaven as I ever got, because just the time to be able to spend with her, and she was very, very religious.

I just think if the song's good, sing it. I don't care who's doing it. I don't care if it's a country act. I don't care if it's a rock act. If the song's good, sing it.

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

I'm your average Joe guy. I don't really care for politicians.

You cannot expect the guy who drove the car into the ditch to navigate it out of the ditch. You have to put a new driver in the seat. I'm not saying the new driver is going to be any better, but we need a new driver. Kerry is the only choice.

If I'm painting, I paint every day. I'll be up in the studio from 8:00 in the morning to 8:00 at night.

This is about black people selling out other black people.

I want to sell to people my own age, because that's the way I write songs.

When politicians use fear, they are playing into the enemy's hand.

I need a lover that won't drive me crazy, someone that knows the meaning of hey, hit the highway.

A lot of record company people, even though they're our age, want to be perceived as young hip guys, and they're hurting the business.

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.

When you live in hysteria, people start thinking emotionally.

Immersing yourself in the environment of a real record store where music is celebrated and cherished adds real value to the experience of buying music. In some ways, that retail experience is as important as the music.

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

For me or a Bruce Springsteen to sit up in our ivory towers and make comments about racism, well, were not really in it, are we?

they say life goes on long after the thrill of living

My grandmother made sure that I went to church every Sunday. And shed come over and pick us boys up, and we would go to the Nazarene church. And back then, that was about as close to heaven as I ever got, because just the time to be able to spend with her, and she was very, very religious.

Grandma's on the front porch with a Bible in her hand, sometimes I hear her singing take me to the promised land.

Rock'n'roll starts between the legs and goes through the heart, then to the head. As long as it does those three things, it's a great rock song.

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.

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.

Sometimes love don't feel like it should, you make it hurt so good.

Go to work and be a Hollywood stud, drive your four wheel drive right into the mud.

If Woody Guthrie set the bar for American songwriters, Bob Dylan jumped right over it. No one I know will ever come close to possessing the beauty of melody and the use of language that Dylan shares with us, with ease.

I went to New York in 1974, to either try to get a record deal, get into the New York Art Student League, or be a dancer. So that was my plan. Some plan. And I had no money.

The CD, it should be noted, was born out of greed. It was devised to prop up record sales on the expectation of people replenishing their record collections with CDs of albums they had already purchased.

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.

This is not a rock opera. This is not Tommy. I can write songs that emote, and that's it.

I've just been fortunate to havehad a lot of hit records, though Human Wheels doesn't qualify as a hit record-but it's really the best single I've ever had.

I don't want to be a politician. I don't like politics. It's petty; it fights dirty.

When people are afraid, they make emotional decisions.

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.

People have the right to say what they want to.

It's what you do and not what you say. If you're not part of the future, then get out of the way!

Nobody heard anything ahead of time.

Music actually meant something when I started doing it. Too bad I wasn't mature enough to write anything that meant anything.

Now I do have a choice, and I'm not going to do anything I don't want to do.

There is nothing more sad or glorious than generations changing hands.

Ain't that America, home of the free? Little pink houses for you and me.

Most people in life, give up too early.

Back in the '80s and '90s, when there was still a record business, there was pressure on anyone who was fortunate to have a few hits on a major label to continue that success.

An honest man's pillow is his peace of mind.

Some people say I'm obnoxious and lazy, that I'm uneducated, that my opinion means nothing, but I know I'm a real good dancer.

Nobody wants to make great albums now because nobody wants to buy them and there's no place to sell them.

Growing up leads to growing old and then to dying And dying to me don't sound like all that much fun

I have a bunch of information in my head that I'm not afraid to put in song or onto a canvas. Into any conversation.

The greatest thing that ever happened to (my career) was the breakdown of the record companies, because there were no more stupid questions about how many hits are on the next record. It was very liberating.

I think it's ridiculous to try to sell records to teenagers, because teenagers don't buy my records. And there ain't that many teenagers out there in the marketplace.

When you live life for yourself it's hard on everyone. And that hasn't changed. For me, if anything, it's gotten worse.

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?

We lost our way a long time ago with technology. Just because something is an advancement by going digital - that was a huge mistake. It was a way for people to make money, but it sure didn't improve sound or quality of record making. It made it faster, cheaper, but it isn't as durable.

To say that we're doomed is just an obvious remark.

What we do to each other are the worst things that we do.

Now more than ever the world needs love, not just a slogan.

The Internet is the wrong direction for music.

She said she wasn't afraid of Satan, in fact, she thought he was a joke. She said she'd tear his tail off and run her fist down his throat.

I do things my way and I pay a high price.

I'm not a nostalgic person. I'm not nostalgic about much of anything.

The dust to which this flesh shall return, it is the ancient dreaming dust of God.

The simple man, baby, pays for the thrills, the bills, and the pills that kill.

The reason I said the Internet is dangerous is that a couple smart guys could hack into a computer and shut down the Eastern seaboard if they wanted to. It's a terrible, out-of-control thing.

There's a young man in a T-shirt listening to a rock and roll station. He's got greasy hair, greasy smile, he says, Lord this must be my destination.

I know a lot of funny people in a lot of funny places.

I think the Internet is the most dangerous thing invented since the atomic bomb,

Turning music into digital was just a con, a record-company con.

Dear Mr. President, can I ask you a question, when the bombs fall down will they hurt everyone in my family?

All I'm doing is painting. It's my hobby. And that's that.

I want you to dance naked, if you like, I'll join you.

I remember the first time I saw a CD, a technology guy brought one to my house and said we will be able to sell millions and millions of players, and people will have to restock their record collections. It was all about money. It was all about how much money we would make, "we" being "him."

This is serious business, sex, violence, and rock and roll.

All the women in the world want a phony rock star who plays guitar.

With no bottom line, it's hard to know wrong from right. But I ain't ever satisfied.

I look at some of my contemporaries trying to emulate what they were 30 years ago and just because of the age factor alone, they look silly.

She chased after her dream with much desire, but when she got to close to her expectations, well the dream burned up like paper in fire.

You have to reinvent yourself.

You shouldn't even be in a band if you can't play Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away.

Hold on to 16 as long as you can,

We have been lied to and terrorized by our own government, and it is time to take action.

Don't ever lose that innocent laughter, don't let time take that away

I know there's a balance/I see it when I swing past.

You know, it's cigarettes that killed Jerry Garcia. Everyone thinks it's heroin, but it wasn't. It was cigarettes.

In so many musicals today, the story is moved forward by a song. I don't think we're gonna try to do that.

Future generations, riding on the highways that we built, I hope they have a better understanding.

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

Grace, Mercy and Forgiveness will help a man walk tall. Walk tall!

Be careful of those who kill in Jesus' name; he don't believe in killing at all.

My voice has gotten better from smoking.

It's a lonely ol' night. Can I put my arms around you?

His frustration running very high, he takes it out on the ones he loves because it's safe.

I'm wide open and will entertain anything anybody has to say, but if it's MTV and radio, well, they're great things, but can't be the only thing. I don't know that it would work even for the Beatles.

All my friends are so small town.

Check it out, forgot to say hello to my neighbors. Check it out, sometimes I question my own behavior.

Give me someone I can look up to, show me someone I can love.

I fight authority and authority always wins.

Mama, why do I always fall for the crazy ones?

I enjoy the pleasure of my own company.

I'm looking for trouble. A lot of people get to be a certain age and they just kind of lose interest or they give up. But I'm looking for trouble.

All I can do is repeat what I think is the best information that anybody ever gave me.