If heartaches was commercials, we'd all be on TV.
John PrineRead
When I turned 40, I invited Johnny Cash to my party, even though I knew there was gonna be 200 people roasting a pig and wild as can be. He didn't come, but the next day, I got a bowl of chili he'd made and a note that said, 'John, I'd love to come to your party, but that would mean I would have to leave my house.'
Interpretation
This quote highlights the warmth of friendship and the understanding that sometimes personal comfort takes precedence over social obligations.
In this quote, John Prine reflects on his 40th birthday celebration where he invited Johnny Cash, acknowledging the chaotic nature of the party. Cash's polite decline, accompanied by a thoughtful gesture of chili and a note, emphasizes the importance of genuine friendship and personal boundaries, illustrating that true friends understand and respect each other's preferences.
In practice
In a speech at a gathering, to emphasize the value of understanding in friendships.
If heartaches was commercials, we'd all be on TV.
One time, I went to school, and they asked us all to find out where our roots were. It's goin' around the class, and the kids were going, 'I'm Swedish-German' or 'I'm English-Irish.' They got to me and I said, 'Pure Kentuckian.'
I just tried to come up with some honest songs. What I was writing about was real plain stuff that I wasn't sure was going to be interesting to other people. But I guess it was...I've never had any discipline whatsoever. I just wait on a song like I was waiting for lightning to strike. And eventually-usually sometime around 3 in the morning-I'll have a good idea. By the time the sun comes up, hopefully, I'll have a decent song.
I feel basically good about my career because it's remained constant. What I do has never been especially in vogue or gotten high on the charts. At the same time, I haven't had to stop performing any of my music because it aged in style.
You know that first love that leaves you? You never forget that, especially if you're a songwriter. I must have gotten nine songs out of that girl.
You get to thinking that because you've written 50 or 100 songs, you think maybe you know how to do it. But when they're not coming along, you're just as in the dark as you ever were. When they're coming along, there's nothing to it. Sometimes it's so easy, it's like you're a court stenographer.
No one can take the place of a friend, no one.
Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship. Others have their family; but to a solitary and an exile, his friends are everything.
A friend is one who incessantly pays us the compliment of expecting from us all the virtues, and who can appreciate them in us. The friend asks no return but that his friend will religiously accept and wear and not disgrace his apotheosis of him. They cherish each other's hopes. They are kind to each other's dreams.
The friends we have lost do not repose under the ground...they are buried deep in our hearts. It has been thus ordained that they may always accompany us.
A companion loves some agreeable qualities which a man may possess, but a friend loves the man himself.
It is one of the major tragedies that nothing is more discomforting than the hearty affection of the Old Friends who never were friends.
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