Lyle Lovett Quotations

You don't have to have anything in common with people you've known since you were five. With old friends, you've got your whole life in common.

Wear what you want to wear. Do what you want to do. Be who you are. Pick out your own clothes. Be a man. And if that's too much to ask, as it almost always is for me, think of someone you consider to be a man and pretend to be like him. I pretend to be like my dad.

If you forget the words to your own song, you can always claim artistic license. Forget the words to the national anthem and you're screwed.

Dad often told me, 'My job is to help my boss do his job and make him look good.' That was my dad's objective. Everything about the way he conducted himself was to communicate support for his superiors and respect for his coworkers. The way he dressed was his starting point in that communication.

It's important to be successful enough to be able to keep doing what you love

Singing your own songs is all about individual expression

Horses teach you patience and how to do things the right way so you can get the right result.

I don't feel like I'm on a mission. I'm trying to play music that I like to play and like to listen to

You can't second-guess your audience. You can only do what you think is right. If you do that, your audience will appreciate you

The most important thing you can do as a performer is to be yourself, or be an onstage version of yourself. If youre not being true to yourself, and somebody likes that other version of you, youre kind of stuck.

Tipping your hat to a lady is good form. If you're at a dinner table, you'd most certainly take your hat off - cowboy hat, baseball hat, or otherwise.

The idea that we humans are good-natured, politically correct, nonjudgmental beings is pure fantasy. We are, at the very least, judgmental.

You're saying something with your appearance whether you mean to or not, so you may as well mean to.

I am limited by what I can think of to do-my choices are not so great

I've gotten to work with some wonderful directors and people who have been great teachers to me.

It's really a lot easier to write about things that are problematic. Who wants to hear how happy you are?

As a songwriter, you try your best to write a good song, and you like nothing better than hearing a good song. It's easy to admire a great song, and you want to share out of enthusiasm.

In school, I didn't speak up often in class. I was never the person to yell out an answer. If I knew it, I might whisper it to my buddy and let him answer. I kept quiet.

It's difficult to get started-when it comes to dealing with an unknown quantity, people are reluctant to trust their own opinion. It helps if two or three people give you a boost

Never guess a woman's age. Never guess a woman's weight. Never even talk about weight in front of a woman. And never, ever ask a woman when she's due.

One of my favorite things is when people will ask for a song that I hadn't planned to play. It is really fun to see if you can remember something, and you don't always. I mean, sometimes it's just crash and burn.

Somehow you can tell the difference when a song is written just to get on the radio and when what someone does is their whole life. That comes through in Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Willie Nelson. There is no separating their life from their music.

When I first was trying to play the clubs around Houston to start playing my own songs, songwriters like Eric Taylor and Vince Bell and Townes Van Zandt and Don Sanders were just really encouraging to me and would let me sit in with them during their sets and introduce me to the person that owned and booked the club.

Helen Hunt is terrific, and I got to do a couple of guest spots with Helen and Paul Reiser on 'Mad About You.'

I sort of cringe when I hear myself say the word 'work.' Getting to do something you love to do never really feels like work.

I'm not really a competitive person, and I'm not naturally comfortable in front of people.

I've always thought that writing isn't really that hard. It's having a good idea that's hard.

My parents worked for Exxon, and they gave me every chance to take part in music. I took guitar lessons, and I was in the choir at school.

Growing up, the last thing I ever thought I'd do is be an entertainer.

I played guitar when I was young and never really considered it as a way to make a living

I'm really in no danger of being perceived as a famous movie actor!

I've always worked with people who have been supporters of me creatively.

I've been lucky to be able to make the records I've wanted to make. The record company has never pressured me to cut certain songs

I've just always written songs in a style that appeal to me personally.

Songwriters aren't always performers, and even performing songwriters aren't always the kind of show-biz performers you think they'd be.

Both my parents worked, so I was home alone a lot, and I would listen to their records. They belonged to the Columbia House record club, so they had records!

I enjoyed hearing people do their own songs. I became attracted to singer-songwriters. I became interested in them as people; was curious about what they wanted to say

I've never made a dime from a record sale in the history of my record deal. I've been very happy with my sales, and certainly my audience has been very supportive. I make a living going out and playing shows.

A woman comes to a table, and you're supposed to get up. Period. But I don't always do it. In general, you're supposed to do it every time. But sometimes you're seated against the wall, and it's awkward.

Every crowd is different. But that's something that I enjoy, and you can feel it in the first few seconds when you walk out on stage. You know, how a crowd is.

If someone gives you a belt buckle, it's like a piece of jewelry. It has the same sort of emotional significance. It would be something you would intend to keep forever.

My first performance was in second grade with my friend Rodney Fisher, and we worked up versions of 'Long Tall Texan' and 'I Want to Hold Your Hand.' It gave me a little early confidence that I could actually do this music thing.

Records are very powerful promotional tools to go out and be able to play on the road, but you do have to think about it as a way of sustaining itself at some point.

The first time I toured with the 'Large Band' in 1988, I got so tired. If I just stood still anywhere, I could go to sleep. I was that tired. But I had to perform. And I did, and after that tour, I was much less fretful about going out onstage.

Women always go through the door first. Even ardent feminists would admit it's nice. It's not an acknowledgment of women as the weaker sex; it's perhaps an acknowledgment of women as the stronger sex.

My music has always been sort of in between categories. Sometimes record stores - back when there were record stores - they'd put my records in the country music section, but other record stores would put my records in the pop or even the rock section. As long as it's in the store somewhere, I'm OK with it.

The loss of Jerry Garcia feels like the end of an era in the same way it felt when Elvis died and John Lennon was killed.

I'm not the kind of writer that can wake up and say, "Okay, I'm gonna write a song today," and have that song be the kind I would want to record. The songs of mine that I end up liking are songs that come from real experience. They're like chapter titles in my life.

I don't know what it is about the shower that generates creative thoughts. Maybe it's the hot water. Maybe it's being unencumbered even by the restriction of clothing.

Barbecue sauce is like a beautiful woman. If it's too sweet, it's bound to be hiding something.

Every afternoon, I was in the pasture with cattle or fishing and shooting my BB gun. That kind of freedom allows imagination to develop.

Everybody's career is different. In this new age of being able to talk to the whole world at once, the possibilities are staggering, really, to be able to do things yourself. But I've always enjoyed my relationship with the record company.

I joke that I've never been burdened by having an actual hit. There's something to that. My records have sold enough to make the record company money to help me keep my job. But I've never had anything so firmly ingrained in the mind of the public that I'm expected to repeat it.

There's no bad luck, There's just the luck you've found.

You have to be really good to get away with smashing a guitar.

I married her just because she looks like you.

My favorite Aggie joke? I'm sorry I don't understand the question

I've never been ready to do a single thing I've ever done in my life. I haven't been prepared enough, haven't studied enough, haven't known enough. You can never be ready. There's just so much to know.

Fortunately, I've never had a job

Kemo Sabe, kiss my ass.

She was ugly from the front, and I said ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly, ugly. Well, I could handle it behind her.

I don't ever try to anticipate my audience. I just write the songs I want to write, and hope people like 'em.

Beyond hoping that someone will like one of my songs, I don't think about how a song will be received. I just hope that, when somebody hears one of my songs, they'll want to hear it again.

I'm really just trying to do things that I enjoy. I'm trying to play music that I like to play and like to listen to. I just have to think if I like those different kinds of music, there are other people who aren't so different from me.

Denice Franke is a sensitive and compelling singer and songwriter.

When someone tells me what he or she was doing the first time they heard a song of mine, then I've done a good job. If my song becomes about your life, then I'm successful.

When you have a solid upbringing and a strong sense of place, that sustains you. My sense of home never leaves me.

I'm a very lucky man. I get to do the thing I want most in life, write songs and sing them for people, and ride bikes. I love my family. I love my home. I get to work with people I've admired my whole life. It's a pretty good life.

I don't know where creativity comes from, but I think everybody has the ability to be creative. I think what's important about creativity starts when you're very young and how we're allowed to experience our imagination. The people who bring us up and teach us are fundamental in either encouraging creativity or discourging creativity. My imagination was always encouraged.

My music has always been sort of in-between categories. Sometimes record stores -- back when there were record stores -- they'd put my records in the country music section, but other record stores would put my records in the pop or even the rock section. As long as it's in the store somewhere, I'm OK with it.

It's true that I did get the girl, but then my grandfather always said, Even a blind chicken finds a few grains of corn now and then.

Who keeps on loving you when you've been lying, saying things that ain't what they seem? God does, but I don't. God will, but I won't.

I like my audience. I always feel when up on stage performing that I could enjoy having a cup of coffee with any one of them.

If Ford is to Chevrolet what Dodge is to Chrysler, what Corn Flakes are to Post Toasties, what the clear blue sky is to the deep blue sea, what Hank Williams is to Neil Armstrong - can you doubt we were made for each other?

Look around and you will see this world is full of creeps like me.

Writin songs is like a mystery. The most difficult thing to do is have a good idea. If you have a decent idea, the songs are the easy part. Actually having something to say is the hard part. If you get an idea for a song, then it pulls you along. There are just some ideas that you get that are really hard to edit out; it's hard to stop thinking about some bad ideas. So you just finish it and you end up putting it on a record.

Home is where my horse is.

Man, I need to impress her, cause I'd like to undress her.

What would we do if we didn't try? We have to try.

If it's not too late, make it a cheese-burger

That's right, you're not from Texas. But Texas wants you anyways.