I don’t think any songwriter who comes up through playing clubs can really claim to have independently developed their art. All along the way so much information is coming, the writer inside the performer unconsciously reacts to all of that. By the time they get to be thirty, the writer is gone. David Berman Read Quote
That’s the way I’ve always been, between the albums: For two- or three-year gaps I wouldn’t pick up a guitar. And when I don’t pick up a guitar for a year or two, that’s when the songs fall out. David Berman Read Quote
I’ve never been a big movie person, but I used to watch movies regularly in my life, and sometime in the ’90s I just stopped. I certainly never was an educated moviegover. David Berman Read Quote
It’s a Gen X thing to be okay with going unnoticed or unrated or untouched. To be free from strangers’ expectations, or anger. People got angry at me when I stopped making music because it seemed I was devaluing everything. David Berman Read Quote
I’m not the type to demand affirmation or to worry that I’ll be forgotten. I’m more the type to dare the world to forget me. David Berman Read Quote
I don’t have religion or culture. I don’t have anything I can believe in when I’m really scared. When I play the songs, I feel the fear disappear. David Berman Read Quote
I made records for 20 years, I lived off it. But people would say I made so many mistakes, I did so many things you’re not supposed to do. I had a band name nobody could say. I didn’t play live. I never practiced, I never got better at my instrument. David Berman Read Quote
I take pride in the fact that I can walk away from things. My willingness to walk away has protected me, I realize that now. Being able to walk away from sessions, from poetry, from dreams of being a poetry professor. David Berman Read Quote
