From a distance it looks like a traditional western bandana. Up close it is covered with illustrations related to my years of making things, the title of my 2019 record The Kentuckian, and more than 100 of my favorite quotes about music, writing, creativity and survival.
The quotes are from a wide cast of characters from Sam Phillips and George Jones to Margaret Wheatley and Muhammad Ali, as well as some of my friends.
I should also mention it looks really great on dogs.
• 21 ¼ inches square, that’s 54 cm
• 100% microfiber polyester
• Soft and lightweight
• Double-folded edges
• Single-sided print
Here are all the quotes you’ll see when you’re not wearing it:
In such an ugly time, the true protest is beauty.
-Phil Ochs
Relationships are all there is. Everything in the universe only exists because it is in relationship to everything else. Nothing exists in isolation. We have to stop pretending we are individuals that can go it alone.
-Margaret Wheatley
No story has a happy ending unless you stop telling it before it’s over.
-Orson Welles
Sometimes I feel like I have stories to tell and sometimes I feel like I should just get off this planet immediately.
-Moa Junström
I need a drink an hour just to stay sober.
-Dan Meismer
If you’re going to hit a wrong note, hit it like you mean it.
-Sam Phillips
I hope that my children will not be posers.
-Marek Loub
Less is more work.
-Patric McCue
If you spend more than one day with someone, you’ll have days that aren’t so good.
-Elin Melin
I love when people don’t get it.
-Norm Macdonald
What disturbs and alarms man are not the things, but his opinions and fantasies about the things.
-Epictetus
Canceling plans is like heroin.
-John Mulaney
I believe that the only excuse we have for being musicians and for making music in any fashion is to make it differently.
-Glenn Gould
I think I’ve got a little bit too much blood in my coffee system.
-Johnny Cash
Life without success can also be beautiful.
-Robert Walser
You cannot wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.
-Navajo proverb
Fear not the path of truth for the lack of people walking on it.
-Robert Kennedy
I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.
-Abraham Lincoln
You don’t owe anything to your old ambitions.
-Helena Öhman
Just make sure if you fail, you did what you wanted to do.
-David Letterman
Nothing good happens after midnight.
-Philip Wettig
Money’s no good until after you’ve spent it.
-Jimmie Rodgers
Even though you can’t expect to defeat the absurdity of the world, you must make that attempt.
-Phil Ochs
We all know where it’s going. We’re just busying ourselves.
-Dana Carvey
You can only wait for something better for so long; one day you look around and everybody’s gone.
-Pat McClimans
Things don’t have to change the world to be important.
-Steve Jobs
From G chords, mighty revolutions come.
-Rosanne Cash
If you don’t speak out, no one else will. If you don’t lead this effort, no one else will.
-Robert Kennedy
You’ll be miserable if you don’t do what you’re supposed to do.
-Kris Kristofferson
If your dreams don’t scare you they’re not big enough.
-Muhammad Ali
There is nothing even close to being as intimate as a person’s voice.
-Sam Phillips
Family, religion, friendship. These are the three demons you must slay if you wish to succeed in business.
-Montgomery Burns
You can’t have both sanity and creativity.
-Tom T. Hall
It is not that moral judgment is illegitimate; it is simply that it has no place in describing a life.
-Peter Guralnick
Do a little bit more than you did yesterday.
-Steve Jobs
Yes is great. No is fine. Maybe is horrible.
-Malin Thunwall
I feel that human beings should treat human beings like human beings. And unless I’m going to be treated like one, I’m not going to have anything to do with them.
-Richard Feynman
If we have free speech only up to where we might hurt someone’s feelings, then it isn’t free.
-Inna Shevchenko
There’s no such thing as murdering the wrong person.
-Mark Shaw
There’s a tremendous cost to being a free and loving person.
-Cornell West
Success is not final, failure is not fatal.
-Winston Churchill
Anxiety and depression are like best friends.
-David Letterman
I’ve lived at the end of what must have been a wonderful country.
-Merle Haggard
Depression is a privileged disease because it implies that your life is good enough that you shouldn’t be sad.
-Michael Che
Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.
-Niels Bohr
“If” is the biggest word in the English language.
-Jerry Lee Lewis
If you change your perspective of your own past, your future changes.
-Lisa Brennan-Jobs
When you’re gone and dead, you’ll leave this hell to someone else.
-Elin Melin
When you realize how well you can make something, falling short, whether seen or not, feels like failure.
-Jonathan Ive
One of the most important things to learn in life is to be able to cope with not having anything to do.
-Elvis Presley
Of course you’re not like all the other guys. No one is.
-Rachel Matchett
What we need is less, but better.
-Dieter Rams
Ninety-nine percent of the world’s lovers are not with their first choice. That’s what makes the jukebox play.
-Willie Nelson
I think most things don’t make sense.
-Kate Sheese
Every day is a blank canvas. Rebel and try things, surprise yourself and believe that you can create and start creating.
-Philippe Petit
Follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.
-Franz Kafka
You can teach your brain to help you or you can teach your brain to destroy you. And your brain will react to what it’s been told.
-Ed Dwight
If I can’t do what I want to do, I need to stop what I’m doing.
-Matthew McConaughey
It’s never too late to give up.
-Swedish proverb
Live like a normal person, write like a maniac.
-George Saunders
If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.
-Mother Theresa
You can be a star or you can be an artist. Pick one. They’re both worthwhile pursuits.
-Guy Clark
There are questions I’m still not wise enough to answer, just wise enough to no longer ask.
-George Jones
Nothing is mandatory.
-Mark Shaw
Not my circus, not my monkeys.
-Polish proverb
I feel like you never really know somebody until you see them run.
-Todd Phillips
If I’m going to Hell, I’m going playing the piano.
-Jerry Lee Lewis
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
-Steve Jobs
For those of you who have never thought of being an entertainer: congratulations.
-Tom T. Hall
Security breeds stagnation.
-Andy Warhol
Don’t overthink it. Surround yourself with good people and hit the road.
-Curtis Mead
If anything is worth doing, it’s worth doing to excess.
-Edwin Land
You must do that which you think you cannot do.
-Eleanor Roosevelt
The most important thing in life is what’s going on right this minute, because that’s the only thing that we’re sure of.
-Willie Nelson
Dead people receive more flowers than the living because regret is stronger than gratitude.
-Anne Frank
If the Lord made anything better than a woman, he kept it for himself.
-Jerry Lee Lewis
We are our emotions. Who are we going to be if we’re not allowed to feel them?
-Moa Junström
The greatest thing that we can do is to help someone know that they’re loved and capable of loving.
-Fred Rogers
To cater to an audience’s taste is not to respect it.
-Phil Ochs
I’m not planning on living. I’m planning on writing.
-Antonia Karaisl von Karais
That’s pretty much what life is. Things happen, a door closes, you walk away.
-Michael Peterson
You can never be too rich or too thin, or too careful about what you put into a digital flight-guidance system.
-Earl Wiener
No man wakes up at 5:00.
-Arvid Ringborg
I want to die with my shoes on.
-Jimmie Rodgers
Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.
-Franz Kafka
Don’t listen to the music on the record, listen to the rhythm.
-Johnny Cash
Never say ever.
-Karen Faith
There is no such thing as being ‘on time.’ You are either late or you are early. Your choice.
-Kevin Kelly
No one is conquering this country and destroying it except us.
-Conan O’Brien
A friend is a guy who will help you move. A best friend is a guy who will help you move a body.
-Dave Attell
Speak only if you improve the silence.
-Spanish proverb
I didn’t want it to sound good. I wanted it to sound different.
-T-Pain
Silence in the right places can be the most electrifying thing in all of music.
-Leonard Bernstein
If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.
-Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
If you think of something funny, you’ve got to say it. Win, lose or draw.
-Ricky Gervais
If we are to go only half way or reduce our sights in the face of difficulty, in my judgment, it would be better not to go at all.
-John F. Kennedy
The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.
-Jessica Hische
Never chase your dreams.
-Alice Löfgren
If you know yourself, you are doomed.
-Alexey Brodovitch
Money is like oxygen, you breathe it in and out. You’re not going to hold your breath. You gotta let it go.
-Louis CK
I desire the things which will destroy me in the end.
-Sylvia Plath
I never make mistakes anymore. That’s one of the things I like most about being an adult.
-Karin Olli-Nilsson
If you’re not doing something different, you’re not doing anything.
-Sam Phillips
I’m really into bland and plain.
-Mary Regal
If you can’t solve a problem it’s because you’re playing by the rules.
-Paul Arden
Throw in something that you think you would regret and that’s usually the most interesting part.
-Christoph Niemann
Songwriters usually like the last song they’ve written best.
-Tom T. Hall
Graveyards are full of indispensable men.
-Charles de Gaulle
When the going gets tough, I’m outta here.
-Chris Reinstatler
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
-Albert Einstein
There is no such thing as an indiscreet question.
-Faye Emerson
I think shame is the root of all evil.
-Annie Clark
You have much less to lose than you think.
-Conan O’Brien
Don’t do anything that someone else can do. Don’t undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible.
-Edwin Land
Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.
-Steve Jobs’ last words
