Iris Dement Quotes

#1. Most of the music you hear on the radio today is developed for making money. It doesn't feel true or honest. You can feel it in the music.

Iris Dement

#2. Some guy refuses to fight and we call that the sin, but he's standing up for what he believes in and that seems pretty damned American to me.

Iris Dement

#3. Maybe I spent more time dwelling on emotions than some people, and maybe that's why I ended up writing.

Iris Dement

#4. We got CEOs making 200 times the worker's pay, but they'll fight like hell against raising the minimum wage.

Iris Dement

#5. This is how it has been since time began: If you want to make something really worthwhile and true, then you have to suffer for it.

Iris Dement

#6. I don't describe myself as a Christian or religious, but I like to think that how I live my life is honest.

Iris Dement

#7. If something bothers me, it bothers me for a long time until I find a way to work it out. Music provided me with a means of working things out.

Iris Dement

#8. I never set out to write songs about the world around me ... it just kind of came about as a result of paying more attention to things.

Iris Dement

#9. I've always been aware of having feelings that were pretty intense at times. I imagine most people have had that, or they wouldn't be human.

Iris Dement

#10. I honestly don't listen to a lot of music - I spend so much time working at my own music.

Iris Dement

#11. Writing, overall, has never been what I'd call fun. It's fulfilling. It doesn't come real easy for me.

Iris Dement

#12. My guitar is really tempermental. I don't give up on it though, I'm close to my guitar!

Iris Dement

#13. I don't know what other people are like, I haven't been able to crawl inside anybody else.

Iris Dement

#14. For a long time I was interested in being a social worker. In a lot of ways I feel that that's all my music is, trying to help people.

Iris Dement

#15. Making the record was tons of fun, the most fun I've ever had.

Iris Dement

#16. I was mainly influenced by the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, and others like Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash.

Iris Dement

#17. Turn off the TV and start digging around for information that's not from a corporation trying to make money.

Iris Dement

#18. And I've been walking 'round with memories way too long.

Iris Dement

#19. I've always written about things that cause me to feel something.

Iris Dement