Dar Williams > Quotes

“The summer ends and we wonder who we are
And there you go, my friends, with your boxes in your car
And today I passed the high school, the river, the maple tree
I passed the farms that made it
Through the last days of the century
And I knew that I was going to learn again
Again, in this less hazy light
I saw the fields beyond the fields
The fields beyond the fields”
― Dar Williams

“Sometimes life sends us lessons in ridiculous packaging.”
― Dar Williams

“Well, my friends give me purple flowers and orange tea
and goosedown spinning quilts and torquoise chairs
we greet one another in a wild profusion of words
and wave farewell amidst the wonderment of air
In the laughing times we know we are lucky
In the quiet times we know that we are blessed
And we will not be alone”
― Dar Williams

“and now I laugh at how the world changed me, and I think life chose me . . . after all.”
― Dar Williams

“Every day has one morning.”
― Dar Williams

“Now when I was fifteen, oh I knew it was over
The road to enchantment was not mine to take
Cause lower calf, upper arm should be half what they are
I was breaking the laws that the signmakers made.

And all I could eat was the poisonous apple
And that's not a story I was meant to survive
I was all out of choices, but the woman of voices

She turned round the corner with music around her,
She gave me the language that keeps me alive”
― Dar Williams

“So I'll keep you wondering what time I'm arriving
And you'll drive me crazy with your backseat driving
And I'll talk in my sleep and you'll steal all the covers
We'll argue it out and we'll call ourselves lovers
And I'll stay in my body and you'll stay in your own
'Cause we know that we're born and we're dying alone.
So we turn out the light while the sirens are screaming
And we kiss for the waking, and then join the dreaming.”
― Dar Williams

“But where do we come up with this notion of a woman in which the less space you take up, the more you're worth?”
― Dar Williams

“The only word for love is everybody's name.”
― Dar Williams

“And I'll act like I have faith, and like that faith never ends, but I really just have friends.”
― Dar Williams

“And I will write this down / And then I will not be alone again”
― Dar Williams

“And the ones that can know you so well are the ones that can swallow you whole.
I have a good and I have an evil, I thought the ocean, the ocean thought nothing,
You are the welcoming back from the ocean.”
― Dar Williams

“Some cities have what I call a piñata problem: there is great wealth, but it’s hanging from a high place, far away from the city commons. There are mansions on the outskirts of town filled with famous citizens, high-paid executives, and even a scattering of multinational CEOs. Meanwhile, the downtown could desperately use a capital influx but does not get one despite the opulence that encircles it.”
― Dar Williams, What I Found in a Thousand Towns: A Traveling Musician's Guide to Rebuilding America's Communities—One Coffee Shop, Dog Run, and Open-Mike Night at a Time

“We are cool, and we know it, and our people know it!” That’s what the capitol complex in Madison, Wisconsin, seems to exclaim every time I’ve played in that city.”
― Dar Williams, What I Found in a Thousand Towns: A Traveling Musician's Guide to Rebuilding America's Communities—One Coffee Shop, Dog Run, and Open-Mike Night at a Time

“You will become less organized as you get older.”
― Dar Williams, Lights, Camera, Amalee

“Eastman Kodak will not be returning. Walmart and its ilk will never provide stable employment. The boom economies of energy exploration might seem more “real” than an extensive interconnected community of food and beverage makers, but any “one-stop shop” of a single corporation or an energy extraction bonanza is ultimately less stable than a mutually reinforcing, geographically unique, and irreplaceable range of businesses.”
― Dar Williams, What I Found in a Thousand Towns: A Traveling Musician's Guide to Rebuilding America's Communities—One Coffee Shop, Dog Run, and Open-Mike Night at a Time

“Everyone was here to figure something out, not to get something right.”
― Dar Williams, What I Found in a Thousand Towns: A Traveling Musician's Guide to Rebuilding America's Communities—One Coffee Shop, Dog Run, and Open-Mike Night at a Time

“When people transcend the myth that proximity means conflict and invasion of privacy, they gravitate toward finding ways to integrate the talents and skills of their community members.”
― Dar Williams, What I Found in a Thousand Towns: A Traveling Musician's Guide to Rebuilding America's Communities—One Coffee Shop, Dog Run, and Open-Mike Night at a Time