"Townes Van Zandt ranks alongside Kris Kristofferson and Bob Dylan. He inspired so many songwriters t..." — Rodney Crowell

In my 15 minutes of fame around 'Diamonds and Dirt,' it was not a healthy time for me because of my insecurity.

When I was 22 years old, and I first got to Nashville, women or girls were objects. It was a conquest. My emptiness inside and the external manifestation of my ego was to somehow conquer women.

When I write a song with somebody else in mind, it's putting the cart before the horse. The way I write best is when I allow the song to tell me what it wants to be.

Certainly, writing a book was challenging. It took me a long time to learn how to do it. It took me seven years to get a sense of how to wean myself off the process and trickery of songwriting. You realize that giant metaphors work in songs because you have so few words. Standing alone on a page, they threaten to be overblown in a hurry.