Mary Gauthier

Songs have been my greatest teachers and continue to be really important in my life.

— Mary Gauthier

Music had always been a kind of anchor for me. But I didn't write my first song till I was 35.

— Mary Gauthier

Songs, especially lyrics, have always been really important to me.

— Mary Gauthier

If I start tracing, I bet I will find a writer in my family tree.

— Mary Gauthier

I haven't been in the military, but I've known my share of pain. It allows me to sit with someone who's struggling…

— Mary Gauthier

I feel as though I came to music with something to say. It wasn't like that when I was younger. I didn't…

— Mary Gauthier

I write to make some sense of things that confuse me. The mechanics of my own heart are the most confusing I…

— Mary Gauthier

There's an ocean of misunderstanding. It's called the civilian-military divide. I had a lot to learn about our military - who they…

— Mary Gauthier

That's the reality in the Catholic Church today You don't want to build something that will be OK for now, when you…

— Mary Gauthier

There's a universal inside of me. So if I tell my story, you're going to see parts of your story in it.…

— Mary Gauthier

I think, because of the kind of writer I am, I can't do it halfway. I can't do it without dedicating my…

— Mary Gauthier

I think I'll always draw from being a person that doesn't know how to have a normal life, whatever a normal life…

— Mary Gauthier

I have got my story. Adoptees rarely get our stories. We only know what we are told. I don't even have my…

— Mary Gauthier

I think Bob Dylan showed us that songs can rise to the level of literature, and he proved it over and over…

— Mary Gauthier

When I became a songwriter, it was out of some sort of desperation. I needed to create something. I had to latch…

— Mary Gauthier

I'm openly gay, and I've got a major label record deal in Nashville, and it happened when I was 42 years old.…

— Mary Gauthier

I got interviewed by one writer who started with the line, 'Mary Gauthier is a woman who clearly doesn't care how she…

— Mary Gauthier

I'm a traveler and a vagabond and an observer, and the songs come through that. And that's just the way it's going…

— Mary Gauthier

I don't ever want to tie a song in a little bow. Life doesn't work that way, and war doesn't ever work…

— Mary Gauthier

A lot of time, if you spend too much time in Nashville, songwriters get caught up in charts and numbers and the…

— Mary Gauthier

My experience is that the universal is the personal. If you can get past your navel-gazing into the deepest part of yourself…

— Mary Gauthier

There's a lot of vulnerability in songs - I'm not talking about pop songs - from people that are in the art…

— Mary Gauthier

Melody's like tweezers that go into the infection and pull out the wounded part. You can almost not stay silent in the…

— Mary Gauthier

Ultimately, what I want is for my songs to outlive me: I want my songs to keep being played even after I'm…

— Mary Gauthier

Being in recovery for a lot of years now, I've worked with a lot of people who've gotten sober and sat with…

— Mary Gauthier

People in Ireland take in the whole song. After a long history of great singers and songwriters and poets, they are able…

— Mary Gauthier