Skip to main content

Creativity Quote by Lucinda Williams

"I'm fascinated by the whole concept of snake handling. When you read about the Pentecostal snake handlers, what strikes you the most is their commitment"

About this Quote

Lucinda Williams is doing a very songwriter thing here: zeroing in on an image so extreme it becomes a lens. Snake handling in Pentecostal churches is one of those American rituals that reads like folklore until you remember it is also flesh-and-blood risk - a faith performance with real consequences. By saying she is "fascinated", Williams doesn’t gawk; she signals a kind of respectful curiosity about people who take belief past the point of metaphor.

The key word is "commitment". She’s not praising the theology or the spectacle; she’s drawn to the intensity. In a culture that often treats conviction as branding - a vibe, a hat, a playlist - snake handling is conviction that can bite back. The subtext is Williams’s long-running preoccupation with authenticity: who means what they say, who stakes something on it, who is willing to look unreasonable to stay true to an inner law. That’s a country-and-blues ethic more than an academic one, and it matches her catalog’s fixation on hard choices and hard feelings.

There’s also an implicit self-portrait in the fascination. Songwriting, touring, and telling the truth in public are their own kind of voluntary danger, especially for women in roots music spaces that police respectability. Williams is admiring the raw, almost reckless seriousness of people who refuse half-measures. The snakes are the headline; the real subject is the human appetite for meaning that can’t be safely contained.

Quote Details

TopicFaith
SourceHelp us find the source
Cite

Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Williams, Lucinda. (2026, January 17). I'm fascinated by the whole concept of snake handling. When you read about the Pentecostal snake handlers, what strikes you the most is their commitment. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/im-fascinated-by-the-whole-concept-of-snake-81736/

Chicago Style
Williams, Lucinda. "I'm fascinated by the whole concept of snake handling. When you read about the Pentecostal snake handlers, what strikes you the most is their commitment." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/im-fascinated-by-the-whole-concept-of-snake-81736/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I'm fascinated by the whole concept of snake handling. When you read about the Pentecostal snake handlers, what strikes you the most is their commitment." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/im-fascinated-by-the-whole-concept-of-snake-81736/. Accessed 8 Feb. 2026.

More Quotes by Lucinda Add to List
Lucinda Williams on Snake Handling and Commitment
Click to enlarge Portrait | Landscape

About the Author

USA Flag

Lucinda Williams (born January 26, 1953) is a Musician from USA.

30 more quotes available

View Profile

Similar Quotes

Jessica Savitch, Journalist
Harriet Tubman, Activist
Harriet Tubman
Jake Roberts, Celebrity