Even now, when I'm asked how I'm doing, I like to reply, 'Pretty good. I've got all my fingers and both eyes.

For most entertainers, there is a single experience, one defining moment, when confidence replaces the self-doubt that most of us wrestle with.

The tastes of country music fans are not limited to the narrow range defined by consultants and programmers and record company moguls.

It used to be that if you had a pretty good record, you could stop by a station in Little Rock or Atlanta and let the DJ listen to it. No way something like that can happen now.

The time I spent thinking about how I was better than somebody else or worrying about somebody else's attitude was time I could put to better use.

I finally came to terms with manic depression and lithium. I've taken lithium regularly for the past few years and have had no further bouts with manic depression.

Fans are what make a performer and I've always taken them seriously.

A fan will grab you and hug you and will not let go. When that happens, you wish it could be that way all over the world.

There only have been two people on this earth that I was nervous around: Chet Atkins and Mickey Mantle. It's because of the respect I have for them.

No one had ever told me that whites were supposed to sing one kind of music and blacks another - I sang what I liked in the only voice I had.

I learned to tune a guitar by ear. That method has served me pretty well.

May all humankind find grace.

All films are born free and equal.

I got my bearings, I began to focus. My mother was very supportive. When I came back to New York I landed a job at Hot 97.

I like the platform to show your art and everything that goes along with that. To show your voice and hopefully find films that are more politically driven, films that maybe inspire.

I've always regretted that I'm made of contradictions. But, if contradiction is impossible to overcome, we have to accept both its ends.

Even Jesus had trouble with 12 guys.

If I feel a painting I'm working on doesn't have imagery or emotion, I paint it out and work over it until it does.

O thou, whose days are yet all spring, Faith, blighted once, is past retrieving; Experience is a dumb, dead thing; The victory's in believing.

I call it like I see it. I don't hold back when it comes to being candid on the hot issues.

There was a sliver of moon and a splash of stars, and the light outlined her face and glistened on the tears that ran like mercury down her cheeks.