I am probably the last of a generation able to gain an education in country music by osmosis, by sitting in a '64 Ford banging the buttons on the radio.

I live out of cans a lot. But I try to indulge only in healthy canned food.

It's meant to reaffirm the validity of that music - clean, minimalist, honest, classic music.

In the past 3-4 years I've developed a habit of keeping numerous small cassette recorders in my house and in a bag with me so that I'm able to commit to tape memory song ideas on a constant basis.

In the dark morning silence, I placed a gun to her head. She wore red dresses, but now she lay dead.

Buddy , you might think that I've lost my mind. But mister, I'd pay twice to do it one more time.

But that is a valid, continuing service that that music - which is, in some cases, 80 or 90 years old - is rendering. And proving its own timelessness.

I'm a thousand miles from nowhere, time don't matter to me. I'm a thousand miles from nowhere and there's not place that I want to be.

Control success before it controls you.

My music is very personal. I've created it in solitude. I face a white wall and beller. I like that sound - the expression of loneliness. That's what it's all about.

Quality is timeless: It will clearly define itself.

...I long to be known as an extravagant worshiper...that God would discover the song in my heart to be elaborate, overgenerous, and wasteful in my pursuit of Him.

Civilization is a hopeless race to discover remedies for the evils it produces.

Love: Two minds without a single thought.

Particularly the broad masses of the people can be moved only by the power of speech.

I may turn out an intellectual, but I'll never write anything but mediocre poetry.

When you study the Tao Te Ching, you have to use your heart to try to imagine what Tao really is.

It is better to be nothing than a follower of other painters. The wise man has said when one follows another one is always behind.

One of the big mistakes I think we make in relationships is that we don't give our best energy to the people that matter most.

If ethics are poor at the top, that behavior is copied down through the organization.

That a good fit between parental handling and child temperament is vital to help children adapt to the imperatives of their society is a crucial concept that can be applied to other cultures.