I've seen people who have been coming to my shows for 25 years.

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.

Love cannot be forced, love cannot be coaxed and teased. It comes out of heaven, unasked and unsought.

We're never so vulnerable than when we trust someone - but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy.

I'm lucky to have the privilege of being able to choose what I want to do.

The mouth may lie, alright, but the face it makes nonetheless tells the truth.

The creative writer uses his life as well as being its victim; he can control, in his work, the self-presentation that in actuality is at the mercy of a thousand accidents.

I think making features has got to be in the addiction category.

It's a bomb. Just like you.

I have great respect for children. And I have great respect for their ability as writers.

The price of apparently cheap food is costing nothing less than the Earth!

Men are always optimists when they look inwards, and pessimists when they look round them.