After 14 months of military service, I had a wife, a child, half an apartment, no car, and no job.

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.

I didn't want to be like everybody else. Art was my religion.

Real transformation requires real honesty. If you want to move forward - get real with yourself.

Whatever happens in a government could have happened differently, and it usually would have been better if it had.

Solitude is the furnace of transformation.

My motto is, 'What's the hurry?' I'm trying to get it across to the modern world that we need to sit around and think a little bit more.

Love even for enemies is the key to the solution of the problems of our world.

It has always been the opinion and judgment of wise men that nothing can be so uncertain as fame or power not founded on its own strength.

It made her eyes fill up with tears, and she for a few more minutes starting it over, replaying it, watching his lips say the words: "We can be lonely together.

We have to fight for our freedoms, also, economic and our national security freedoms.

Sometimes when I don't want to cry, I cry. And when I want to I can't. It's subconscious. Like sexual performance.