All my life I've been pleasin' everyone but me, waking up in someone else's dream.

Children are easily influenced, and I always want to do things I can be proud to show my kids someday.

I don't know why 'happy' can't be a story.

Nashville is one of the greatest places for the best songwriters in the world. It's been fantastic to live there and to raise our family there. It's a great town.

I think beauty comes from within. If you're happy and look at life in the best way you can, even when there are problems, it can make you beautiful on the outside.

Nashville was totally different than I ever dreamed. I had only seen the music business on television and been to a couple of concerts. I had no clue.

I have this strength that comes from knowledge.

Country music is the people's music. It just speaks about real life and about truth and it tells things how they really are.

It's not complicated to embrace life. You just have to make the choice.

A little bit of stage fright, then I'm ready.

It's okay to take time for yourself. We give so much of ourselves to others and we need to be fueled both physically and mentally. If we are in balance, it helps us in all our interactions.

The word animal is a derivative of the Greek word anima, which also means soul.

People like to be listened to, as every researcher knows – every researcher, every writer, every spy.

You must have a strong will and determined spirit to fight any form of oppression.

The first duty of an historian is to be on his guard against his own sympathies.

When you get new rules that work, you're changing the physiology of your brain. And then your brain has to reconfigure itself in order to deal with it.

I have always thought of Christmas time... as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time.

Solitude is not an absence of energy or action, as some believe, but is rather a boon of wild provisions transmitted to us from the soul.

Elisha Cook was a darling, and full of the devil. A wired - up little fellow who was always busy, busy, busy.

Love opens the doors into everything, as far as I can see, including and perhaps most of all, the door into one's own secret, and often terrible and frightening, real self.

But I'll say this: I've never been more honored to sing about Jesus and for Jesus. And I've never been more sure of the path I've chosen.