I love Tennessee, but they don't have the pine trees and the sandy soil and the black water that I grew up around.

I don't feel like God called me to be a Gospel singer. He didn't call me to be a Christian singer, he called me to be a country singer, and I just happen to be a Christian.

Look to the Heavens, you can look to the skies. You can find redemption staring back into your eyes.

I grew up like a lot of country boys and girls do - amongst the pine trees, dirt roads, farms, mules and people who were real.

I'm normally the guy that stands off in the corner.

Singing allowed me to express myself in ways that I wouldn't be able to do otherwise.

I've found throughout the years that I needed a place where I can go with no TV, no computer, no phone and just have no distractions and just be able to sit and think and just not be disturbed.

It's hard sometimes to capture magic when it comes to live records.

I grew up going to a real small missionary baptist church. We would sing a lot of the old standards... the hymns and everything. Those songs are still my favorite and are pretty timeless.

'Firecracker' was such a fun song to write and to perform.

I've never had the patience of a teacher.

Endurance is the crowning quality, And patience all the passion of great hearts.

In books, as in life, there are no second chances. On second thought: it's the next work, still to be written, that offers the second chance.

It's always been said that comedy comes mostly out of the dark side anyway.

I admit that Mendeleev has two wives, but I have only one Mendeleev.

Owning our power means claiming the credibility and uniqueness of our own humanity.

An urban novelist never minds a little decay.

It is usual to think of good and evil as two poles, two opposite directions, the antithesis of one another...We must begin by doing away with this convention.

Nobody likes the ball low and away, but that's where you're going to get it from me. I been pitching it there 50 years, away from them. That way they can't hurt you. You keep the ball in the park.

One does not have to make Frank Capra movies to like people.

I really didn't say everything I said. [...] Then again, I might have said 'em, but you never know.