I might have become a minor celebrity but royalty checks were a long way off.

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.

Poetry is a poets work in clandestine chemistry and there is no ethic other than poethics!

Nothing is so burdensome as a secret.

She say guilt is a useless emotion." "Oh, please," says Nancy. "Guilt is what separates humans from animals.

Whom should we love, if not Him who loved us, and gave himself for us?

I have tremendous faith that there will be greater films to come.

Shave that jaw, brush that hair, tone down the crazy in the eyes, and he would have to fight women off with that crossbow.

You are the sum total of your dominating or most prominent thoughts.

Where I am now, you're very much at everybody else's mercy. You have no control over your career in a lot of ways. It's just important to know what your own goals are, because that's empowering.

It is my hope that the pagan media and academic establishment will implode on the force of its own corruption and stagnation.

Power is not happiness.