I think it is very important in this business to be an individual

When you get the choice to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance.

I think you can have moderate success by copying something else, but if you really want to knock it out of the park, you have to do something different and take chances.

And I hate to see artists who are real safe. I love to see artists swing for the fences sometimes.

I'm a businesswoman. I am a music lover. I like for people to like my music. When you listen to top 40 radio, you hear pop stuff. You hear rock stuff. You hear all these different influences

I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean.

When you come close to selling out, reconsider.

And to me, I had come out of Texas, and during that time was when I realized that a lot of people in Nashville, their idea of what country music was was not the same as mine.

I hope you never lose your sense of wonder. You get your fill to eat, but always keep that hunger. May you never take one single breath for granted. God forbid love ever leave you empty handed.

Never settle for the path of least resistance

I can see me continuing to make the best music I can, and let the chips fall where they may.

I'm a pusher dealing hope, at the intersection of Desire and Despair.

She thought of the Good Shepherd with His sheep. Of the Man hanging upon the cross. And the understanding bubbled up within her soul: He makes all things new.

Often the prudent far from making their destinies succumb to them.

Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?

A heart isn't some revolving door where a bunch of people can go in and out.

For all history up to the end of the Cold War, summit meetings were historic and dramatic occasions, when leaders who controlled the destiny of much of the world met to change the world.

The inerrancy debate is based on the belief that the Bible is the word of God, that the Bible is true because God made it and gave it to us as a guide to truth. But that's not what the Bible says.

I'd just like to see - in writing about baseball - more energy and better craft, minus statistical bludgeoning and invective.

Madness doesn't happen to someone alone. Very few people have experiences that are theirs alone.

Dying on the inside, but outside you're looking fearless