It isn't reasonable to expect that everyone in the world is a country music fan. Not yet, anyway.

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.

Every collaboration with a new person is like when you take a bin of Legos and dump them on the floor. All of the pieces to work with are right there. A floor full of Legos is full of possibilities.

The very phrase 'foreign affairs' makes an Englishman convinced that I am about to treat of subjects with which he has no concern.

Does such a thing as "the fatal flaw," that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature?

Not only is history written by the winners, it is also made by them.

I don't believe in principle, but I do in interest.

Not that anyone cares, but there's a right and wrong way to clean a house.

I lived in Texas for 10 years. There were a lot of people chewing, including my dad.

I created a vision of David in my mind and simply carved away everything that was not David.

Identity can be so gelatinous sometimes.

I'm a big-time Fabolous fan. He's my favorite rapper ever. I hope to meet him one day.