People look at you, and they've got just the perfect little box for you, the perfect category. Call you a redneck. Call you a hillbilly. Like those were insults.

Bluegrass is really a big part of my background.

It's a great day to be alive. I know the sun's still shining when I close my eyes.

It's the same old story you've heard a thousand times. Somebody's trust gets broken. Somebody's left behind.

The biggest cause of divorce is marriage.

Please tell me you will remember, no matter how much I do wrong that I had the best of intentions all along.

If you're gonna sing, sing loud.

I've been writing on my own. It's like Roger Miller used to say, every now and then, like a dog having puppies, you have to crawl under the house and do it yourself.

When they talk about music getting in your blood, I understand exactly what they're talking about, because that is me.

I'm a member of a country club, country music is what I love.

I simply find that as a songwriter, my goal is to try to move people. And I feel that before I can move other people, I have to genuinely be able to move myself.

She knew in her heart that to be without optimism that core of reasonless hope in the spirit rather than the brain was a fatal flaw the seed of death.

You always have to be diplomatic with music, with classical, with whatever you do.

In general, women desire to rule over their husbands and lovers, to be the authority above them.

I have a nice bookshelf in my office, but not my house. I'm crass, but not that crass.

[The Persian Empire] left a dream of the Middle East as a unit, and a unit where people of different faiths could live together.

The great and the good will decide what is good for us and make sure that we get what is good for us, good and hard.

The more I lose, the more they believe they can beat me. But believing is not enough, you still have to beat me.

I'm always very interested in breeding. Raising cacti is breeding. My lotus plant collection is breeding. The insects are breeding.

Education is what you learn in books, and nobody knows you know it but your teacher.