“You think about people like Hank Williams, who stood on that spot of wood, and Mr. Acuff, and, of course, George Jones.”

I don’t write all my stuff.

I could have done a hundred songs, really.

“After 17” is a song I wrote when my first daughter went to college, so that’s kind of where I’m at in that part of my life.

I grew up with nothing, so whenever I got to where I could have something I felt like I needed to have everything I couldn’t have when I was young.

It’s a scary word, ‘cancer.’

I like to write sad songs. They’re much easier to write and you get a lot more emotion into them. But people don’t want to hear them as much.

If anything good came out of 9/11, to me, was that people were so cynical about the world.

I didn’t realize until I was older what a huge music fan my daddy really was, and actually that my grandma played banjo at one time, and I didn’t even know that until a year or two ago.

I don’t see that it would be worth retiring.

Hee Haw was probably my biggest exposure to live music at a young age.

Somebody will come in with a hook and a lot of times they come out with something that sounds a little crafty.

I love your cooking, honey, but sometimes I need some real food.

I’m more of a basic eater. I still go into Cracker Barrel.

If you can last until you’re 40 years old, hopefully you’ll be mature enough to figure out the rest of the years.

To think about the historical part of the Opry and how it’s played such a part in country music.

I’ve always wanted to make a bluegrass album.

Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere.

The House of Lords is like a glass of champagne that has stood for five days

She stood in front of the mirror a long time, and finally decided she either looked like a sap or else she looked very beautiful. One or the other.

I stood face to face with the moon and the ocean and the future that spread out with all its bewildering immensity before me.

Grant stood by me when I was crazy, and I stood by him when he was drunk, and now we stand by each other.

When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, ‘Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don’t believe?’

In my divorce, I stood up and said to my ex-wife, ‘Hey, I messed up. This had nothing to do with you.

Fidel Castro, whatever people may think of him, is a hero in Latin America, primarily because he stood up to the United States.