“Growing up in Georgia, I used to think people up north or out west were so different. They’re really not.”

The loop down through there is just really relaxing, not much traffic.

You have to be tough-skinned and willing to accept criticism, and at the same time.

And just about anybody you can think of who has made country music has been on that stage. That’s what makes you so nervous.

I’m just looking for a mixture of songs and topics that aren’t the same thing over and over.

Oklahoma’s always been good to me.

You think a lot of people get to be big stars and get a little crazy.

Making music is still what keeps a fire going on in me.

I think I’ve always approached making albums pretty much the same way.

The older you are, I think you realize what you enjoy and what you don’t need, what wears you out and what’s important.

If you just do 50 to 60 shows a year, it’s not that much time away from home.

But most of the ones I’ve ever met have always been surprisingly normal, and I’ve enjoyed that.

Just try to do music that you like and you are proud of and not just whatever you think it’s going to take to get you on the radio.

Everybody always thinks that. But in just about every album I’ve ever had has been about 50-50 songs I’ve written or co-written and other people’s songs.

I don’t like politics, hypocrites, folks with poodles.

You just write about things that happen.

Looks can go, fads can go, but a good song lasts forever.

The Arctic is an ocean. The southern pole is a continent surrounded by ocean. The North Pole is an ocean, or northern waters. It’s an ocean surrounded by land, basically.

Left ear, I wear four earrings. The four is symbolic of the four seasons, spring, winter, summer and fall, the four directions, north, east, south and west, the four gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Lincoln was the spokesman of the rising capitalist class of the North, who viewed the emancipation of Negro slaves as indispensable to the development and triumph of the manufacturers and bankers of the industrial North, East and West over the slave-holder of the South.

whether Shiite or Sunnis from north, south, west or east, they can get together and exchange their views.

People like myself were saying the Taliban would be driven out very swiftly from the north of Afghanistan, but given that their main support base was in the Pashtun belt, there would be greater resistance there. That didn’t happen.

We use the minorities of the North as willing tools and the South as a conquered territory and never allow them to rule over us, and never allow them to have control over their future.

There’s only so much pavement that the road makers lay down. After a while, the highway quits going north and it just turns into sky.

The magnetic needle always points to the north, and hence it is that sailing vessel does not lose her direction.