“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.

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

You just write about things that happen.

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

What I enjoy doing more than anything is.

All you hear about on the news is all the bad stuff everyday, but what was refreshing to me was after that, you saw how many good people there are out there.

I think every album you have, especially if it’s done well, you feel like you’re competing with yourself.

They’re just regular people who live in small towns. They grow up and try to raise families and have a job and go to church and play softball. It’s that way everywhere.

Where were you when the world stopped turning on that September day?

To me, songwriting is the backbone of Nashville.

That level of expectation that I’m going to be conservative is really disappointing, but it is how many people think about clergy and the church

But it’s not. It is a bird, a perching bird. And no amount of ‘paleobabble’ is going to change that.

If you are going to write, nothing will stop you, and if you are not going to write, nothing will make you.

You know my issue isn’t whether gay people go to heaven or straight people go to heaven.

I love research so much that I do an enormous amount; it helps put off the moment of starting to write the story.

Oral traditions going back a long, long time, which I inherited by osmosis.

Old is unwanted. You don’t find Thais going to the thrift store. They want new clothes. They want the newest cell phone.

Why they emigrated is not exactly clear, but many scholars believe it was because they saw the way Sweden was going, i.e. neutral.