“Even they are competing with the same type of problem that I’m competing with.”

Some of them don’t have that. They get a couple of releases. If you don’t sell two million copies, you’re gone, you’re out of here.

Country fans need to support country music by buying albums and concert tickets for traditional artists or the music will just fade away. And that would be really sad.

Don’t let the ‘business’ change what it is you love because the people, the fans, respond to what is heartfelt. They can always tell when a singer is faking it.

If you’re gonna drive me crazy baby, drive me to drink.

It didn’t make much difference what time of night it was, whenever [my father would] come in drunk, he’d say, “Get up and sing me some songs.”

I love what I’ve done and I just can’t stand to see what they’re doing to it. But I’ve learned to live with it because that’s what they’ve done. They’ve come in with the modern sounds. I call it modern pop. It’s not country anymore.

We didn’t want to sing but we sang.

After the first couple of years recording I did a lot of praying. I said, ‘Lord, please give me a hit.’ I want one so bad.

The only thing different between sinners and saints is one is forgiven and the other ain’t.

Today they forget you in five years. They give an artist nowadays four or five years and that’s it.

If people liked your singing well enough, if you were special to them, then you never left their minds throughout all of the years.

I just thank God I’m still here and the main thing is to try to get closer and closer to Him as much as I can so that I can treat my friends and my family the way they should be treated.

He stopped loving her today, they placed a wreath upon his door.

Anybody who loves country music loves gospel.

Be real about what you do. Stay true to the voice inside you.

You can’t put this possum in a cage

I can’t spend the rest of my life competing for your attention and coming in last.

Until we do something about wild dogs, kangaroos competing for pasture, your fortunes in life aren’t gonna turn around.

I really take my hat off to anybody that steps in the ring because it’s so hard – you’re competing against your friends, and you’re working in front of an audience who tells you exactly what they’re thinking.

So when my daughter told me on the second track meet that she was done with it because she discovered she didn’t like competing, I made her finish the season.

Advertising is not merely an assembly of competing messages; it is a language itself which is always being used to make the same general proposal

Religious beliefs evolved by group-selection, tribe competing against tribe, and the illogic of religions is not a weakness but their essential strength.

I think it can be a lot more collaborative. People, instead of competing, they can actually support each other, in music.

People, instead of competing, they can actually support each other, in music.