“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 can’t be all that wrong. I do love traditional country music. I love the good stuff.

It goes beyond the money. It goes beyond all of that and the glory.

Different people have their ways of measuring success, maybe it’s not the right way but wrong’s what I do best.

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.

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.

The correction of silence is what kills; when you know you have transgressed, and your friend says nothing, and avoids your eye.

I always say what I think to be amusing.

It’s not a science when you are judging art, but we’d be remiss to say you can’t look at something and say, ‘This is more well done than that.’

One person I have to make good: Myself. But my duty to my neighbor is much more nearly expressed by saying that I have to make him happy if I may.

We say little, when vanity does not make us speak.

I am not afraid of saying something and going and pursuing it. That’s it. I see it in my mind. I say it out loud. I go and do it.

Anybody could say anything they want about me, and it literally never penetrates my skin.

When elites see a homeless person in the gutter, they assume he’s saving a parking place.