“I try to write like the writers I admire – I rip them off in form. It comes from George Strait and Merle Haggard records, and country music in general is really good at that, the twisted phrase… So Im always looking for that angle in my own work.”

I ruined my health drinking to other people’s.

The nice thing about the world that I’ve been able to inhabit for the last couple of years is that I’m given a lot of freedom. Not all artists really get that.

It comes down to building your own world out here on the road. It’s who you surround yourself with. My band and crew are really positive guys.

I get to cry to Barbara Walters, when things don’t go my way. I’ll get community service no matter which laws I break.

When they say you’re the best, I always remember that the majority of the audience probably thinks someone else should have gotten the award.

Someday I’m gonna be famous. Do I have talent, well, no. These days you really don’t need it.

Guitar playing isn’t really for everybody.

There ain’t a woman in the world that wants to hear the word yes when she asks if you think that she looks chubby in that dress. And if she cooks all day you better eat it with a smile; it doesn’t matter if it tastes just like bad gravy on a Goodyear tire.

Rock Band never got anybody a date. Never.

I can fall in and out of love, have marriages that barely last a month. When they go down the drain, I’ll blame it on the fame.

Libraries are the one American institution you shouldn’t rip off.

So when you go up against the Far Right you go up against the big financial special interests like the Halliburtons of the world, the big oil companies, the big energy companies who work so hard to rip us off.

You may not like the idea of putting money into a home when you’re moving out. But it’s demanded by the market. You need to show it off. You don’t have to rip out the kitchen and bathroom. But maybe replace the tiles or the countertops. Get professional advice.

The worst thing in the world that can happen to you if you’re an engineer that has given his life to something is for someone to rip it off and put their name to it.

Ripe old age, cheerful, useful, and understanding, is one of the finest influences in the world.

Paul ripped off John’s right arm and used it to slap John across the face, then he said, “Those’re horrible, mate, just horrible, y’know.

Grief, unresisted, is grace. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt anymore, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t rip your heart out….In great grief, there’s an incredible love in it. In love there’s a tinge of bitter. In true love.

All the ingenuity, all the high-tech gear, all the jury-rigging sometimes the sea would rip it all away until there was only you, the Creator, and His mercy.