“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.””

Country music should speak directly and simply about the highs and lows of life. Something that anyone can relate to.

Everybody knows in the business how I feel about country music. I’m an old traditionalist. Then they just call me an old man and stuck in my old ways, but with all the fans I’ve got out there,

I took my $100,000 and bought a new Corvette, a lot of cocaine, and spent the rest on foolishness.

You never see yourself as others do but I’ve always beeen proud to be part of country music and I hope that the format is proud of me.

Loneliness is lessened when you’re lonely by choice.

It might have taken an hour and a half or more for me to get to the liquor store, but get there I did.

If drinking don’t kill me, her memory will.

A key glistening in the ignition. I imagine the top speed for that old mower was five miles per hour.

There’s bad in everything. I dislike people misusing something that I love so much.

A new artist today has to get their teeth fixed, has to tighten their jeans up, and they have to get ’em the right kind of hat, and if anything’s wrong with their nose, if it’s a little crooked, it’s got to be straightened up.

Maybe some folks are alcoholics and others are just voluntary drunks.

I lay my head on the wheel and the horn begins honking, the whole neighborhood knows that I’m home drunk again.

God bless the boys from Memphis, blue suede shoes, and Elvis.

I would just like to say thank you to each one of my fans for supporting me all these years and continuing to come to the concerts and buy my music. I owe them everything.

I hear some new artists that sound country but the record labels and country radio lean more toward a more rock feel for what gets signed to a label and played on the radio.

There are questions I’m still not wise enough to answer, just wise enough to no longer ask.

One can say everything best over a meal.

We were not allowed to say, Screw, but we could say, Hump the hostess, because hump is in Shakespeare.

The fellow that agrees with everything you say is either a fool or he is getting ready to skin you.

God looks at the anxious and says, I tore my Son to shreds for you, and you’re afraid I will not give you what you need?

I want you. I want you. I want you. Anything to avoid saying: I love you.

Conspiracy! Intrigue! A rapidly thickening plot! Add some bestiality and a lecherous priest and I’d say you have the beginnings of a beautiful novel.

I think I’m the only player who looks at each and every center and says to myself, ‘That’s barbecued chicken down there.’

It is very hard, that necessity of listening to a man who says nothing