"After 17" is a song I wrote when my first daughter went to college, so that's kind of where I'm at in that part of my life. If you listen to that song and knew anything about me, you'd say, "Oh yeah, he wrote that about his daughter," but I try not to write them that they are so specific that they wouldn't apply to anybody that has a child.

My mother kept asking me, "When are you going to do a gospel album?" And I've always wanted to do a gospel album. Everybody was going on about it, so mom started hounding me more.

Oklahoma's always been good to me.

If you can last until you're 40 years old, hopefully you'll be mature enough to figure out the rest of the years.

I like to write sad songs. They're much easier to write and you get a lot more emotion into them. But people don't want to hear them as much. And radio definitely doesn't; they want that positive, uptempo thing.

You think a lot of people get to be big stars and get a little crazy, but most of the ones I've ever met have always been surprisingly normal, and I've enjoyed that.

Flesh is weak, but love is strong.