I believe, in my better moments, that there is a plan and things go not the way we want them to but the way they should.

I think of Nashville as a very natural place. We're easy going, we are ourselves. There isn't a lot of preening or trying to impress. So it's an easy place to just be and that is a good state from which to write.

He used to say we all had a compass inside of us and what we needed to do was to find it and to follow it.

You can't always trust what you think, what you know ... but you can always trust your nature.

I used to do everything to keep a wall up around myself and keep my life quiet so that I could write.

I know where I'm going. And if I don't know where I'm going, I don't tend to get anywhere.

Our friendship was like our writing in some ways. It was the only thing that was interesting about our otherwise dull lives. We were better off when we were together. Together we were a small society of ambition and high ideals. We were tender and patient and kind. We were not like the world at all.