But most distinctly, I remember always saying to myself that when I get big, I'm not going to go to bed hungry, I'm not going to wear hand-me-down clothes.

I am who I am, I am what I am, I do what I do and I ain't never gonna do it any different. I don't care who likes it and who don't.

A guy said to me, 'You're so lucky. You have people like Ray Charles, Barbra Streisand and The Beatles doing your songs.' I figured out, though, the harder I work the luckier I get. The secret of anything is to surround yourself with good people if you want a good product.

I'm gonna still play some dates, but I'm not gonna do anything near like I did it before.

My mother told me on several different occasions that she was livin' her dream vicariously through me. She once said that I was getting to do all the things that she would have wanted to have done.

That was where my dream began to take hold, of not havin' to pick cotton and potatoes, and not havin' to be uncomfortable, too hot or too cold. That in itself had driven me to try to find some better way of life.

I'm from the Bob Wills and the Little Richard school of music. Bob Wills did what the hell he thought, Little Richard did what he thought, and those were my big influences.