You can shut out the world. But you always have to stop, and the world is always waiting when you do.

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." We didn't want to sing but we sang.

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

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

Maybe some folks are alcoholics and others are just voluntary drunks. Maybe some folks drink due to body chemistry and others due to their lazy characters. Maybe some have drinking problems, while others have problems enough to drink.

There's bad in everything. I dislike people misusing something that I love so much. It goes beyond the money. It goes beyond all of that and the glory. I love what I've done and I just can't stand to see what they're doing to it. But I've learned to live with it because that's what they've done. They've come in with the modern sounds. I call it modern pop. It's not country anymore.

No matter what song I recorded or sang, I did it my way.