[Writing] is edit, edit, edit. It's almost like getting a boat ready to go to sea. You've still got a countless number of things left to fix, but you've just got to go, "O.K., everybody get on the boat. We're going, ready or not."

There's no 'dumb-ass' vaccine.

I can only say the first thing that pops into my mind is I remember, years ago, seeing kind of a has-been country singer working - when I first moved to Nashville - in a bar in a Holiday Inn.

Is it ignorance or apathy? Hey, I don't know and I don't care.

Humor has bailed me out of more tight situations than I can think of. If you go with your instincts and keep your humor, creativity follows. With luck, success comes, too.

The stores and the things like that, the business side of things came out at the point when, I'd say probably in the early '70s, it looked like the year of the singer-songwriter was over, 'cause music changed in our time and the spotlight was out.

I just thank God I don't live in a trailer.