Of travel I've had my share, man, I've been everywhere.

The beer and the wurst were wonderful, but I was dying to be back in the South, where the livin' was easy, where the fish were jumpin', where the cotton grew high.

I've never been accused of a felony. I never spent time behind bars except for a few overnight jail times back in the Sixties. [But] I think there's a little bit of a criminal in all of us. Everybody's done something they don't want anybody to know about.

I knew I wanted to sing when I was a very small boy. When I was probably 4 years old. My mother played a guitar and I would sit with her and she would sing and I learned to sing along with her.

I expect my life to end pretty soon. You know, I'm 71 years old. I have great faith, though. I have unshakable faith.

When I think about country music, I think about America.

They're powerful, those songs. At times they've been my only way back, the only door out of the dark, bad places the black dog calls home.