I'm very shy really. I spend a lot of time in my room alone reading or writing or watching television.

I did [picking cotton] from - until I was 18 years old, that is. Then I picked the guitar, and I've been picking it since.

You've got to know your limitations. I don't know what your limitations are. I found out what mine were when I was twelve. I found out that there weren't too many limitations, if I did it my way.

I am not a Christian artist, I am an artist who is a Christian.

Happiness is being at peace, being with loved ones, being comfortable...but most of all, it's having those loved ones.

My mother was determined that I was going to leave the farm and do well in life. And she thought with the gift, I might be able to do that. So she took in washing. She got a washing machine in 1942 as soon as we got electricity and she took in washing. She washed the schoolteacher's clothes and anybody she could and sent me for singing lessons for $3 per lesson.

There's no way around grief and loss: you can dodge all you want, but sooner or later you just have to go into it, through it, and, hopefully, come out the other side. The world you find there will never be the same as the world you left.