I love to go to the studio and stay there 10 or 12 hours a day. I love it. What is it? I don't know. It's life.

That was the big thing when I was growing up, singing on the radio. The extent of my dream was to sing on the radio station in Memphis. Even when I got out of the Air Force in 1954, I came right back to Memphis and started knocking on doors at the radio station.

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.

It takes a real man to live for God-a lot more man than to live for the devil, you know? If you really want to live right these days, you gotta be tough.

It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks

I had a song called "Folsom Prison Blues" that was a hit just before "I Walk The Line." And the people in Texas heard about it at the state prison and got to writing me letters asking me to come down there. So I responded and then the warden called me and asked if I would come down and do a show for the prisoners in Texas.

I met Sam Phillips when he came in [studio] and I said, I'm John Cash. I'm the one who's been calling. And if you'd listen to me, I believe you'll be glad you did. And he said, come on in. That was a good lesson for me, you know, to believe in myself.