Johnny Cash Quotes

If you're going to be a Christian, you're going to change. You're going to lose some old friends, not because you want to, but because you need to.

Gospel music was the thing that inspired me as a child growing up on a cotton farm, where work was drudgery and it was so hard that when I was in the field I sang all the time. Usually gospel songs because they lifted me up above that black dirt.

My mother told me to keep on singing, and that kept me working through the cotton fields. She said God has his hand on you. You'll be singing for the world someday.

It's good to believe in yourself, but there are people out there who can make or break you.

I started to write the song. And I was in Gladewater, Texas, one night with Carl Perkins and I said, I've got a good idea for a song. And I sang him the first verse that I had written, and I said it's called "Because You're Mine." And he said, "I Walk The Line" is a better title, so I changed it to "I Walk The Line."

God gives us life and takes us away as He sees fit.

San Quentin, may you rot and burn in hell. May your walls fall and may I live to tell.

I like to sit on the front porch of an old cabin I built in the woods and just listen to the birds; I like to fish in the pond and I always throw the fish back.

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

The fire and excitement may be gone now that we don't go out there and sing them anymore, but the ring of fire still burns around you and I, keeping our love hotter than a pepper sprout.

There's unconditional love there. You hear that phrase a lot but it's real with me and her [June Carter]. She loves me in spite of everything, in spite of myself. She has saved my life more than once. She's always been there with her love, and it has certainly made me forget the pain for a long time, many times. When it gets dark and everybody's gone home and the lights are turned off, it's just me and her.

People call me wild. Not really though, I'm not.I guess I've never been normal, not what you call Establishment. I'm country.

My daddy left home when I was three and he didn't leave much to Ma and me, just this old guitar and an empty bottle of booze.

My way of communicating with God as a boy (and often even now) was through the lyrics of a song. . . . So I didn't have the problem some people do who say, "I don't know how to pray." I used the songs to communicate with God. . . . To me, songs were the telephone to heaven, and I tied up the line quite a bit.

I could wrap myself in the warm cocoon of a song and go anywhere.

Could it be the girls and boys are trying to be heard above your noise?

Inside the walls of a prison my body may be, but my Lord has set my soul free.

I've always explored various areas of society. And I love the young people. And I had an empathy for prisoners and did concerts for them back when I thought that it would make a difference - you know? - that they really were there to be rehabilitated.

Now that I know that I've needed you so, help me, Jesus. My soul's in your hand.

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 knew that when I left there at the age of 18, I wouldn't be back. And it was common knowledge among all the people there that when you graduate from high school here, you go to college or go get a job or something and do it on your own.

How well I have learned that there is no fence to sit on between heaven and hell. There is a deep, wide gulf, a chasm, and in that chasm is no place for any man.

Rick Rubin came to my concert in Orange County, Calif. I believe this was, like, '83 when he first came and listened to the show. And then afterwards, I went in the dressing room and sat and talked to him.

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.

[Sam Phillips] laughed at me. I just didn't like the way I Walk The Line sounded to me. I didn't know I sounded that way. And I didn't like it. I don't know. But he said let's give it a chance, and it was just a few days until - that's all it took to take off.

I'm so uncomfortable wearing colors in public. I really am. Even denim. If I've got a day off in a town, I want to go out for a walk I'll put on denim. But almost everything I've got the black on.

When I hear that whistle blowing, I hang my head and cry.

For you I know I'd even try to turn the tide.

I love the freedoms we got in this country, I appreciate your freedom to burn your flag if you want to, but I really appreciate my right to bear arms so I can shoot you if you try to burn mine.

When I was 17 - 16, my father and I cut wood all day long and I was swinging that crosscut saw and hauling wood.

You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone.

I took the easy way, and to an extent I regret that. Still, though, the way we did it was honest. We played it and sang it the way we felt it, and there's a lot to be said for that.

You're so heavenly minded, you're no earthly good.

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.

Until things are brighter.. I'm the man in black.

I was wearing black clothes almost from the beginning. I feel comfortable in black. I felt like black looked good onstage, that it was attractive, so I started wearing it all the time.

Those that have lived longer than us always have something to teach us, that we can take with us for the rest of our lives.

[My father] did every kind of work imaginable from painting to shoveling to herding cattle. And he's always been such an inspiration to me because of the very kinds of things that he did and the kind of life he lived.

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

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down, Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town.

Don't take voice lessons. Do it your way.

I always loved those songs. And with my high tenor, I thought I was pretty good - you know? - almost as good as Dennis Day.

I say I'm not a singer, so that means I can't sing. But - doesn't it?

I wear black because I'm comfortable in it. But then in the summertime when it's hot I'm comfortable in light blue.

I learn from my mistakes. It’s a very painful way to learn, but without pain, the old saying is, there’s no gain.

Everybody was wearing rhinestones, all those sparkly clothes, and cowboy boots. I decided to wear a black shirt and pants and see if I could get by with it. I did and I've worn black clothes ever since.

I wear black for those who never read or listen to the words that Jesus said, about the road to happiness, through love and charity.

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.