Johnny Cash Quotes

I came to believe in a power much higher than I

You can ask the people around me. I don't give up. I don't give up. I don't give - and it's not out of frustration and desperation that I say I don't give up. I don't give up because I don't give up. I don't believe in it.

He went up to heaven, located his dog. Not only that, but he rejoined his arm.

I'm thankful for the sea breeze that feels so good right now, and the scent of jasmine when the sun starts going down.

I used to sing Bill Monroe songs. And I'd sing Dennis Day songs like songs that he sang on the Jack Benny show.

The beast in me Is caged by frail and fragile bars.

In the Air Force, I had an old Wilcox Gay recorder, and I used to hear guitar runs on that recorder going (vocalizing) like the chords on "I Walk The Line." And I always wanted to write a love song using that theme, that tune.

Loneliness is emptiness, but happiness is you.

I think in my world of religion, you're called to preach or you don't preach. Called by God to preach. I never been ordained by God to preach the gospel. I have a calling, it's called to perform and sing.

Life is - the way God has given it to me was just a platter - a golden platter of life laid out there for me. It's been beautiful.

God Ain't no stained glass window, cause he never keeps his window closed.

I start a lot more songs than I finish, because I realize when I get into them, they're no good. I don't throw them away, I just put them away, store them, get them out of sight.

The battle against the dark one and the clinging to the right one is what my life is about.

We [with Rick Rubin] would focus on the ones that we did like, that felt right and sounded right. And if I didn't like the performance on that song, I would keep trying it and do take after take until it felt comfortable with me and felt that it was coming out of me and my guitar and my voice as one, that it was right for my soul.

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.

I wore black because I liked it. I still do, and wearing it still means something to me. It's still my symbol of rebellion -- against a stagnant status quo, against our hypocritical houses of God, against people whose minds are closed to others' ideas.

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

The requests started coming in from other prisoners all over the United States. And then the word got around. So I always wanted to record that, you know, to record a show because of the reaction I got. It was far and above anything I had ever had in my life, the complete explosion of noise and reaction that they gave me with every song. So then I came back the next year and played the prison again, the New Year's Day show, came back again a third year and did the show.

Backstage at the Grand Ole Opry, I got on my knees and told her that I was going to marry her some day. We were both married to someone else at the time. ‘Ring Of Fire’—June and Merle Kilgore wrote that song for me-that’s the way our love affair was. We fell madly in love and we worked together all the time, toured together all the time, and when the tour was over we both had to go home to other people. It hurt.

Rick Rubin had his hair - I don't think it's ever been cut and very - dresses like a hobo, usually - clean but . Was the kind of guy I really felt comfortable with, actually. I think I was more comfortable with him than I would have been with a producer with a suit on.

I love the young people.

Life is rough so you gotta be tough.

People ask me who is my favorite country artist. I say, you mean besides George Jones.

Life and love go on, let the music play.

Sam Phillips always encouraged me to do it my way, to use whatever other influences I wanted, but never to copy...if there hadn't been a Sam Phillips, I might still be working in a cotton field.

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

Burn my Flag and I will shoot you........but I'll shoot you with a lot of love, like a good American

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.

So I simply don't buy the concept of "Generation X" as the "lost generation." I see too many good kids out there, kids who are ready and willing to do the right thing, just as Jack was. Their distractions are greater, though. There's no more simple life with simple choices for the young.

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.

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.

Six foot six he stood on the ground He weighed two hundred and thirty-five pounds But I saw that giant of a man brought down To his knees by love

If you aren't gonna say exactly how and what you feel, you might as well not say anything at all.

It was kind of a prodding myself to play I Walk The Line straight.

The hardest thing for me in Vietnam wasn't seeing the wounded and dead. It was watching the big transport jets come in, bringing loads of fresh new boys for the war.

What I said, what are you [Rick Rubin] going to do with me that nobody else has been able to do to sell records with me?

It just took the right time. I was fully confident that I was going to see Sam Phillips and to record for him that when I called him, I thought, I'm going to get on Sun Records. So I called him and he turned me down flat. Then two weeks later, I got turned down again. He told me over the phone that he couldn't sell gospel music so - as it was independent, not a lot of money.

All your life, you will be faced with a choice. You can choose love or hate…I choose love.

The ones that you're calling wild are going to be the leaders in a little while.

A rose looks grey at midnight, but the flame is just asleep. And steel is strong because it knows the hammer and white heat.

I love Bob Dylan, I really do. I love his early work, I love the first time he plugged in electrically, I love his Christian albums, I love his other albums.

The things that have always been important: to be a good man, to try to live my life the way God would have me, to turn it over to Him that His will might be worked in my life, to do my work without looking back, to give it all I've got, and to take pride in my work as an honest performer.

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.

As sure as God made black and white, what's done in the dark will be brought to the light.

I worked there [on Pontiac] three weeks, got really sick of it, went back home and joined the Air Force.

When I was arrested I was dressed in black

Prisoners are the greatest audience that an entertainer can perform to.

I keep my eyes wide open all the time.