Johnny Cash Quotes

Convicts are the best audience I ever played for.

My arms are too short to box with God.

When I finally stopped [singing], he had been saying, like, the last day or so, he'd been saying, now, I think we should put this one in the album. So without him saying I want to record you and release an album, he kept - he started saying, let's put this one in the album. So the album, this big question, you know, began to take form, take shape. And Rick [Rubin] and I would weed out the songs.

My mother always told me that any talent is a gift of God and I always believed it. If I quit, I would just live in front of the television and get fat and die pretty soon.

I've always explored various areas of society.

There's a man going 'round taking names / And he decides who to free and who to blame / Everybody won't be treated all the same / There'll be a golden ladder reaching down / When the Man comes around.

Beneath the stains of time the feeling disappears, you are someone else I am still right here.

If I'm anything, I'm not a singer but I'm a song stylist.

He was removed from jail and placed in a place for the insensitive and insane.

I've got no deep voice today. I've got a cold. But when I was young, I had a high tenor voice.

The first time I knew what I wanted to do with my life was when I was about four years old. I was listening to an old Victrola, playing a railroad song...I thought that was the most wonderful, amazing thing...That you could take this piece of wax and music would come out of that box. From that day on, I wanted to sing on the radio.

I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.

It's like a novelist writing far out things. If it makes a point and makes sense, then people like to read that. But if it's off in left field and goes over the edge, you lose it. The same with musical talent, I think.

We went down [Folsom Prison] and there's a rodeo at all these shows that the prisoners have there. And in between the rodeo things, they asked me to set up and do two or three songs. So that was what I did. I did "Folsom Prison Blues," which they thought was their song - you know? - and "I Walk The Line," "Hey Porter," "Cry, Cry, Cry." And then the word got around on the grapevine that Johnny Cash is all right and that you ought to see him.

I wear the black for those who never read.

[My mother] called [my voice] the gift.