I am a country boy and proud of it.

I'm a songwriter, and people will tell you the greatest stories about their lives, whether you want to hear it or not.

Soul is a feeling, not a color.

The best compliment that has ever been given to me was, I was at the airport one day and a guy came in and said, 'Lionel, my wife loves you, the kids love you, my mother-in-law loves you, the family loves you.

Forget about surviving 40 years in the music business. Just surviving 27 years of Nicole Richie has been a struggle-and-a-half, I want to tell you. I stand here as a survivor, I want you to know, for all the parents out there.

Country music has always been about as close to R&B as you can possibly get. We're storytellers.

Just when I think it couldn't get any bigger, 'Tuskegee' reaches a new level of success.