So much of my career has been about saying things the way people say them, using melodies not that I can sing but that the people can sing.

Lionel Richie, love song, OK, thank you very much, good-bye. And all of a sudden I realized that, in my career, what has made my career has always been the surprises.

I'm easy like Sunday Morning.

All artists are egotistical maniacs with inferiority complexes.

Exactly when people are in turmoil is the time that the entertainment business has always been at its best. Because people don't want to be reminded every day that they are under siege, or that they're not having a great time of life.

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

By growing up in Alabama, I had a melting pot of the whole pie: R&B, gospel, country.