I just like people. I'll hold a conversation at a gas station. It's not about the fame and the fortune, I just like people.

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.

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.

I find the greatest songs in the world come out of pain, and I don't like it! Here's what it does: It strips away all of your facade. It makes you so honest. It's cleansing.

Traveling did a great deal to me. I found that when I travel and just sit in the corner and watch, a million ideas come to me.

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.