In 1960, when I came out of prison as an ex-convict, I had more freedom under parolee supervision than there's available... in America right now.

When I grew up there wasn't air-conditioning or anything of that nature, and this old car had a wall thickness of about ten inches. So we had a little warmer house in the winter and a little cooler in the summer.

It's easier to force feed people than it is to give 'em what they want. It makes more money.

There's two kind of cherries, and two kind of fairies, and two kind of mothers I'm told.

It's a long way from Graceland across Jordan to the Promised Land, but Jesus finally came to lead him home.

The one true friend I thought I'd found, tonight the bottle let me down.

In my life there were a lot of situations where I could have been killed or some officer might have been killed chasing me, a lot of things could be different. Now, you know that's experience you can't buy. And it's there in my rearview mirror and I can refer to it in my writing. I have the experience to talk about things some people only imagine.