I think of myself as a serious artist. Sometimes you can get in your head too much about that and forget that you have to have fun. I've been guilty in my career about that at times. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought I didn't want anybody else to have a hit with it!

The way he shook his hips up there on that stage, but before that fateful day when he left Tennessee all of them were calling him the King.

When you touch and change peoples lives with a song, that's when you've made it as an artist

I'm running out of places I can run, looking for a place in the sun.

I try not to worry about other people's music. But if there's one thing that I hear these days, it's that people try and put [music] down so tight that they take all the color out of it.

Music and movie scripts are books. You want to be literally moved and that's the sort of things I look for.

My mom is my hero. [She] inspired me to dream when I was a kid, so anytime anyone inspires you to dream, that's gotta be your hero.