A frozen river is not a dry one, it's just a still river on the surface but is still moving, and so am my winter writing.

It's an ongoing problem, an ongoing situation, life is. It's just life, and it never stops and it never will. You just be thankful for what you've got, and move on.

We're still here trying to get the word out that 330 farmers are quitting every week.

Well the country songs themselves are three-chord stories, ballads which are mostly sad. If you are already feeling sorry for yourself when you listen to them they will take you to an even sadder place.

What has changed is that nothing has changed... that's what has made me more unhappy than everything else.

When I would sell encyclopedias, I would drive down the road looking for a house with a swing set in the back, and I'd say, "Oh, those folks got kids. They need some books." I'd knock on their door and sell them a set of encyclopedias, and those books were from $300 to $600. I'd look around the house, and if there wasn't that much furniture in the house, I felt a little bad about selling a $600 set of books to people who couldn't afford a couch. So I didn't last at that job very long.

I think the best exercise that I do is singing for an hour-and-a-half out on the stage, because, yes, I use the lung, the biggest muscle in your body.