I started learning my lessons in Abbot Texas, where I was born in 1933. My sister Bobbie and I were raised by our grandparents [...] We never had enough money, and Bobbie and I started working at an early age to help the family get by. That hard work included picking cotton. [...] Picking cotton is hard and painful work, and the most lasting lesson I learned in the fields was that I didn't want to spend my life picking cotton.

At 82, Nelson (who wrote the song "On the Road Again," among a thousand or more others) is the elder statesman of country music, a steadying and powerful voice in the industry and on environmental issues, and he's still on the road much of the year. The music keeps calling.

When you hear me, you know it's me, regardless of the song.

I'm from Texas, and one of the reasons I like Texas is because there's no one in control.

We create our own unhappiness. The purpose of suffering is to help us understand we are the ones who cause it.

The biggest killer on the planet is stress and I still think the best medicine is and always has been cannabis.

I think Ray Charles did as much as anybody when he did his country music album. Ray Charles broke down borders and showed the similarities between country music and R&B.