The first time I got onstage was when I was about 5 years old. It was at a church social, and I had a poem to recite.

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.

I take it not only a day at a time, but a moment at a time, and keep it at that pace. If you can be happy right now, then you’ll always be happy, because it’s always in the now

If you got the money honey I got the time and when you run out of money honey I run out of time.

I got along without you before I met you and I'll get along without you a long time after you're gone.

Those people out there like good music. They don't stop and ask themselves, 'Is it country or rock and roll?' If they like it, they will tell you.

...when you put your life in a good place, good things follow.