You can't write a good song about a whorehouse unless you've been in one.

I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly or too this or too that.

Life has got a habit of not standing hitched. You got to ride it like you find it. You got to change with it. If a day goes by that don't change some of your old notions for new ones, that is just about like trying to milk a dead cow.

If you want to learn something, just steal it.

It's a folk singer's job to comfort disturbed people and to disturb comfortable people

There's several ways of saying what's on your mind. And in states and counties where it ain't too healthy to talk too loud, speak your mind, or even vote like you want to, folks have found other ways of getting the word around. One of the mainest ways is by singing.

I got started in Oklahoma. That's where I was born. Population down there is one-third Indians, one-third Negroes and one-third white people.