I got scars on my face that tell some kind of story. I'm looking in the mirror, and I got one scar that's really two scars - half from a baseball bat and half from playing football in college. I'll tell you, though, after a while, your face gets so wrinkled up you can hardly see them.
Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.
Every album I've made is about what I'm experiencing at the time.
Those 'Idol' shows are kind of scary to me. They wanted me to be on one of those panels one time, and I said it's the last thing in the world I'd ever want to do. I would hate to have to discourage somebody.
I am grateful every morning I wake up. I've a big family full of kids, who laugh all the time and love each other.
What really makes me happy now is my home. I know that I have that to lose. But I don't see losing it. And I don't care if I never do another movie. And I don't care if I never get back on the road. I like to think that I'm gonna do that. But if I don't, I can live with that.
There are a lot of Iraqi people we can never pay back for what we've done.
Freedom is just another word: It seems to get truer the older I get.
The older I get, the less conservative I become.
Every time I turn on the radio, I must be on the wrong song or something. But, to be honest, since I went on the road back in 1970, I didn't listen to radio music because I didn't want to subconsciously steal somebody's stuff.
I have no neighbors. I live in a small town where everybody is very protective of me.
Bobby Bare is one of the greatest people in country music.
I grew up listening to Hank Williams and Johnny Cash, so arriving in Nashville in the '60s was really exciting for me.
I can interpret my own work honestly. And performing by myself seems to focus the attention in the right places.
I think it's kind of odd that 'This Old Road' was the first video I ever did. Because of all of the work I had done in films and everything, you'd think I would have done a video before that.
I feel like I'm kind of lazy, but I keep the yard looking good.
If God made anything better than women, I think he kept it for himself.
The great thing about Nashville back in the day was that the old guys hung out where the young guys were. The established writers like Harlan Howard and Jack Clement gave us encouragement and passed the guitar, you know? Chet Atkins let me sit in on his sessions. Everybody was good to us, and everybody loved the music.
If it hadn't been for Johnny Cash, I'd probably have been a Nashville songwriter because that's what I had done for almost five years.
When I was thirty, and a long time after that, I felt like I had to leave home to do what I had to do. Now, it's just the opposite.
I've been trying to think of things to tell my kids, something that I could pass down, and it's like, gee whiz, I maybe never learned anything that didn't contradict itself.
Songs are just like your kids. You love them all, and they're all different. I can't really pick out favourites.
I wish my memory weren't so bad. They tell me it's from all the football and boxing and the concussions that I got.
Nothing ain't worth nothing but it's free.
Looking back, I'm surprised I had the nerve to do it, but I'm glad I did. Performing the songs and performing in film was just a part of my personality, just like football and boxing at one point in my life. I was able to lose myself in both of them, and that was a good feeling.
I grew up in a time when people believed in duty, honor and country. My grandfathers were both officers. My father was a General in the Air Force. My brother and I were both in the Army. I've always felt a kinship with soldiers; I think it's possible to support the warrior and be against the war.
Tell the truth. Sing with passion. Work with laughter. Love with heart. 'Cause that's all that matters in the end.
Being in love with a lot of people is incompatible with a stable family life.
I used to think that my songs were the best things that I would leave behind me. And I definitely think my kids are now. For starters, they're writing better songs than I was at their age.
I watched Dylan record 'Blonde On Blonde' in my first week at work at CBS. It was just incredible.
Your weight has to be behind the punch to make it matter.
The one thing I regret is missing the time with my older children when they were young.
I hope that I'll keep being creative until they throw dirt on me.
They say the first thing to go is your legs, then it's your reflexes, then it's your friends.
To do the things that I did, I'm amazed that I had the audacity - like resigning from the Army and becoming a janitor and a songwriter.
I was working the Gulf of Mexico on oil rigs, flying helicopters. I'd lost my family to my years of failing as a songwriter. All I had were bills, child support, and grief. And I was about to get fired for not letting 24 hours go between the throttle and the bottle. It looked like I'd trashed my act. But there was something liberating about it.
I boxed in Golden Gloves at Oxford and still know how to throw a straight left jab.
The closest I've come to knowing myself is in losing myself. That's why I loved football before I loved music. I could lose myself in it.
Johnny Cash has always been larger than life.
To me, if you love it enough to devote your life to it, then you're doing the right thing.
If 'Bobby McGee' lasts, if 'Star Is Born' lasts, if 'Help Me Make It through the Night' lasts, if all of 'em last, man... who cares?
There are points in your life, especially if you have creative ambitions, where selfishness is necessary.
I turned 30 as a janitor. I was thinking at the time that Hank Williams died when he was 29. All my peers were at least 10 years younger than I was. I felt like an old has-been at the time.
I remember having a lot of Josh White albums. Johnny Cash. Elvis. I loved the Coasters.
There's a time where people were out holding posters in protest outside shows I was doing, and thankfully, we've moved past that. And a lot of country stations wouldn't play me. They were more conservative than I was.
That's who I wanted to be like was Bob Dylan.
To me, the best love songs work on two - maybe three - different levels, where you're talking about the person who you're right opposite, and all the people like that.
Human rights is something that wasn't hard to be inspired to write about because there have been so many violations of those rights.
It's much better being an older father. You don't have to go prove to the world and to yourself that you're who you want to be, for better or worse.
