I used to be just a total jazz freak. People used to say, 'Where's the melody? Is there a melody in there anywhere?' Now I let the music follow the song.

I know it was raw in some places, and I was a jerk in some places, but that's the way I was, and I was stupid.

Success is not getting what you want, it's enjoying what you have.

I don't miss television. It's too much hurry up and sit around, wait till they do this and do that, and get the lighting just right. I'd much rather go out on a stage anywhere and just play and sing for an hour.

I used to be just a total jazz freak. People used to say, 'Where's the melody? Is there a melody in there anywhere?' Now I let the music follow the song.

I am just trying to do a song the best possible way I can.

I've been singing and playing the guitar ever since I can remember.

I'm an avid golfer.

I played on a lot of Sinatra sessions. He was simply awesome. He liked to laugh, and he could be one of the boys when he wanted. But he was also a very serious performer.

I've been through a lot of changes.

With the first money I got, I built my parents a house back home, gave them a string of credit cards, and said 'Go.'

I like to start the day early, it keeps me out of trouble.

God only knows just how much I'm going to do, or not going to do.

Picking a guitar was a lot easier than picking cotton.

If we grew it, we ate it. If Daddy shot it, Mamma cooked it.

All I ever wanted to do was play the guitar; singing was a sideline.

I don't have Alzheimer's. I have part-timer's.

I was very candid in my book because I want people to know the truth... and that people can change for the better.

I'm really not a songwriter, so if I hear a song, I feel it and like it, I'll do it. But I'll make it the way I want to hear it.

I just tell you, the Lord's been good to me. Even if I was a rounder, He's been really, really nice to me.

Honesty I can take. Lies I get upset about.

God saved me.

Daddy - I remember when he first let me drive the cultivator for him, you know... He eased you into the hard work that you had to do later.

I spent some time in Hell.

I'm running my life according to what I know to be true from the Bible and the old scribes.

I've often asked myself, how much information can the brain actually hold? There'll probably come a day when you're able to download it; that's what you have to do when the machine's full.

Some things I don't want to remember.

I'll tell you, my dad played and sang, and it didn't take me long to figure out that playing a guitar was a whole lot better than getting ahold of a hoe handle or chopping cotton, man.

I don't really classify 'Wichita Lineman' as country.

Great stories start with great opening lines. 'I'm a lineman for the county' - what a great way to start a song.

I can think of only two or three songs out of hundreds I've recorded that I performed as originally written. I like to become intimate with the material and change it to suit me.