My mom is my hero. [She] inspired me to dream when I was a kid, so anytime anyone inspires you to dream, that's gotta be your hero.

Sun on my shoulders and the wind at my back, bound and determined to get back on track to where the heart is..where it's been all along.

The way he shook his hips up there on that stage, but before that fateful day when he left Tennessee all of them were calling him the King.

I love my wife more than anything in the world, but boy when she had our babies, it quadrupled. There's just something about the connection.

As an actor, you can't say, "I'm going to try to be cool at all cost when I do this," because that's the opposite of what you need to do as an actor.

You stand by me, and you believe in me like nobody ever has. When my world goes crazy, you're right there to save me. You make me see how much I have.

Everybody loves a sad ballad because it's cathartic. For artists, in a lot of ways, that's sort of our therapy sessions is when you're singing a song.

I mean, I grew up riding. I can't ever remember not being able to ride or rope and all that stuff. It was part of my life growing up, so it was fun for me.

Five years ago I figured we were at the top of our game and that was the best it was going to get, but with every album it seems to keep on building on itself.

When I die and I'm lucky enough or fortunate enough and brave enough throughout my life to get into Heaven and I see Octavia Spencer sitting there then all is good.

We're parents first, and once you have kids, everybody knows that you have priority lists. Number one is your family and everything else just kind of finds its place.

But I was so wrapped up in sports growing up as a kid, that I think I was going to grow to be a pro ball player. But I found out real quick that was not going to happen.

The issues that matter to me are the social safety nets for people, health care, middle-class concerns. We need to take care of the middle class and the poor in our country.

There will come a time where I'm not gonna do this anymore. I mean, there will come a time, definitely, where I'll turn into Elvis I'm gonna be fat and fishin', I guarantee you.

Country radio went through a time where they were trying to pigeonhole everybody, and trying to make the gap really narrow, and I think that they've opened that up a little bit.

It's innate in me to be a Democrat - a true Southern populist kind of Democrat. There's not a lot of those anymore. I'm not saying I'm right or wrong. That's just the way I feel.

I coach my daughter's softball and basketball team. We go to all the school functions. We go out to eat at night and take the kids to the movies. We try to be as normal as we can.

Love can sort of rebound and regrow and reinvent itself around a lot of things, but when somebody can't forgive themself for something, I think love sort of withers in that situation.

No, there will come a time where I'm not gonna do this anymore. I mean, there will come a time, definitely, where I'll turn into Elvis - I'm gonna be fat and fishin', I guarantee you.

Better than I was, more than I am And all of this happen by taking your hand And who I am now is who I wanted to be And now that we're together I'm stronger than ever I'm happy and free

I try not to worry about other people's music. But if there's one thing that I hear these days, it's that people try and put [music] down so tight that they take all the color out of it.

Sometimes I think as an artist you tend to go toward the heartbreak and the sadness because those are the deepest and heaviest emotions you can pull out as an entertainer and as a singer.

When I was a kid, my step dad started this business and would go out and get lost cows and stuff. He was part-time truck driver, farmer and cowboy. He taught me how to ride from an early age.

I'm probably the most uncool guy that [my daughters] know-as far as they are concerned anyway-'cause I'm Dad. I mean dads just aren't cool-especially when I dance! They don't want me to dance.

Everyone should have their own opinion and be able to voice it. No matter what it is. Of course, that does not mean your opinion is always right. But, you're certainly entitled to your opinion.

I'm a private guy, and you don't want to be out there preaching to people. But faith leads you in the decisions you make. You don't always pick the right path, but it's there in your conscience.

The last movie I did, I was very lucky: I got to work with probably the best actor of our era, Billy Bob Thornton. He's just incredible. I was like a sponge: I soaked up everything he had to say.

I've been around the music business for a long time now, and I've had a lot of chances to do movies. But I didn't really want to do any until I found stuff that started to hit me in the right place.

I'm coming up on 40 next year, and after making so many records and doing music for so long, I'm looking for a change and a different perspective. And every now and then, I think I have something I want to say.

If all my friends were to jump off a bridge, I wouldn't jump with them, I'd be at the bottom to catch them. Everyone hears what you say. Friends listen to what you say. Best friends listen to what you don't say.

I didn't want to play a rancher. I didn't want to have a cowboy hat on; I wanted to get away from that in the things I do. But I read the script and fell in love with it. As hard as I tried to say no, I couldn't.

One of the most memorable live performances of my career took place on the 2002 American Music Awards show when I had to the opportunity to sing with Elton John. I was moved by the way he played the piano onstage.

I think country music is about honesty. Any art has to have honesty to start with, as the core of it. I mean, they're just going to manipulate you in one way or the other, but there has to honesty at the core of it.

I have three daughters, so I can't be as tough as I want to be. When you have kids - especially daughters - they know how to work you. They're a lot smarter than we are, that's for sure. But I'll be more tough on their boyfriends.

I want to run for the Senate from Tennessee. Not now, but when I'm 50, when music dies down a little bit. I know lots of artists and actors have those delusions of grandeur, but ever since I was a kid, it's been of interest to me.

I feel like that I'm learning all the time. I'm learning from new artists, from established artists... every time I listen to '70s rock 'n' roll records, I'm learning. And I think that I'm just now starting to get a hold on what I do.

I think you have to be a little bit strict. You can't be friend and their parent in a lot of situations, especially in this day and age where it's so dangerous for kids. So there's a bit of sternness, I guess, in the way I raise my kids.

I grew up in Louisiana, and I grew up with a dysfunctional family with some very serious abuse from my stepfather, who could be a very beautiful person on one hand and be terrible on the other, so it leaves your soul troubled as a child.

I'm actually not an exhibitionist at all. When you get onstage and you get under the lights playing music, I feel more hidden and more alone than anywhere else. You hide behind your music and let your emotions come out through the music.

You don't try to get influenced by everything that's going on with all the other music around you. You don't listen to the radio - I mean, I don't. When I get ready to do an album, I don't listen to anybody else; I don't wanna be influenced.

It saddens me to think that there are children in America who are hungry every day of their lives. No one can live - and grow - withoiut such a fundamental necessity as food. If we Americans reach out to our own communities, we could end this crisis.

If you don't feel comfortable with the Red Cross, anything that you feel comfortable sending money to -- that you know is going to get to the hurricane victims -- send money. Because that's what you can do to help. And a lot of prayers. Lots of prayers.

I don't want to make that sound like I'm preaching from a mountain top when I say you have to give your family everything, because I know it's hard for people. I'm lucky to be in a position where you can establish those ground rules and make it that way.

I know if I told you what God looked like and felt like then I'd be telling you a story. I just think we don't know. God manifests himself, herself or itself in a way that we need it, in a way that we can grab a hold of and a way that we can put our arms around.

You know not having my real dad around and having a step dad made me want to be a great dad. So now I have been one for 9 years. And now 3 daughters. So, that is what I am - a dad, first and foremost, before anything else. It's just something that comes natural now.

You know, we're very private, and I think that we really separate and try to keep our privacy to ourselves. There's things that people assume a lot of times, and we understand that people are interested, but we really try to keep our family life private as much as we can.

I am heartbroken by the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in my home state. Like so many Americans I am watching the news reports with great sadness. But it's at times like these that each of us must work together to provide lifesaving aid to those in terrible need.

I mean, there's a little bit that gets out, but for the most part, the thing that makes us work, and makes our family successful, and our life successful, is when we walk home and we walk into our doors of our house, all that other stuff is left outside. It's not a factor.

I try to give as much blanket forgiveness as much as possible in my life because that's the only way you can get past things and move forward. But, conversely, I'd like to be forgiven. In many ways, that's the bigger leap, the bigger transformation and the bigger step forward.

It's innate in me to be a blue-dog Democrat. I'm not saying I'm right or wrong, but that's what I am. My wife and I and our family will do everything we can to support Obama. I like his ideas, I like his energy, and I like the statement he would make for our country to the world.

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