Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When you got something you gotta do in your career, you do it. When you get home, and there's work to be done, you do that. It's all about balance.
I wanted to be great. And I loved Nashville, so that made it easy. I loved the music business. It made it easy for me to stay and make a life here.
It's fun to play characters in songs. I can just cheat a little bit... be this person for just a small amount of time and just help vent that idea.
It sounds otherworldly and mysterious, submerged under a bed of spacious texture. A place of awe where don't have answers to all of your questions.
People sometimes ask me, because of the blacklisting, "Do you hate the government? Don't you hate white people?" No, it's greed that's the problem.
Playing the Opry, when I get the opportunity - it's one of the coolest honors for any musician in any genre, but especially for a country musician.
If you're lucky enough to draw a good horse, you still have to ride him, then the next ones. So It's probably 80 percent luck and 20 percent skill.
I could be walking down the street one minute and get a handshake and then get spat on the next. I'm never sure whether to wear gloves or a helmet.
I genuinely love Oasis, and I also genuinely love Beyonce. My body gets the same pleasure. If you like different types of music, it's OK to say it.
To say that losing your pancreas is a sad thing is not an overstatement. They had to take my pancreas away, my duodenum, and it's damaged for ever.
Being a mom, I am even more inspired to really help make a difference. I can't imagine what it would be like if my child didn't have a meal to eat.
I'd rather be working for a paycheck, than waiting to win the lottery. Besides, maybe this time it's different, I mean, I really think you like me.
You know, I do speak the Queens English. It's just the wrong Queens that's all. It's over the 59th Street Bridge. It's not over the Atlantic Ocean.
You always have to remember - no matter what you're told - that God loves all the flowers, even the wild ones that grow on the side of the highway.
When I look at how fortunate I've been, being a musician... my response to being overpaid is that I should pay it back to my community in some way.
I've managed to keep my career going in a way that suits me. I'll perform, and then I'll go home to my actual life, and I've never been so visible.
I love writing every song I can like a little mini movie. I like to have a character, or some characters, and really paint a picture with the song.
That song didn't just happen. It grew out of my experiences. 'American Pie' was part of my process of self-awakening: a mystical trip into my past.
I'm really into laces; I always accessorize with shoe laces whether I wear them as a belt, or attached to my shorts or in my hair or as a bracelet.
I do work a lot. I mean, most of my income, I would say, comes from live performances. And then you've got publishing, you've got record royalties.
Coming up in bars and clubs, I would play anything that had a $20 bill attached to it. I did 'Like a Virgin' in a bar one time for a hundred bucks.
Be you. Make sure you're saying something when you're saying something. It's important to sound like you, to feel like you, to be like you. Be you.
I have a master plan as an artist. I've always said I'm not going to be punching nobody's clock. I will work as an artist to survive in this world.
Americans have their issues with skin colour, even within the black community, with light and dark skin; it's crazy - but no one's oblivious to it.
The most personal track would have to be 'Love The Way We Used To.' It's one of the songs that I listen to outside of all the records that I wrote.
Since I was 19, I've always gone where there was a reason to be. Maybe I'll be lucky and there'll be a reason to go somewhere tropical for a while.
I call my therapist every other day. It's not a one-stop shop. You have to push away all that negativity in your head. Face it, name it, let it go.
Now I feel like whatever I do, no one can hurt me. I cannot be violated, I cannot be humiliated, I cannot be disregarded, I cannot be disrespected.
Being beautiful isn't everything... Sometimes it's interesting to show how you feel on the inside on the outside, just through expressing yourself.
A few years ago, I found out that there's a lot of Gypsy blood on my mother's side. I'm wild in that way - I've been brought up to do my own thing.
There's a moment that we all come to, in our own time, in our own space, where all that we've done, we can undo, if our heart's in the right place.
I think a lot of people really have religious overtones of having come from somewhere. I mean, even the whole concept of religion is kind of alien.
As you grow older, you learn to appreciate all the artistry. I'm actually on my way back to the blues, you know, that my mothers and fathers liked.
When I'm just tryna funk, it's gonna be the Staple Singers, man - Pop Staples. And Ray Charles. Ray could take 'Eleanor Rigby' and make that funky.
I have never sung a whole song on my own before and I am not the best dancer in the world, but I would rather try and fall than not not try at all.
Since Bobby Brown, I was the first one to be in my video taking my shirt off and showing the 6-pack and 8-pack. Other people weren't cut like that.
I'm thankful that my daughter's father has allowed me to do what I do because that really makes a difference. I do believe a woman can have it all.
I'm a little nuts. I'm a lot nuts. All I know is that in the midst of the madness of this world it's my therapy. The music touches my heartstrings.
I took the song The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face from a folk singer called Bonnie Dobson. I knew her and she had a record with that track on it.
I'm not very good at multi-tasking. Most people aren't, but they think they are. The mind is really better when you're really focused on one thing.
I said, other people can write songs, let's see if I can. So the first 400 or 500 wound up on the floor somewhere. Then I wrote one called Melissa.
I'm not a real crazy social butterfly - and once I realised that and I accepted it, I started to realise how many people weren't accepting of that.
And the worst part is before it gets any better we're heading for a cliff. And in the free fall I will realize I'm better off when I hit the bottom
Yes, I did lock myself in my room for about two years and write some songs and things like that. But I don't feel like I missed out on a whole lot.
If Jesus Christ came back today, He and I would get into our brown corduroys and go to the nearest jean store and overturn the racks of blue denim.
I love all those stupid, cheesy chat-up lines like 'Did God take the stars out of the sky and put them into your eyes?' But I never get chatted up.
When I started out making music I thought it was about thrills and adding layers, but I realized I want to focus on saying the most with the least.
When I'm in the studio, I just let it rip. That's my process. I get in the booth, and whatever is on my mind at the time, I just go off and say it.
I just want to be in the studio. When you've got all the gear you want in your own house, it's difficult to go out and do something else, you know?
I demo all of my songs on Garage Band, where I pretty much play everything - not very well, but I manage to hammer out a drum beat and a bass idea.