“When my wife died, I booked myself into the studio just to work, to occupy myself.”

“Backstage at the Grand Ole Opry, I got on my knees and told her that I was going to marry her some day. We were both married to someone else at the time. ‘Ring Of Fire’ — June and Merle Kilgore wrote that song for me – that’s the way our love affair was. We fell madly in love and we worked together all the time, toured together all the time, and when the tour was over we both had to go home to other people. It hurt.”

“Flesh and blood needs flesh and blood, and you’re the one I need.”

“Loneliness is emptiness, but happiness is you.”

“She’s the greatest woman I have ever known. Nobody else, except my mother, comes close.”

“There’s no way around grief and loss: you can dodge all you want, but sooner or later you just have to go into it, through it, and, hopefully, come out the other side. The world you find there will never be the same as the world you left.”

“I’m not really concerned about boundaries. I just follow my conscience and my heart. Follow your heart. That’s what I do. Compassion is something I have a lot of, because I’ve been through a lot of pain in my life. Anybody who has suffered a lot of pain has a lot of compassion.”

“Life and love go on, let the music play.”

“All your life, you will be faced with a choice. You can choose love or hate…I choose love.”

“I don’t have Paul’s calling – I’m not out there being all things to all men to win them for Christ – but sometimes I can be a signpost. Sometimes I can sow a seed. And post-hole diggers and seed sowers are mighty important in the building of the Kingdom.”

“If you don’t get outside every day, even for a minute, you have not appreciated what God has done. It makes you grateful for our surroundings, and it starts your day differently.”

“No matter how much you’ve sinned, no matter how much you’ve stumbled, no matter how much you fall, no matter how far you’ve got from God, don’t give up. You can still be redeemed. As someone says, keep the faith.”

“Life is the question and life is the answer, and God is the reason and love is the way.”

“I am not a Christian artist, I am an artist who is a Christian.”

“I read novels but I also read the Bible. And study it, you know? And the more I learn, the more excited I get.”

“We’ll all be equal under the grass, and God’s got a heaven for country trash.”

“God’s the final judge for Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash too. That’s solely in the hands of God.”

“I have tried drugs and a little of everything else, and there iss nothing in the world more soul-satisfying than having the kingdom of God building inside you and growing.”

“I love songs about horses, railroads, land, Judgment Day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. And Mother. And God.”

“There is a spiritual side to me that goes real deep, but I confess right up front that I’m the biggest sinner of them all.”

“How well I have learned that there is no fence to sit on between heaven and hell. There is a deep, wide gulf, a chasm, and in that chasm is no place for any man.”

“The Master of Life been good to me. He has given me strength to face past illnesses, and victory in the face of defeat. He has given me life and joy where other saw oblivion. He Has given new purpose to live for, new services to render and old wounds to heal. Life and love go on, let the music play.”

“My arms are too short to box with God.”

“The gospel of Christ must always be an open door with a welcome sign for all.”

“Jesus will not fail me, I shall not be moved.”

“When God forgave me, I figured I’d better do it too.”

“Everybody was wearing rhinestones, all those sparkly clothes, and cowboy boots. I decided to wear a black shirt and pants and see if I could get by with it. I did and I’ve worn black clothes ever since.”

“I wear black because I’m comfortable in it. But then in the summertime when it’s hot I’m comfortable in light blue.”

“I was wearing black clothes almost from the beginning. I feel comfortable in black. I felt like black looked good onstage, that it was attractive, so I started wearing it all the time.”

“I wore black because I liked it. I still do, and wearing it still means something to me. It’s still my symbol of rebellion — against a stagnant status quo, against our hypocritical houses of God, against people whose minds are closed to others’ ideas.”

“I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down, Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town, I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime, But is there because he’s a victim of the times. I wear the black for those who never read.”

“Until things are brighter, I’m the man in black.”