In my songs, I try to look through someone else's eyes, and I want to give the audience a feeling more than a message.

I can't really sit around and talk with people who believe that the Bible is the way it happened, because that's man-made. I'm a writer, too; that's how I look at the Bible. Like, 'I could've written a better version than that,' you know? At least a more interesting one, and then maybe more people would go to church. I could definitely do a revamp.

Yeah, early '71 is when I got my record contract. I had a record come out by August of '71. Things happened really fast.

People keep inventing all these new machines, and producers and recording engineers keep wanting to use them.

When I was a boy, my family used to watch a lot of Laurel and Hardy.

Even when I was coming up in the singer-songwriter ranks during the early '70s, I thought that people who were stylists and stuff shoulda still been up on the pedestal. I mean, it's fine to recognize people who write songs, but it kinda got out of hand, you know?

If you listen to people talk, when people actually talk, they talk in melodies. If they get angry, their voice rises, and it's more of a staccato thing. When they ask for something, they're real sweet. It's all music.

My music has been called so many different things over the years. I figure as long as it's selling, call it what you want.

I think I've finally, after 72 years, gotten used to my voice, and it sounds like a friend now instead of an enemy.

There's only two things. There's life, and there's death.

I think the best duets are those where there's a dialogue back and forth, and then the two singers go into a thing together.

After a couple bouts with cancer and everything, black cats are nothin', you know?

I became a recording artist before I knew it. And I just - when I would listen to my old records, I'd just hear this young, extremely nervous fella that that made me want to run out of the room, you know, rather than listen to what he had to say.

I didn't hear anybody talking about the plight of a soldier coming back home and what he'd gone through. That was why I wrote about that stuff. If somebody else had done it, I probably wouldn't have touched the subject.

When I was a mailman, writing songs was my escape from the regular world, and now writing songs is my job. And I've always been one to avoid my job.

Along the way, we have had some wonderful adventures and have met thousands of dedicated fans - indeed, many of them feel like family to us now.

I've been fortunate enough to always have plenty of work, offers to go out and play shows. The hardest thing I have to do is pick out which one I want. For some reason, there's a great demand out there, whether I've got a new record out or not.

People thought we were crazy for starting a record company. They really thought I was shooting myself in the foot.

'Sam Stone' is a song about futility.

Howie Epstein was a kind, patient, and extremely talented musician. He took two years out of his life and dedicated his undivided attention to the making of two of my records. Those records changed my life thanks to Howie.

All the girls over there in Ireland are well versed in American country music. Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline are like king and queen over there.

I like doing chores.

The only reason I figured out I didn't like my old records to listen was I could hear how nervous I was and how uncomfortable I was. And who would want to sit around and listen to yourself being uncomfortable?

I always feel like every song is the last song.

I never gave up on 'Archie.' I started picking up 'Archie' comics when I was in my thirties, and then I started subscribing to them.

When you're singing somebody else's songs, it's just pure joy to me.

Ignorance is bliss as a writer, I think.

I found it easier to make up songs than to learn other people's songs.

I don't concern myself with where I fit in. I just keep my head down and keep doing whatever it is I'm going.

I just like a good, sad song. The sadder, the better. It moves me.

I guess what I always found funny was the human condition.

I have to have something that really excites me in order to write about it.

Johnny Cash was like Abraham Lincoln to me.

When I'm writing a lyric, things can only get so serious before they start becoming humorous.

You get to thinking that because you've written 50 or 100 songs, you think maybe you know how to do it. But when they're not coming along, you're just as in the dark as you ever were. When they're coming along, there's nothing to it. Sometimes it's so easy, it's like you're a court stenographer.

I grew up in Chicago, but I spent a lot of time down in Kentucky, and Kentucky was about 20 years behind the life that was in Chicago.

I can blame a lot of things for not writing songs, but cancer isn't one of them.

Some voices don't blend. They just kinda rub against each other.

My first Grammy nomination? I was 24 - I was nominated for best new artist of the year.

For me, there's nothing like performing.

I never fit in with straight country. I never really fit in with rock n' roll. I've always been somewhere in between all this stuff.

In the Army, I was very good at avoiding my job!

I hate to admit it to my wife, but I only wear two outfits on the road, and then a third one during the day, but I carry about 20.

The Songwriters Hall of fame, that's the one all the big-time writers get into, the really great stuff, the Broadway stuff and all that. That would be something, to get your name in there.

The only time I ever think about getting old is when I look in the mirror. I feel pretty good about it, actually.

The more producers I talked to, the more I got looked at like I was crazy for wanting to make a live-sounding album.

In high school, I was a poor student.

If some part of the review is true, those are the ones that sting.

I think it shows when you have to work too hard on a song.

Writing songs used to be my hobby; it used to be my getaway.