"I just continue to look for different material, great material, as good as I can find, and try to go in there and do as good a job as I can do in making it a record. That's all you can expect. That's all that you can do."

"I remember that in '81, country radio was pretty pop, and everybody wanted a crossover record - and all of a sudden it came back to traditional. Now it's kind of swung the other way a little bit, but it always comes back."

"I love the song 'El Rey.' And for years, I never knew what the song was totally about. It was something new for me. I'd never sung a song in Spanish before. Then I got the translation and saw what a really cool song it was."

"I've always liked Frank Sinata and Big Band music."

"Life's not the breath you take, but the moments that take your breath away."

"Baby fall into my kiss It should just happen like this... ....drink up this love...."

"I've always thought that whether I'm writing or not, I've gotta pick the best songs, whether or not they're mine. I'm not gonna sing them just because I wrote them. I've gotta find the best songs to make the best record I can."

"I think that all my albums are different enough where I don't feel like I did this the last time."

"I didn't want to be 40 or 50 years old and still playing clubs, I didn't feel like I was making any progress, and I actually gave the band notice at one point. I began to have doubts about my abilities."

"Country music is important to me, and I love it, but it's not my whole life."

"Life isn't about the breathes you take, it's the moments that take your breathe away."

"I'm going to write, and after two years, when I've quit touring, if a special event comes up that I want to do, by all means I will do it, but as far as a structured tour goes, at the last date of 2014 goes, that will be it for touring."

"I always enjoy it when I walk on stage. There were some times when I was working so much in the '80s, and I felt really burnt-out. But I'd be up there singing and not be 10,000 million miles away, you know, just opening my mouth and the words coming out."

"I'm just not going to tour. One point I want to get across to everybody is that I'm still going to make records and I may still do some events. It's not the last time I'm onstage. It's been a part of my life for too long to quit everything. I have done it since the '80s, and I think it's time now to maybe see if I can live without that part."

"I think the melody is the first time I hear in a song and if I like the melody, then I'll pay closer attention to the lyrics."

"I listen to Mark Chestnutt and think he's a great singer - and he really does good material."

"I don't think my music's as traditional as people make it out."

"You know, traditional country music is something that's going to be around forever... I'm not worried about it."

"In the beginning, I wanted to be successful. I wanted to make and have hit records. And I wanted everything that went along with it."

"Swing is my favorite kind of music."

"Of all the songs I've recorded, 'Amarillo By Morning' always sticks out in my mind."

"If it's a good song and it fits me, that's what I'm going to do, I'm not out there trying to change the world. I'm just out there trying to sing country music the best way I can."

"I discovered in college that country music could be fun adding some swing to it."

"Even though I've been doing it for so long, I still feel fresh. Even when I walk out on stage, I still feel pretty much the same as I've always felt."

"If twang isn't what I do, I don't know what is."

"In the beginning, I wanted to be successful. I wanted to make and have hit records."

"I love to fish offshore for billfish, and have fished all over for them from the Bahamas, St. Thomas, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico to the Texas gulf. I haven't made it to Australia yet, but someday I'm going."

"Country music is important to me, and I love it, but it's not my whole life... I like to be outdoors, I like to hunt, I like to fish, I like to play golf."

"I've been blessed with the ability to sing, and that has taken me so many places I never would have gone otherwise."

"I love to fish. You can go hours without anything happening, and all of a sudden a big blue marlin comes into the spread and it's cockpit chaos. My dream is to catch a grander, a 1,000 pounder."

"I've just tried for all of these years to find the best records, the best songs that I could find that fit me, and I've had great people to work with all these years."

"I've been fortunate."

"You've got to keep the stage world and your real world separated or you're headed for trouble."

"We work hard when we're in the studio, but then when we take our breaks, we walk outside and look around."

"My son had toyed with the idea of writing and trying to write a little bit, so that kind of gave me the bug to write also."

"If you start out trying to achieve a specific thing - like doing stadium shows or going into the studio and doing an album - the end result is what counts."

"I think 'Beyond the Blue Neon' is the best I've ever done."

"I loved making Pure Country. It was a great learning experience for me, seeing another part of the entertainment industry."

"I get asked sometimes 'What's the highlight of my career?' because I've been doing it for so long, and I always have a hard time coming up with something, because so many good things have happened."

"Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys are simply the best band that ever was."

"Sinatra, in my opinion, is possibly the greatest male singer of all time."

"Live's not the breathes you take, but the moments that take your breath away."

"I'd say three years ago we played in my hometown of San Antonio for 55,000 people at the Alamodome and walking out there with a crowd like that is just, you're excited, you're scared. There are just so many emotions going on. I still get nervous for things like that until after I sing about the first one or two songs, then I settle down."

"I'm always looking for great songs, and not being much of a songwriter, I depend on great songwriters to send them to me. I go through tons of stuff, and sometimes you just find material that kind of fits and becomes something special."

"When I think about putting together an album, the process of listening to hundreds of songs each time and picking out the best 10 or so that will go on the record, it really sinks in as to just how many songs I've listened to all these years."

"One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures."

"We don't believe in planners and deciders making the decisions on behalf of Americans."

"I believe in the transformational power of liberty. I believe that the free Iraq is in this nation's interests. I believe a free Afghanistan is in this nation's interest."

"The United States prefers that Iraq meet its obligations voluntarily, yet we are prepared for the alternative."

"People forget... that we structured it so that the government, or the people, would be repaid with a really good rate of return. And as it turns out, that aspect of TARP, that's what happened."