"I've been writing songs since I was a little boy. You know, I think I wrote my first song when I was 11."

"I think I'm a much better father as an older man than I was with my first kids. Occasionally, I have to yell at the little guys, but they don't take me seriously. 'Listen to the old guy,' they say. 'Isn't he great? He's mad.'"

"I always had to wait until something hit me, and I could write it. But when I would cut an album, to me it represented the time that I spent since the last one. Just the way I was looking at the world."

"Johnny Cash has always been larger than life."

"Freedom is just another word: It seems to get truer the older I get."

"I had a list of rules I made up one time. It says: Tell the truth, sing with passion, work with laughter, and love with heart. Those are good to start with, anyway."

"I have no regrets. I feel very grateful for the life that I had - you know, family I live with; and I've been doing work that I love, ever since I came to Nashville."

"I've been trying to think of things to tell my kids, something that I could pass down, and it's like, gee whiz, I maybe never learned anything that didn't contradict itself."

"Nothing ain't worth nothing but it's free."

"Your weight has to be behind the punch to make it matter."

"I was working the Gulf of Mexico on oil rigs, flying helicopters. I'd lost my family to my years of failing as a songwriter. All I had were bills, child support, and grief. And I was about to get fired for not letting 24 hours go between the throttle and the bottle. It looked like I'd trashed my act. But there was something liberating about it."

"There are points in your life, especially if you have creative ambitions, where selfishness is necessary."

"If you can't get out of something, get into it."

"I never thought of acting as a creative process. Christ, I used to go to the movies and see Brando talking like he was trying to sell shoes, and he was great. I thought anybody could do it. Then I tried it, and I got so uptight, I'm limited as to what I can do on film."

"The closest I've come to knowing myself is in losing myself. That's why I loved football before I loved music. I could lose myself in it."

"If it hadn't been for Johnny Cash, I'd probably have been a Nashville "songwriter "because that's what I had done for almost five years."

"I have a special place in my heart for Nashville because it saved my life back in the day."

"I feel so lucky to have lived the life that I did and to be surrounded by the people I love. I've got eight kids, and they're always laughing all the time. It's like music to my ears. I think that my frame of mind these days is probably happier than I've ever been, which is kind of odd, coming close to the finish line."

"Everything that I write is sort of autobiographical, and I don't know that I'm getting better, but I'm certainly running out of time."

"I grew up listening to Hank Williams and Johnny Cash, so arriving in Nashville in the '60s was really exciting for me."

"To me, if you love it enough to devote your life to it, then you're doing the right thing."

"I got scars on my face that tell some kind of story. I'm looking in the mirror, and I got one scar that's really two scars - half from a baseball bat and half from playing football in college. I'll tell you, though, after a while, your face gets so wrinkled up you can hardly see them."

"I feel like I'm kind of lazy, but I keep the yard looking good."

"I grew up in a time when people believed in duty, honor and country. My grandfathers were both officers. My father was a General in the Air Force. My brother and I were both in the Army. I've always felt a kinship with soldiers; I think it's possible to support the warrior and be against the war."