We had to go all through the night thinking that our baby was dead. When God showed him to us, he wasn't dead, he was sucking his thumb. God had him safe and sound. He is a miracle. He is so healthy, so perfect, and God has really, really blessed us.

That is the exciting thing: I don't know what God has given me for tomorrow.

That's what I loved about show business, no two days were alike. It's an exciting life.

It seems to me that unless you or someone very close to you has had a bad head injury, you really can't fathom it. You have no concept of what it is all about. It was so difficult for my whole family, not just me.

When I retired from my music November 1997, it had been 37 years.

I don't know what the future holds, but I know that God holds tomorrow, so it is exciting. Even when I have hard things happen, He loves me so big, so much. I come through it and I grow from it, because He has got me.

I am loving being Momma. I really, really am.

I am not saying that I'm happy about what's going on right now in our nation, but I am at peace and I am comforted because I know that He's on the throne. That is good enough for me.

And they just saw me on that and - from the time I was 11 until I was 12, I guess. And then when I had just turned 13, they asked me if I wanted to tour with Johnny Cash back East.

We had to go all through the night thinking that our baby was dead. When God showed him to us, he wasn't dead, he was sucking his thumb. God had him safe and sound. He is a miracle. He is so healthy, so perfect, and God has really, really blessed us.

By our Heavenly Father and only because of God, only because of God. We're like other couples. We do not get along perfectly; we do not go without arguments and, as I call them, fights, and heartache and pain and hurting each other. But a marriage is three of us.

For the next approximately three years, I have got Nathan to take care of. I know that once he graduates from high school, he will be off doing whatever it is he is going to be doing - probably playing ice hockey.

I think it was 37 years that I did music.

I realize we're not promised tomorrow. Believe me, I realize that. But if God blesses me and lets me stay, I love my life so much, it is such a good life. I am eager to throw myself at His feet, but I don't want to get on the first busload that is going.

I have lots of favorite shows, but not reality! I don't like reality TV so much. I'm saddened by people who don't show respect to each other and to themselves. It's horrible. Unfortunately, that's demonstrated a lot on reality television.

I just like doing silly girly things. If I wrap a gift, I like to use specials ribbon and hot glue, silk flowers and things.

I learned mainly through television, but I learned how to do mosaic, where you can buy stones or things of that nature. But also where you bust the tile to decorate pots for flowers or table tops. Lots of different things. Wherever you want it, you can mosaic just about anything. It took me about two weeks to do a big birdbath.

I might not be very smart, but I surround myself with smart people.

I'm a very competitive person, and I always competed with myself. Every year, I'd take six weeks with my band, crew and choreographer to put a new show together. We'd spend eight hours per day, seven days per week putting a show together to beat the last year's show.

I've always been one for show business. I like performing, and I used to get criticized for having production value. But now it's all that! People need to get what they pay for! Otherwise, just listen to recorded music.

I've been told by a lot of people after concerts that they felt the show was just for them. And I try to make it that way.

In my garden, which is a big garden, I have one part that is my bird garden, and every morning, 365 days a year, they get buckets of food - for the birds, for the squirrels, the chipmunks and the turtles in the summer.

It's an exciting life. I don't know where God is leading us. I just know that He opens doors and He closes the doors, and it is always the best for us.

The greatest gift God has given me is the capacity of love for people. I have so many faults, but caring about people is not one of them.

We're only here to love God and each other. I'm not saying I've never gotten angry at anyone. I do. But you've got to forgive and move on.

What I do miss that I don't get anymore? You're going to think I'm crazy, but you want the truth, so here it is. The lights! I miss the spotlights. I don't mean it figuratively. I mean it literally. I love the feeling of lights.

When I had my television show, 'Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters,' it was my high hope to convert people to country music. It is wonderful and contagious!

I think we will have a boy baby and he will be born on the 20th of August. Everyone else has a girl baby and at times I don't believe I should mind having a little Phyllis Dawn but Dearest wants a boy and I do.

In fact I have nightmares about having children. I want to carry a baby and feel the life within me and in my dream, I do. But every time after it's born, there's this incredible fear, this pounding pulse of fear. It's a real bad nightmare.

Being a father, well, I don't know if this is a change, but it makes me want to get out of here faster. Get off the clock. Just 'cause the baby is my reason for living, my reason for coming to work.

Well ironically my last three roles have all been a mother. One was a Canadian film where the baby was taken away because she is a drug addict, in Irish Jam I play a mother to a four year old. I think in the future I'll be able to handle the role with a lot more depth.

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.

I don't like my hockey sticks touching other sticks, and I don't like them crossing one another, and I kind of have them hidden in the corner. I put baby powder on the ends. I think it's essentially a matter of taking care of what takes care of you.

Babies don't need a vacation, but I still see them at the beach... it pisses me off! I'll go over to a little baby and say 'What are you doing here? You haven't worked a day in your life!'

Having a baby dragged me, kicking and screaming, from the world of self-absorption.

I didn't have any problem bonding with Honey, but I was plagued with insecurities about my ability to bring up my baby.

I got introduced to audiobooks because of having a baby.

I've been chased through airports with a screaming baby because the photographers are ruthless, and they want the picture.

The thing that stood out above and beyond all the experiences was this relationship with the nine-month-old baby. On weekends, I'd be thinking about going back to set on Monday just to see the baby.

But at the same time that the experience is pulling you apart, it's also bonding you. You have this joint venture! You both made this baby. And that's the thing I still can't get over.

My father always wanted to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding and the baby at every christening.

I met my wife and, for the next ten years, we did no films at all. She did the first movie and then I did several after. My first movie was written by Tennessee Williams and directed by Kazan and was called Baby Doll.

Yes, I've kissed a lot of guys. I like to kiss, but that's it. I don't go home with anyone. I sleep with my animals, like my baby monkey, Brigitte Bardot.

Carrying a baby is the most rewarding experience a woman can enjoy.

If we intensify our efforts we can have a cloned baby within a year or two, but I don't know whether we can intensify our efforts to that extent. We're not really under pressure to deliver a cloned baby to this world. What we are under pressure to do is to deliver a cloned baby that is a healthy one.

And when our baby stirs and struggles to be born it compels humility: what we began is now its own.

My father described me as the oldest baby he'd ever seen. I apparently was very serious and reflective.

Nobody took me too seriously but I was grown up even as a baby.

I stand on the sidewalk watching it because the responsibility is mine and I must, I take a very firm hold on the handles of the baby carriage and I wheel it into the traffic.