The nice thing about the world that I've been able to inhabit for the last couple of years is that I'm given a lot of freedom. Not all artists really get that.

I don't stare at a sheet of paper and try to think of a good word to use. I try to see where the story should go.

Alison Krauss is definitely my favorite singer that's ever lived. I've never heard anyone like her.

It just gets easier in that you become more you in the process.

Even on the most serious ballads, I'll throw in a tongue-in-cheek remark.

When they say you're the best, I always remember that the majority of the audience probably thinks someone else should have gotten the award.

It comes down to building your own world out here on the road. It's who you surround yourself with. My band and crew are really positive guys.

I've heard my share of Van Halen. I never liked rock.

I'm aware of the fact that a lot of talented people out there will never get this chance.

The nice thing about the world that I've been able to inhabit for the last couple of years is that I'm given a lot of freedom. Not all artists really get that.

Guitar playing isn't really for everybody.

I go to eat dinner with my folks when I'm home. I think that's the trick.

You look out there and there's people that, their day is changed because of your contribution to it.

I've been on the road I think probably three years.

I'm sure there are a few things in my CD collection that might surprise people. I like classical music, the blues, and I'm a big fan of alternative rock.

I changed my mindset and figured, Why not try to be really entertaining instrumentally?

As a guitar player, it's harder for me to impress somebody than it is to write a song that they like.

I like to look at the songs like they're little movies.

In the past, I tried to be more of a typical session guitarist. I wasn't so concerned with impressing anybody.

Willie Nelson, out there 200 days a year, calls his band family. And it is.

Anytime you do something from the heart, people just know it.

If there's a song where there's a possibility of guitar stuff that would be fun to listen to, go for it. Don't worry about what anybody thinks.

Even in your darkest moments, you'll think of something that'll crack you up.

I really worked to try and be creative enough on the guitar parts so those who aren't real educated would know that there was some difficulty in doing it.

With my guys and with the way that we live out there, we work out a lot and try to eat right, but we try to basically keep it our own rhythm and our own world.

If I get an idea for a song, I have a melody for it. I'm a musician first. I'm not limited by the fretboard.

I love any and all situations where you celebrate creativity.

I imagine there's a market for total depression. I grew up on George Jones and that really dark stuff.

If you're really on top, you probably didn't do that great, 'cause you have to water it down a bit for it to get that mass appeal.

Country music has become the music that best represents the reality of American life.

Date night is important, even if it's going to Schlotzsky's.

Deep down, I'm just a West Virginia hillbilly.

I don't have, you know, an 'overcoming addiction' story, other than the guitar itself, and I haven't overcome that. I don't have a jail time, you know, story, or any arrests.

I have a to-do list and I have a farm I care for, and things I like to do for fun - going to movies and all that stuff. It's a painfully normal life!

I have a very down-to-earth father. My wife is an actress and famous herself is more down-to-earth than anyone I know.

I jetset around and play these songs and get to hang with some pretty amazing people, then I go home to a really great farm, though actually it's a disaster area of a farm at the moment. But it's certainly a blast. I wouldn't trade lives with anyone right now.

I love being an enigma. Every time I'm tempted to respond to someone who tries to put me in a box, politically - you know, someone who gets on the Internet and says, you're pro-gun, or you're anti-gun - I stop and say to myself, 'This is great; this is what I wanted. I wanted to be the guy you can't figure out.'

I try to write like the writers I admire - I rip them off in form. It comes from George Strait and Merle Haggard records, and country music in general is really good at that, the twisted phrase... So I'm always looking for that angle in my own work.

I'm a huge, huge fan of almost everything British. I love 'The Office' - I was a faithful follower of that show before the American version.

I've always known from the time I was eight years old what I wanted to do. I would have been fairly content to be someone's lead guitar player.

If you fall in love with somebody, then you're not even worried about your bills. Love can take your mind off of anything.

It's a very smart, progressive bunch, these people that make country music. They're not country hicks sitting behind a desk with a big cigar giving out record deals and driving round in Cadillacs with cattle horns on the front grille: it's a bunch of really wonderful, open-minded, great people down on Music Row that make this music.

My dad was president of the volunteer fire department, which was within walking distance to our house. I spent several days of each week there with him - any time the whistle blew, he went. It was truly inspiring to watch him lead that way.

My father's a firefighter. He was my whole life. And my brother-in-law and several family members are firefighters.

My life would be very puzzling to most people if they had to follow me around for a day or two.

No one can make the album they made 10 years ago with a straight face. There are two reasons: one is you change as a person. To be a true artist, I have to be true to who I am now and write that way. And the second thing is these are different times.

No one dislikes LL Cool J. If you meet LL Cool J, you fall in love with LL Cool J. LL and I had mutual friends, and he and I had always talked about doing something. My fans know LL's music. And I love him - we're blood brothers at this point. We've been through the fire together. I know no finer person.

That there's no more important decision in life than who you marry.

There may be people in my audience who may not agree with me on some particular issue - you know, say, as a gun owner, they may not agree with me, or, you know, someone may not agree with me on a gay marriage topic. Any of those things. But those shouldn't be the reasons you listen to my music.