It was really amazing. I mean, he'd never mentioned that he played in the symphony, like serious violin playing, not fiddle playing. And he just blew us away.

All gut strings. That's just the first kind of guitar I played, it was a nylon string guitar. And to me, it's the purest form of guitar making, and I just enjoy doing it.

It's just something I've always done. In South Texas, the first guitar you get is a Mexican guitar. And the first one I got, the first thing I did was take it apart.

Darrell is really good in the studio. I mean, he has a real working knowledge of how the process works, and what sounds good coming back over tape, and how the stuff works together.

I get pretty much all the exercise I need walking down airport concourses carrying bags.

It was really amazing. I mean, he'd never mentioned that he played in the symphony, like serious violin playing, not fiddle playing. And he just blew us away.

Things change all the time, and they'll probably never be the same again. It's just the natural evolution of the human condition. Things change, and whatever it is is what it is. I mean, you try to start second guessing that, you either get rich or die broke.

I have no reason to sit home and write songs all day without going out and playing for the folks. And I have no reason to go play for the folks unless I'm writing new songs so they can sort of feed off one another. And I just try to do the best I can.

I just was apologizing for maybe being a little goofy.

I don't know what the outcome will be. I put a couple away for my grandkids, like that. So I don't know, who knows? Maybe I'll start building guitars for a living.

There aren't any rules, as far as anything-and that applies especially to writing songs, whatever gets the point across. So you're just kind of brought up to feel-in any field, if you say you can do it, do it. There it is.

But by the time you get there and you get home, it winds up being a lot of time out. So I'm getting the itch to build, I know that. I keep looking at my stacks of wood and what I can do with it.

Well, I had a fiddle that I really can't play, so I loaned it to Darrell. But yeah, he's from another planet.

Ain't no chance if you don't take it.

I've known Shawn for several years. And he's just an amazing talent. He's a great writer, a marvelous, marvelous guitar player, and plays really good fiddle.

Mary Gauthier's great. Yeah, we've played a lot of gigs together. She's really wonderful.

Chris is the engineer down at the studio where we do these things. And he's just such an integral part and he has such a marvelous ear. Also it turns out, we didn't know, but he's a pretty good fiddle player.

Most writers who leave their country physically have already left it mentally and emotionally.

President Obama wants to put free enterprise on trial.

Dont explain why it works explain how you use it.

Any article's good. Long as it's publicity, I think that's all that matters. I think it's advancement for my career.

About six months after I moved to New York City, I was literally down to my last twenty dollars when a friend of mine from college got me a job at an Upper East side gym. I ran the cafe, and I was the janitor. It was an unfortunate combination of duties, to say the least.

My mother read nursery rhymes to me, and my grandmother told me folk stories, but as a child I had no interest in writing whatsoever.

What we can control is our readiness.

I dropped out of college when I was 18 to be in a band.

He who boasts of a favor bestowed would like it back again.

When I read the 'Country Strong' script, I thought, 'Can't they just hand-double it? Can't I just do the rest of the movie and not have to do the performing?' It took me six months to learn to sing and play guitar at the same time.

Our company is very diversified, both in terms of geography and in terms of products.

In all things give thanks.

When the culture of police departments is sometimes infused with bias or preconceived ideas against certain groups, there needs to be reform and retraining throughout. And unfortunately, we cannot rely on local departments to police themselves; we need intervention from the top.

He was a father. Thats what a father does. Eases the burdens of those he loves. Saves the ones he loves from painful last images that might endure for a lifetime.

I come to win.

Fear of death increases in exact proportion to increase in wealth.

I grew up in the United Methodist Church, and church was always a very big part of my growing up.

Before you criticize someone you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them you are a mile away from them and you have their shoes.

It is one thing to oppose a bill and say, 'Well, I'm smarter than the other side and have more wisdom than they do,' but it is another thing to oppose a law because it violates the very principles upon which this country was founded.

It's what all writers dream of, that our work finds a measure of immortality that long outlives the words of any critic.

The first time I walked by a crap table, I felt kind of funny.

Intelligence augmentation decreases the need for specialization and increases participatory complexity.

In Korea, the director has the final word. If the director makes a decision, that decision is final. In Hollywood, every decision needs to go through the producer, the studio, and sometimes even the main actor. There is a certain procedure that needs to be followed.

You will find in me a middle aged man with a career behind me sufficiently brilliant to enable me to talk about many things interestingly; and I am not an unkindly soul, I believe.