Country's hip; it's cool music.

It's part of the calling to at least do a few songs in the show that give people some hope. There's so much hurt in this world and... music is such a great healing balm and a great way to forget your troubles.

I look back to when I got divorced in the late 1970s. When that happened, I was so broken up. After that, I decided to seek God for my life and my next marriage.

I'm not a goody-two-shoes. I'm just a father with four children.

Country and western is ignored by the intellectuals. They don't look at it as an art form. They think it's just somebody sitting on his couch singing about his life.

Maybe you're going to a concert thinking you're not going to hear anything but music. But you may walk away from there with an answer to a problem that you're carrying around with you that you didn't think you were going to hear about.

The difference between me and the newer artists is that I have the history with the architects, the masters that started the music. I know where the music came from.

I hate negative songs; I won't sing them. It doesn't matter if it's sold 2 million more albums.

Country's hip; it's cool music.

That's kind of the mission statement for the label: to try to do great music that touches people's hearts.

After 'Mosaic,' I think a lot of people didn't know what my next record was going to be. And that's what I love. I just love doing music because I'm not going to follow the patterns and formulas of Music Row.

Do excellent work for Christ. So that's my heart. It's always been. And I want to be the best I can be. I want to make a difference in my generation.

Even with the sun beaming down on me I'm not sweating in my mind. I'm not sweating in my heart or in my career.

Great music is great music, period.

I always had a standard of, back when I was doing the country music I always told people I would never record a song that I wouldn't sit down and sing in front of my mom and dad.

I always try to entertain folks with good clean fun and stories from my youth.

I had some good teachers. One of the greatest teachers I've had is bluegrass music: going back and listening to Bill Monroe's music, the Stanley Brothers, Flatt & Scruggs. When I was with Ralph Stanley I learned a lot from him.

I mean, I could tell that I really had... a precious gift. And I'm so glad that I have followed through with it and really used that gift and nurtured it, honed it, made it sharp and tried to use it as a tool now to make music and to make a living for my family.

I try to keep my heart and myself available for those little, 'God moments,' are what I call them, where someone calls the office and says, 'Would Ricky be interested in doing this?'

I've always moved by my heart. I've moved by the spirit of what I feel was right for me next. I always pray and ask God: 'What's the next thing? What am I supposed to do next?'

I've got tapes that I'm so thankful that my father made - old reel-to-reel tapes. I've got a ton of those things at home. He kept those like fine diamonds, I mean he kept them, you know, in a box and was very, very careful of them, you know.

It doesn't matter if you stick the name 'bluegrass' on it. I think people call things bluegrass that I wouldn't necessarily call bluegrass, but what they're calling country music today I'm not sure that I would call country music. But I love music and I try to encourage people.

The fall is my favorite time of year. I love the colors. The sun is out, you get warmth on your skin but there's the coolness of the breeze. It's really comfortable.

There's art in rhythm playing. Just find it. Make your own art. Find your place, and when it's your time to solo, it's your time to shine.

We should give the Lord the excellence He deserves in everything we do.

When I hear bluegrass today, I hear so many new sounds in it. It's almost like country music in a way.

When Jack White called and wanted me to do a video and play mandolin with The Raconteurs, I didn't know anything about The Raconteurs at that time.

But like the rest of the country, Maine has reached an impasse, for most of the mercury that fouls our skies, waters and land comes from outside our borders.

Education is the cornerstone of our communities and our country.

For a country to have a great writer is like having another government. That's why no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones.

The successful establishment of a buffer zone around Fort Carson will provide an example for other bases around the country as we seek to protect the training mission of the U.S. military while preserving critical habitats on our ranges.

Then, in that hour of deliverance, my heart spoke. Does not such a country, and such defenders of their country, deserve a song?

Prosperous farmers mean more employment, more prosperity for the workers and the business men of every industrial area in the whole country.

You look at the whole Human Rights questions, I happened to be there at just the right time when the country was awakening - this goes to the first question you asked - the whole country was awakening to a hundred years of injustice that hadn't been resolved yet.

It may be shocking to some people in this country to realize that, without meaning to do so, they hold views in common with Hitler when they preach discrimination against other religious, racial or economic groups.

So, for example, a country was into recession right after I was sworn in, a dot-com bust had taken place. Then the attacks of September the 11th, and then of course the great financial meltdown in the -the fundamental question facing any presidency is how do you deal with the hand you're dealt?

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

The day cold and fair with a high easterly wind: we were visited by two Indians who gave us an account of the country and people near the Rocky mountains where they had been.

It was clear that the special interest groups in California really wanted the Chinese to be shut out of the country, because that was where the racial tension was the greatest.

Duty, Honor, Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be.

What makes my approach special is that I do different things. I do jazz, blues, country music and so forth. I do them all, like a good utility man.

Disney had such a hold on the mind of America-they were Adolf Hitler. The whole country thought Disney was some sort of god and that animation was some sort of pure thing for children.

To stop terrorists before the strike, we must do three things: deny them entry into the country, curtail their freedom of action inside the country, and deprive them of material and moral support from within the country.

As I think through the issue of funding the rebuilding of Iraq, I think about the analogy of a bankruptcy proceeding. There is no doubt that Iraq as a country is bankrupt.

I have some strategical vision, I could calculate some few moves ahead and I have an intellect that is badly missed in the country which is run by generals and colonels.

Yesterday in this country we had people die of hunger and malnutrition. In some parts of this country, the infant mortality rate rivals that of sub-Saharan Africa. We have a public education system that ranks below that of almost any other Western nation.

When I reached adulthood, even now, I could afford to belong to a country club. But I could never belong to a private club because of my experience as a child, because it would isolate me from the whole of humanity.

The Clinton administration launched an attack on people in Texas because those people were religious nuts with guns. Hell, this country was founded by religious nuts with guns. Who does Bill Clinton think stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock?

The whole country is one vast insane asylum and they're letting the worst patients run the place.