I've always said I can't tell sometimes that people even have an album out until I see them nominated for a Grammy. I think country gets dumped on across the board by the Grammys.

When I came to DreamWorks, I was in bad trouble. They were in bad trouble. They were millions of dollars in the hole and a few days from closing their doors. I was on my last leg.

Don't compromise even if it hurts to be yourself.

Well, I couldn't do the day-to-day stuff of being a politician or anything, but I just think everybody should have an opinion and everybody should vote, and that's what we're built on.

I say if you're going to take a chance on something, you just go full balls to the wall.

I've always said I can't tell sometimes that people even have an album out until I see them nominated for a Grammy. I think country gets dumped on across the board by the Grammys.

I have drawn a very close bond to all the military people.

Everybody should have their own thing, and if he don't want to be a role model, that should be up to him. In the right situations, I can try to help and be a role model, but I'm still gonna speak my mind, and if that affects the role-model deal, then too bad.

You know, I'm pro-troops, but I'm not pro-war.

My mom taught us the Serenity Prayer at a young age.

We turned what is virtually a glorified independent label into one of the powerhouse labels in the town.

Here's the thing. Just because you're pro-troops doesn't mean you're pro-war. And just because you're anti-war doesn't mean you're anti-troops. Just because you don't support the war people think you are anti-troops and you are a bad guy.

I always vote for the guy I think can get it done. And it ain't nobody's business who I vote for, but I voted for Clinton twice. And that just blows people's minds when they hear that.

I play golf with my shirttail out. I own a golf course because it's very, very close to my house, and I don't want to drive 45 minutes to the north side of Oklahoma City to play golf every day. I have race horses 'cause I love horses and it's my hobby.

I write all year long, and at the end of the year I pull these forty or fifty things out and say, 'Which of these things do I want to record?'

I write all year, and at the end of the year I put an album out. And if sucks, it sucks, and if it's good, it's good. I just let it lay where it lays. It doesn't stop from doing another one next year.

I'm influenced by all kinds of music. I have a very diverse iPod. You never know if I've got it on shuffle. You never know what you are going to hear next. I like all genres.

I'm into hip-hop, rap, country, blues, gospel, old school, new school... whatever... pop. If it's really good, I like it. I don't have to be told what to listen to. If I like it and it's good, I'll listen to it.

If I hear a conversation and somebody says something intriguing, my first thought is, 'Is that a song?' I write all year long, and at the end of the year I pull these forty or fifty things out and say which of these things do I want to record.

In the years that I've seen concerts, when I've paid to see somebody I want to see, there would be a certain amount of songs I'd want to hear. So whether it's stuff I want to play every night or not - or stuff I've been playing for years or stuff you get tired of playing - you have to play what people pay for and make it fair for them.

It's like pulling teeth to get me to do photo shoots. And I don't mind doing interviews if they're by phone, but I hate to go sit down and have to meet somebody somewhere, you know what I mean.

There's a band of studio session - hot players - that play on my albums... They're an eclectic bunch of misfits that I've worked with for years and years.

We try to buy as much American-made shirts as we can and stuff to sell. It's very difficult to cover every base as much as our country has been saturated with foreign products.

When you've got an extra gear in your head where that's all you do, you've constantly got a little radar up. ... And when something hits that strikes that beeper, hits that radar, it's like my song skills kick right in and go, 'Oh, OK, there's a song in that.' And then I start trying to figure it out.

Writing is not work. In fact, there's nothing better. Writing is something that if the music business went completely away tomorrow - radio stations quit existing and music quit being popular and it was old hat - I would still write songs.

Writing songs and looking for ideas is like blinking my eyes. It's an involuntary muscle. I do it without thought.

Dont compromise even if it hurts to be yourself.

I'd catch moonlight in a bottle, if we could drink a toast to hapiness.

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?