I was well traveled, and I created this illusion of literacy through reading and writing. I wrote a book of short stories.

My theory is if you have a religion, it's a good one. Because some people don't have any at all.

The way you look for songs, you find yourself looking for little signals and clues about life and how things are.

I never fixed a story. I didn't make judgments, I let the listener make judgments. When I got to the end of the story, if it had a moral, I let the listener find it.

I am a fan of history.

I was well traveled, and I created this illusion of literacy through reading and writing. I wrote a book of short stories.

I have my own religion. I'm sort of one-quarter Baptist, one-quarter Catholic, one-quarter Jewish.

I love winners when they cry, losers when they try.

Young kids are doing the same thing I did, but they're doing it differently. They don't do brain surgery the way they used to do it either.

The first time with artistic endeavors is, if it's working, it was your idea, and if it's not, it's somebody else's idea.

People think because you're private, you have something you don't want them to know.

The best compliment I ever had is, one day I was in Nashville, some disc jockey said, Hey, that sounds like a Tom T. Hall song. Up until then there hadn't been any such thing.

Whiskey's to tough, Champagne costs too much, Vodka puts my mouth in gear. I hope this refrain, Will help me explain, As a matter of fact, I like beer.

I took up a sort of a hobby of just hanging around the local library. I'd pick out an author and I would read all their books.

This generation should entertain this generation. It's only fair. When I was a kid, I mowed the lawn. Now, somebody else's kid can mow the lawn.

After I retired and came off the road, I gathered up all my musical instruments and suddenly, I wanted them all to be perfect.

I had the notion that I wanted to write the great dirty American novel, so I went to Roanoke College on the GI Bill.

When you retire, it's a place in life, a part of the journey. You just don't quit work; you develop an attitude where you can do what you please.

I never hid out. I was never big enough a star.

I was quite a reader before I became a writer.

Faulkner was almost oriental. I never got into Faulkner.

I'm a very comfortable and happy-go-lucky old man. I never wanted to be great, because I'd just get worried.

My best album is called In Search Of A Song. That was my best shot right there. My finest hour, as they say. I could listen to the whole thing all the way through. There's nothing really crammed into it.

The first guy who came up with the concept of religion was sitting out under a tree. I'm sure of that.

It used to be that you'd have a song recorded by a major country artist and if it was a hit, you could buy a car. Now you can buy a dealership.

I have had hundreds of people work for me over the years, and I don't think I ever fired anybody.

If Barbara Walters was interviewing me, I'd figure her career was as dead as mine!

Religion is a strange, wonderful thing. More crimes have been committed in the name of righteousness than any other notion.

The first time with artistic endeavors is if its working it was your idea and if its not its somebody elses idea.

The enticing allure of Nashville is that there is always something new coming down the pike. Put this record on and you’ll hear footsteps.

Religion is a strange, wonderful thing. More crimes have been committed in the name of righteousness than any other notion

Baseball is a game where a curve is an optical illusion, a screwball can be a pitch or a person, stealing is legal and you can spit anywhere you like except in the umpire's eye or on the ball.

A woman should be an illusion.

Right now, there's the illusion of order and civilization, but there's a tremendous amount of economic tension in this country and the educational system is constantly eroding.

It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it.

Progress is not an illusion, it happens, but it is slow and invariably disappointing.

If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion.

Censors tend to do what only psychotics do: they confuse reality with illusion.

Do not be misled by what you see around you, or be influenced by what you see. You live in a world which is a playground of illusion, full of false paths, false values and false ideals. But you are not part of that world.

It was either Voltaire or Charlie Sheen who said, 'We are born alone. We live alone. We die alone. And anything in between that can give us the illusion that we're not, we cling to.'

It is pure illusion to think that an opinion that passes down from century to century, from generation to generation, may not be entirely false.

Of course the illusion of art is to make one believe that great literature is very close to life, but exactly the opposite is true. Life is amorphous, literature is formal.

We're living under the illusion that we have the power to determine what to do with it.

They're not even within 100 miles of Baghdad. They are not in any place. They hold no place in Iraq. This is an illusion... they are trying to sell to the others an illusion.

When playing a role, I would feel more comfortable, as you're given a prescribed way of behaving. So, both Facebook and theatre provide contrived settings that provide the illusion of social interaction.

If you understand hallucination and illusion, you don't blindly follow any leader. You must know if the person is sane or insane, over the abyss.

We're in an illusion about what our role is in world politics and foreign affairs, and our policies are killing and destroying and doing a lot of things that we are not aware of.

Illusion is the first of all pleasures.

Romantic love is an illusion. Most of us discover this truth at the end of a love affair or else when the sweet emotions of love lead us into marriage and then turn down their flames.