I was born in Alabama and my first live music experiences were in church. Every Sunday we watched regional gospel groups on television singing their hearts out.

I've always stuck with Gibsons. I've had Guilds and Fenders, too, but I always wind up going back to Gibsons.

As a solo artist, I just felt cemented in front of the mike stand. There was very little time to play with the audience and be a band member.

I don't like looking back.

When you sign with a label, they do insist upon certain rights, and if you have a competent attorney, your rights will be protected.

There were some older guitarists on my side of town, and I got to know many of them.

I feel like I have the greatest life an artist could dream of.

If music became extinct now, I don't know what I'd be good for.

I soon gave up instruction for self-teaching.

I like being on the road, living in hotels. While I've got a real nice house, I go crazy when I'm there.

When it stops being fun, stop.

If I have an idea, I write it down, although I usually carry a little dictation machine with me because I'm too lazy to write.

I wish I had a nickel for every song that I've left in the bathroom, written down on a matchbox, or just totally forgotten about.

I'm not the kind of guy who deserves to play a vintage guitar because I'm too rough on instruments.

I wrote songs all my life, where anyone wanted to hear them or not.

I was born in Alabama and my first live music experiences were in church. Every Sunday we watched regional gospel groups on television singing their hearts out.

Songwriting is the other weight on the opposite side of the scale from touring. They balance me out creatively.

Success is fickle, but creativity is a gift.

It is all about being open and paying attention to the music in your head. I think most people have original music playing in their heads from time to time.

Once you start thinking about it in a mercenary frame of mind, then you're finished. You're a joke, because there are too many mercenaries out there already.

You can have fun, but you also have to put on your thinking cap every day.

Make sure you know what you are signing when you sign a recording contract.

Les Pauls work out real well for me because I'll beat the hell out of them and they'll still work. The only trouble with them is finding good ones.

When I was about 3, my grandfather used to give me and my sister a nickel to sit out on the front porch with him and sing songs.

It was more fun trying to figure out I Want To Hold Your Hand than to take lessons. By this time I knew basic chords.

When a song gets its legs and begins to come to me, this is the euphoric hook that keeps me wanting to continue.

On acoustic guitar I tend to stay in the key of D for some reason. On electric guitar I keep basic: C, G, D, and A. The key of D minor is also real good for me.

I don't write on tour. There is so much to do day in and day out when you are on the road.

I have always been a sucker for the big, upbeat chorus.

When I became 16 I started thinking seriously about singing.

I love the idea of stepping out of the band situation into a solo world with no boundaries, no expectations, where nothing is out of bounds.

I'd better be on the road, or I'll be going nuts. I'm not the kind of guy who sits around with a pipe and slippers watching soap operas.

We're kind of defined by our mistakes.

Around '75 when the recession hit, club owners started going to disco because it was cheaper for them to just buy a sound system than it was to hire a band.

Timing is everything.

We were playing popular music, but we were doing our own arrangements because we were too lazy to sit down and figure out the originals.

By the time I did that third solo album, I'd finally learned how to do it, but I'd also learned that I liked being in a band.

If it came to saving the life of one priest or sacrificing the life of an entire congregation, the church would save the life of the priest. Which is backwards, of course.

I remember going to church about four times a week. I liked it a lot.

You get a heck of a sound from the church. Can't you hear it in my voice?

Every true prayer is a prayer of the Church; by means of that prayer the Church prays, since it is the Holy Spirit living in the Church, Who in every single soul 'prays in us with unspeakable groanings'.

I think my election is one of several indications that gay and lesbian folk are being brought more into the center of things. I'd like to think that my election signals my bringing of gay and lesbian folk into the center of the church.

So, not only am I panicking over the weekend if I need to know my lines, but also if can I get the kids to the zoo. Can I even go to church? I was asking for certain things that would allow me to plan my life a little better.

The more I do bookstores, the more people come up to me from church groups. I spoke at Pittsburg State College and had 2 or 3 ministers and book groups from a couple of churches.

My father started me singing in church.

Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.

A lot of victims, for example, have become addicted to alcohol and drugs. It seems to me that the church's healing ministry is going to be enhanced through this in much broader strokes. That's good, it's all positive.

The intelligence investigation under the leadership of Senator Church, which I know has helped cause this investigation by you, points out that the agencies did not disclose certain facts to us and that certain plots were going on.

Yesterday I had a Shaker visitor, and today a Catholic; and the more I see and hear, the less do I care about church doctrines.