And the whole thing is that you're treated like a step-child. Here it was down here, everything in the black, because they were stealing, basically. Stealing from us old country boys down here.

Jessi is a great person. She really is. She's been a friend to me all through all my bad times, and she's understood what I was doing. She came up with that one saying, which was great.

But you know, the system almost destroyed itself while it was goin' on trying to destroy us.

I never have any problem getting enthusiastic with a good song and a good band.

I was king of the mountain for a long time, well, I don't want that no more. I like to perform every once in a while for people who want to see me, and cut albums of music that is what I'm really about.

Honesty is something you can't wear out.

Mainly what I learned from Buddy... was an attitude. He loved music, and he taught me that it shouldn't have any barriers to it.

I love Johnny Cash, and I respect Johnny Cash. He's the biggest. He's like an Elvis in this business, but no, he's never been the rebel.

We did an album one time called White Mansions, about the civil war, but it was written by a guy from England. His looking at it from over there and it not being a part of his history made it so he could be objective.

A lot of times they don't want to hear it. But you know, if some good is done to you, you should pass it on.

Besides that, I felt guilty. I thought for some reason... I was alive, and Buddy and those boys were dead, and I didn't know how, but somehow I'd caused it.

I didn't aim at anything except good music.

Now, I don't know how they judge all that, but if anybody in the world deserves to be in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, Ritchie Valens does.

Finally, my manager negotiated a deal where I got to produce my own records.

You know, in the days when I started, if you had Chet Atkins' name on your record as a producer and it was on RCA, you could work the road. It didn't have to be a big hit record, it just had to have that on it.

Because Ritchie Valens WAS the real deal. He was only starting, but in the time he spent in the business, he made big impact. I don't know if anybody could have made a bigger one.

And the whole thing is that you're treated like a step-child. Here it was down here, everything in the black, because they were stealing, basically. Stealing from us old country boys down here.

Don't ever try and be like anybody else and don't be afraid to take risks.

I mean, I think we're put here on earth to make your own destiny, to begin with. I don't think there's anything you can do this way or that way to change anything.

I may be crazy, but it keeps me from going insane.

But ya know what, I am a part of something that happened. I'm a part of the music that happened. My voice is one more instrument, is what it is. So that's the way I feel about people who play on sessions.

So I'm not very popular here with those inside the system, as you might guess. I never wanted to be.

You know, I feel sorry for the young artists.

It was all devastating. I'd never dealt with losing anyone close to me, and I didn't know where to put it in my life. I was very young then. Buddy taught me so much in such a short time.

But Buddy was an upper. He was happy. He loved music, and he was really happy. I don't know... I don't believe in reincarnation at all, but if all that stuff is true, then he might have been on his last time around.

One thing is that I wasn't getting booked that well, and they had control over who got the awards, they had control over who sold. And they really did not want Willie or me, either one, to have a hit record. They wanted the money, but they didn't want us to be the ones.

Cuz I was never pretty anyway and never cared anything about that.

Now, I was on drugs, and that didn't help a whole lot. He hated that. That was part of where Chet and I had problems, so I take complete blame for that.

Chet loved artists. He did. But he was caught up in the system. He had two hats. He had to have 'em because he did two things: he was an artist, and he was an executive.

This world that I live in is empty and cold the loneliness cuts me and tortures my soul.

To me a guitar is kind of like a woman. You dont know why you like em but you do.

There were a lot of adventure books for boys, historical novels by Kenneth Roberts, and whatever mystery novels the alarmed librarian imagined might not corrupt an eager but innocent youth.

I didn't have a boyfriend until I was 17. There were boys at school that I would find out later had a crush on me but I was too shy to talk to them.

When it comes to boys and her weight, I think Ellenor is much more conservative than I am, and she has not had the dialogue I have had about my weight.

Americans are big boys. You can talk them into almost anything. Just sit with them for half an hour over a bottle of whiskey and be a nice guy.

I keep fit by running after my three boys all day.

Looking back, I think we were all quite mature, surprisingly responsible. In earlier wars, boys of our age had just gone off to raise hell or enlist or both, but we stayed dutifully at our desks doing tomorrow's homework.

Of course The Beach Boys will be camp.

The moral turpitude of the boys of today appears to center in their failure to concentrate on any particular objective long enough to obtain their maximum results.

When I first started editing GQ, it gave the impression of being, and in fact was, a gay magazine. There were female models in it and there were women on the cover, but the boys were always much, much more beautiful than the girls.

When our boys come home from France, we will have the hags flung out.

The army teaches boys to think like men.

I was a very observant child. The boys in my books are based on boys in my neighborhood growing up.

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.

I beg you to look at the promising boys and beautiful girls in your homes and in your communities, and then you will not put these temptations in their way.

Alexander at the head of the world never tasted the true pleasure that boys of his own age have enjoyed at the head of a school.

Now, being a girl, I was ashamed of my body and my lack of strength. So I tried to be a man. I shot, rode, jumped, and took part in all the fights of the boys.

Dancing on 'Dancing With The Stars' really broadened my fan base. I jumped off the stage backwards one week, and so many women come up to me now and say, 'You're so brave. I can't believe you put yourself out there like that'. If that inspires some girl out there, then great, because boys aren't the only ones who get to have fun. We get to have fun too.

There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell.