My story of success and failure is not just about music and being famous. It's about living and loving and trying to find purpose in this crazy world.

It sounds corny, but I've promised my inner child that never again will I ever abandon myself for anything or anyone else again.

My music is about the journey, about love and the human experience.

The failures and successes are necessary for learning.

To heal from the inside out is the key.

I am a fan of today's sound as long as we don't get too slick, and yet I am very reverent of my roots.

Digital downloading of music has affected us all in adverse ways.

I have a very deep and wide relationship with my fans.

You have to fill your cup. You then give away the overflowing, but you keep a cupful for yourself.

Most of us are imprisoned by something. We're living in darkness until something flips on the switch.

Silence is refreshment for the soul.

I always make music that is true to my spirit.

I used to only worry about the #1's and all of the awards. But that was a long time ago.

My story of success and failure is not just about music and being famous. It's about living and loving and trying to find purpose in this crazy world.

I learned again that the mind-body-spirit connection has to be in balance.

I also believe my musical abilities are a true gift from God.

I have always loved the process of making the music, reading the letters from the fans who get married to my music, have children to my music and play my music at their funerals.

I've learned lately that no one is going to hand me a permission slip and tell me to take time out for me.

There's a place for all types of country music as long as there is honesty and realness and a real human experience for the fans.

I know that the internet has helped a new world audience find me.

When you are real in your music, people know it and they feel your authenticity.

The mother-daughter relationship is the most complex.

Without love in you life, you have nothing.

If I can make a connection, one connection, to any one listener in the world, I consider that successful.

The love of these people and of my fans mean more than any award or special accomplishment.

I never took a music lesson in my life, it just came naturally.

It took me 36 years to be able to be by myself and like it.

Success takes us to the top and away from those we love.

I don't take my fans' love and dedication for granted.

We are losing our superstars like Johnny and June Carter Cash and that breaks my heart.

I am a child of God.

Because I now realize, after all this time, I have never truly felt worthy of all that I have been given.

I am most proud that I stayed true to the music of my soul.

You have to fill your cup. You then give away the overflowing but you keep a cupful for yourself.

I can remember the frustration of not being able to talk. I knew what I wanted to say, but I could not get the words out, so I would just scream.

What I try to do for my readers is to pass on some of the things that I found out about being thirteen after doing it for forty years.

In this watering-place I acted an heroic character, badly studied; and being a novice on such a stage, I forgot my part before a pair of lovely blue eyes.

Young people discovering their sexuality must know they walk with a strong tradition and that they are not alone. They have a right to information without being pressured.

Being a publicist is like management in a lot of ways - you're their friend, you're their mother, you're their confidante.

I mean, all alternative comedy is are comedians that have being doing it for so long, for so long, that they were relaxed enough to start becoming personal on stage.

I became hooked on the idea of being able to shoot an image and process it myself, and end up with a product.

Being a cover artist is not like being a real artist. That's just copying what someone else did.

It is too maddening. I've got to fly off, right now, to some devilish navy yard, three hours in a seasick steamer, and after being heartily sick, I'll have to speak three times, and then I'll be sick coming home. Still, who would not be sick for England?

I don't like being recognised, I have no interest in being famous at all, I just do what I do. If I could be like Captain Kirk and beam myself up and then beam myself down, I would!

I'm glad I'm not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone's tape recording what you say.

Being a musician is what I do, but it's not what I am.

We're all like children. We may think we grow up, but to me, being grown up is death, stopping thinking, trying to find out things, going on learning.

We've had it very clear to the Bosnians that our obligation to equip and train their forces is completely conditional on the foreign forces being gone.

My parents were amazing people who had no business being together - and they knew it.