Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.

If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that… I believe in what I do, and I’ll say it.

I know people said I wasn’t selling out in America, but that was entirely untrue. We sold out all over the world, and every night I looked out into the fans and those front rows that you’re talking about, the tears, the honesty, the inability to not be completely overjoyed because they felt accepted.

Take care to sell your horse before he dies. The art of life is passing losses on.

What I’m hoping is that every album I’m going to do will give my audience something different, and that they’ll grow as I do.

Songs for me are like a message in a bottle. You send them out to the world, and maybe the person who you feel that way about will hear about it someday.

Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.

If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.

Man’s real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.

Life begins on the other side of despair.

I can play a lot of different instruments adequately but nothing really well.

Confidence, as a teenager? Because I knew what I loved. I loved to read; I loved to listen to music; and I loved cats. Those three things. So, even though I was an only kid, I could be happy because I knew what I loved.

I wanted to be famous for my music and my talent, and I always wished I could cut it out when I left the stage.

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

Without music, life would be a mistake.

But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.

Environment is very important to me. Sometimes I have to perform during the day for festivals, and my music does not work in the daytime. It is nighttime music.

Art’s everything we hope life would be, a lot of times.

Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.

Hell is full of musical amateurs.

The whole slacker generation totally didn’t apply to us musically.

Anything that encourages people to pick up an instrument and play, I’m fully behind.

You get one life. I’m going to embrace mine.

As long as my music is real, it’s no limit to how many ears I can grab.

Our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough.

‚Evil men have no songs.‘ How is it that the Russians have songs?

To be renewed is everything. What more could one ask for than to have one’s youth back again?

We were born to die and we die to live. As seedlings of God, we barely blossom on earth; we fully flower in heaven.

I try to sprinkle a little gems and jewels in the music that people could use in their own life.

People – especially white people – they want me to be a role model just because of the life I lead. The things I say in my songs, they expect it of me.

Religion is not a department of life; it is something that enters into the whole of it.

Most of one’s life is one prolonged effort to prevent oneself thinking.

This industry has been really good to me. It’s been a great life. I’m not through yet. I’m ready when you are, Mr. DeMille.

I suppose that’s one of the ironies of life doing the wrong thing at the right moment.

And no, we don’t know where it will lead. We just know there’s something much bigger than any of us here.

At 57, to have a No. 1 album, I wasn’t expecting it.

Music from my fourth year began to be the first of my youthful occupations. Thus early acquainted with the gracious muse who tuned my soul to pure harmonies, I became fond of her, and, as it often seemed to me, she of me.

The universe is transformation: life is opinion.

Music fills in for words a lot of the time when people don’t know what to say, and I think music can be more eloquent than words.

As a songwriter, you respect and appreciate the writings of other people, and I often get asked, are there songs out there I wish I’d written? Yes. There’s many of them!

I look out at the stadiums full of people and see them all knowing the words to songs I wrote. And curling their hair! I remember straightening my hair because I wanted to be like everybody else, and now the fact that anybody would emulate what I do? It’s just funny. And wonderful.

I often get ideas for songs on the tour bus at odd times. Like at 6am when no one is around, I’d just write.

One should take good care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life as laughter.

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.

Music can change the world because it can change people.

I really wish I knew what I was doing because I’d be writing hit songs every minute.

I’ve never thought about songwriting as a weapon. I’ve only thought about it as a way to help me get through love and loss and sadness and loneliness and growing up.

Your life is like a play with several acts. Some of the characters who enter have short roles to play, others, much larger. Some are villains and others are good guys. But all of them are necessary; otherwise, they wouldn’t be in the play. Embrace them all, and move on to the next act.

Pretty much my whole life, I’ve been a performer and have loved singing and writing songs in my room for my own ears.

Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.

So thoroughly and sincerely are we compelled to live, reverencing our life, and denying the possibility of change. This is the only way, we say; but there are as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre. All change is a miracle to contemplate; but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.

How to play music may be known. At the commencement of the piece, all the parts should sound together. As it proceeds, they should be in harmony while severally distinct and flowing without break, and thus on to the conclusion.

Life is an adventure, it’s not a package tour.

Comedians are sociologists. We’re pointing out stuff that the general public doesn’t even stop to think about, looking at life in slow-motion and questioning everything we see.

It’s so sweet, I feel like my teeth are rotting when I listen to the radio.

Life was always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act.

A lot of people don’t realise I came out of the Smoky Mountains with a load of songs.

I didn’t want to play it boring and safe. I also didn’t want to innovate too much. Second albums, man, they’re even scarier than first ones.

Life isn’t meant to be easy. It’s hard to take being on the top – or on the bottom. I guess I’m something of a fatalist. You have to have a sense of history, I think, to survive some of these things… Life is one crisis after another.

I believe in singing.

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.