Quote collection
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"I think in my world of religion, you're called to preach or you don't preach. Called by God to preach. I never been ordained by God to preach the gospel. I have a calling, it's called to perform and sing."
"Gospel music is so ingrained into my bones. I can't do a concert without singing a gospel song. It's what I was raised on."
"It was kind of a prodding myself to play I Walk The Line straight."
"My contract with mercury PolyGram Nashville was about to expire. And I never had really been happy. The company, the record company, just didn't put any promotion behind me. I think one album, maybe the last one I did, they pressed 500 copies. And I was just disgusted with it. And about that time that I got to feeling that way, Lou Robin, my manager, came to me and talked to me about a man called Rick Rubin that he had been talking to that wanted me to sign with his record company."
"I worked there [on Pontiac] three weeks, got really sick of it, went back home and joined the Air Force."
"When I get an idea for a song it would gel in my mind for weeks or months, and then one day just like that, Ill write it."
"When I record somebody else's song, I have to make it my own or it doesn't feel right. I'll say to myself, I wrote this and he doesn't know it!"
"However, neither he nor anyone else could have become the star Elvis was. Ain't nobody like Elvis. Never was."
"The first time I knew what I wanted to do with my life was when I was about four years old. I was listening to an old Victrola, playing a railroad song...I thought that was the most wonderful, amazing thing...That you could take this piece of wax and music would come out of that box. From that day on, I wanted to sing on the radio."
"I say I'm not a singer, so that means I can't sing. But - doesn't it?"
"I've got no deep voice today. I've got a cold. But when I was young, I had a high tenor voice."
"I've always explored various areas of society."
"Sam Phillips responded most to a song of mine called, "Hey Porter," which was on the first record."
"My mother was determined that I was going to leave the farm and do well in life. And she thought with the gift, I might be able to do that. So she took in washing. She got a washing machine in 1942 as soon as we got electricity and she took in washing. She washed the schoolteacher's clothes and anybody she could and sent me for singing lessons for $3 per lesson."
"Sam [Phillips] wanted I Walk The Line up - you know, up-tempo. And I put paper in the strings of my guitar to get that (vocalizing) sound, and with the bass and the lead guitar, there it was. Bare and stark, that song was when it was released. And I heard it on the radio and I really didn't like it, and I called Sam Phillips and asked him please not to send out any more records of that song."
"The requests started coming in from other prisoners all over the United States. And then the word got around. So I always wanted to record that, you know, to record a show because of the reaction I got. It was far and above anything I had ever had in my life, the complete explosion of noise and reaction that they gave me with every song. So then I came back the next year and played the prison again, the New Year's Day show, came back again a third year and did the show."
"We [with Rick Rubin] would focus on the ones that we did like, that felt right and sounded right. And if I didn't like the performance on that song, I would keep trying it and do take after take until it felt comfortable with me and felt that it was coming out of me and my guitar and my voice as one, that it was right for my soul."
"In the Air Force, I had an old Wilcox Gay recorder, and I used to hear guitar runs on that recorder going (vocalizing) like the chords on "I Walk The Line." And I always wanted to write a love song using that theme, that tune."
"Rick Rubin had his hair - I don't think it's ever been cut and very - dresses like a hobo, usually - clean but . Was the kind of guy I really felt comfortable with, actually. I think I was more comfortable with him than I would have been with a producer with a suit on."
"My mother always told me that any talent is a gift of God and I always believed it. If I quit, I would just live in front of the television and get fat and die pretty soon."