Charley Pride
I was always a dreamer, in childhood especially. People thought I was a little strange.Collection: Dreams
I don't care what the religion is called; as far as I'm concerned, one God, the God I adhere to, is in charge of all of them.Collection: Religion
The time I spent thinking about how I was better than somebody else or worrying about somebody else's attitude was time I could put to better use.Collection: Attitude
I grew up not liking my father very much. I never saw him cry. But he must have. Everybody cries.Collection: Dad
A fan will grab you and hug you and will not let go. When that happens, you wish it could be that way all over the world.
I think there's enough room in country music for everybody.
The tastes of country music fans are not limited to the narrow range defined by consultants and programmers and record company moguls.
Even now, when I'm asked how I'm doing, I like to reply, 'Pretty good. I've got all my fingers and both eyes.
What qualifies me to tell people how to act or what to think? I'm Charley Pride, country singer. Period.
Fans are what make a performer and I've always taken them seriously.
No one had ever told me that whites were supposed to sing one kind of music and blacks another - I sang what I liked in the only voice I had.
When I came up, there was room for the new and the old. For every new artist, an old one didn't have to be pushed out.
Any entertainer who tells you that the adoration of fans is not a heady experience probably never had the experience.
For most entertainers, there is a single experience, one defining moment, when confidence replaces the self-doubt that most of us wrestle with.
Once your name becomes well known, politicians come courting.
I've tried to help a lot of young artists get started.
Chet Atkins... is probably the best guitar player who ever lived.
Singing as a full-time job was not something I had given a lot of thought to and I had no clear notion of the money to be made in it.
Performing is an experience, for me, that is as humbling as it is energizing.
There is an intimacy about the Opry Theater that gives an entertainer a special charge.
What we don't need in country music is divisiveness, public criticism of each other, and some arbitrary judgement of what belongs and what doesn't.
In 20 years I had sold more records for RCA than any artist except Elvis Presley.
Until MTV, television had not been a huge influence on music. To compete with MTV, the country music moguls felt they had to appeal to the same young audience and do it the way MTV did.
It used to be that if you had a pretty good record, you could stop by a station in Little Rock or Atlanta and let the DJ listen to it. No way something like that can happen now.
Too many religious organizations are in the business of enforcing beliefs.
There are worse things than being thought a Republican.
It isn't reasonable to expect that everyone in the world is a country music fan. Not yet, anyway.
Fans will praise you, scold you, and offer helpful advice. Fans will also defend you.
Redd Foxx was the same gruff old codger you saw on television.
A black man singing about a blond girl was potential trouble.
I learned to tune a guitar by ear. That method has served me pretty well.
I try to keep my feet on the ground. Even though I appreciate the fame and adoration, I remember once I used to pick cotton, and I felt like even then I was somebody. I have the same feet, hands and heart like everyone else. I'm just also blessed with a good voice.Collection: Blessed
There only have been two people on this earth that I was nervous around: Chet Atkins and Mickey Mantle. It's because of the respect I have for them.Collection: Baseball
It was unlikely that anyone had ever heard a black person sing country music.Collection: Country
I'm not James Brown. I'm not Sam Cooke. I'm Charley Pride. I'm just me and that's what you got.Collection: Pride
If Detroit was a watershed concert for me, traveling with Willie Nelson through Texas and Louisiana was a milestone of a different sort.Collection: Texas
Early in my career I began receiving letters from a woman in the Midwest who claimed to be my mother.Collection: Mother
There were no guarantees that country music, whose roots were in the South, were ready for Charley Pride.Collection: Country
Baseball got into my blood early and I worked harder at it than anything.Collection: Baseball
No one church has all the answers or the perfect map to the Promised Land, and I prefer to work out my own faith and my own convictions in the seclusion of my own mind.Collection: Land
I loved Mississippi and do to this day. The rainbows that stretch from horizon to horizon after a summer rain are the most spectacular I have ever seen.Collection: Summer
People pay attention to lyrics, and the race matter was delicate.Collection: Race
My brothers and sisters all sang, too, and they all have good voices.Collection: Brother
As far back as I can remember, the radio held a special fascination for me.Collection: Special
Besides good schools, a good airport, and the Cowboys, Dallas had golf courses, and golf was fast becoming an obsession with me.Collection: School
Flying was as necessary to my business as fiddles and footlights.Collection: Flying
I always wanted to grow up fast. I longed for more than the Mississippi Delta could give.Collection: Growing Up
I began playing Branson during the 1992 season and was a little amazed. There were about 30 celebrity theatres there and more are being added all the time.Collection: Theatre
I realize I was more of a curiosity to the older Nashville artists than the new ones.Collection: Artist
Not only are three-putt greens probable, at times they are an achievment.Collection: Golf