George Jones
I miss all of my old friends who have passed away. Sometimes you just don't understand why they were taken so soon. I loved and miss Johnny Cash. I miss my old buddy Johnny Paycheck, who happens to be buried in an area of the cemetery that I bought for my family.Collection: Family
Country fans need to support country music by buying albums and concert tickets for traditional artists or the music will just fade away. And that would be really sad.Collection: Sad
My mama loved me more than anybody ever did.
I was born in Saratoga, Texas, a little town there in the Big Thicket about 60 miles north of Beaumont. Needless to say, we were very, very poor, but we always managed to have enough to keep our bellies full.
I loved Roy Acuff with all my heart, and I never dreamed I'd be able to meet him or see him onstage, or especially become good friends with him. For all this to happen, it's hard to explain what a dream this is when you love something as much as I love traditional country music.
I tried to be a house painter, but I couldn't stand all that paint all over me.
I just wanted to sing, in church or wherever.
We'd just go to church and sing. My dad would get me and my sister Doris, and we would sing together. I sung the harmony, and my sister Doris took the lead.
After the first couple of years recording, I did a lot of praying. I said, 'Lord, please give me a hit.' I want one so bad.
There's nothing prettier in the world than a melody. I can get lost in a song with a melody. A lot of times I have, and the song wasn't that good, but I would get lost in that melody, and I'd want to do the song.
The only music we ever listened to out in the piney woods was Roy Acuff and the Grand Ole Opry. That was the only night of the week I was allowed to lay in the middle of the bed with Mama and Daddy, just long enough to hear Roy Acuff sing; then I had to go back to bed.
Roy Acuff was a big hero for me, and I was so sad when he passed. It's hard as you get older to lose your friends and family.
When you don't act right to your family and friends, that's bad, but they also have the opportunity to experience the 'good' side as well. Disappointing the fans is an entirely different thing because the fans love your music and save up money to see you in concert.
There were a lot of songs during my MCA years that I thought should have been singles but were not. You can't worry about what wasn't - I was very lucky to have as many hits as I had.
There was no such thing as production at Starday. We'd go in with the band, we'd go over the song, I'd look over and tell the steel player to take a break or kick it off, and I'd get the fiddle to play a turnaround in the middle.
There are questions I'm still not wise enough to answer, just wise enough to no longer ask.Collection: Inspirational
The only thing different between sinners and saints is one is forgiven and the other ain't.Collection: Different
I took my $100,000 and bought a new Corvette, a lot of cocaine, and spent the rest on foolishness.Collection: Cocaine
Country music to me is heartfelt music that speaks to the common man. It is about real life stories with rather simple melodies that the average person can follow. Country music should speak directly and simply about the highs and lows of life. Something that anyone can relate to.Collection: Country
I've had a lot of practice and wrong's what I do best.Collection: Practice
Walk through this world with me, go where I go. Share all your dreams with me, for I love you so.Collection: Romantic
Maybe some folks are alcoholics and others are just voluntary drunks. Maybe some folks drink due to body chemistry and others due to their lazy characters. Maybe some have drinking problems, while others have problems enough to drink.Collection: Drinking
You can't put this possum in a cageCollection: Cages
You can shut out the world. But you always have to stop, and the world is always waiting when you do.Collection: Waiting
There's bad in everything. I dislike people misusing something that I love so much. It goes beyond the money. It goes beyond all of that and the glory. I love what I've done and I just can't stand to see what they're doing to it. But I've learned to live with it because that's what they've done. They've come in with the modern sounds. I call it modern pop. It's not country anymore.Collection: Country
Loneliness is lessened when you're lonely by choice.Collection: Lonely
I just thank God I'm still here and the main thing is to try to get closer and closer to Him as much as I can so that I can treat my friends and my family the way they should be treated.Collection: Trying
If drinking don't kill me, her memory will.Collection: Memories
There, gleaming in the glow, was that ten-horsepower rotary engine under a seat. A key glistening in the ignition. I imagine the top speed for that old mower was five miles per hour. It might have taken an hour and a half or more for me to get to the liquor store, but get there I did.Collection: Taken
There's nothing prettier in the world than a melody. I can get lost in a song with a melody.Collection: Song
Different people have their ways of measuring success, maybe it's not the right way but wrong's what I do best.Collection: Philosophy
Be real about what you do. Stay true to the voice inside you. Don't let the 'business' change what it is you love because the people, the fans, respond to what is heartfelt. They can always tell when a singer is faking it.Collection: Real
I sing from my heart, I love country music and I love the people that respond to it. You never see yourself as others do but I've always beeen proud to be part of country music and I hope that the format is proud of me.Collection: Country
I'd rather sing a sad song than eat.Collection: Song
Everybody knows in the business how I feel about country music. I'm an old traditionalist. Then they just call me an old man and stuck in my old ways, but with all the fans I've got out there, I can't be all that wrong. I do love traditional country music. I love the good stuff.Collection: Country
If you're gonna drive me crazy baby, drive me to drink.Collection: Baby
I lay my head on the wheel and the horn begins honking, the whole neighborhood knows that I'm home drunk again.Collection: Home
A new artist today has to get their teeth fixed, has to tighten their jeans up, and they have to get 'em the right kind of hat, and if anything's wrong with their nose, if it's a little crooked, it's got to be straightened up.Collection: Artist
I just want to keep living on and enjoying food! Even though I'm gaining weight, I want to record if the Lord wants me to still record, and I just want to do my work on the road as long as I got those fans out there.Collection: Long
No matter what song I recorded or sang, I did it my way.Collection: Song
He stopped loving her today, they placed a wreath upon his door.Collection: Death
It didn't make much difference what time of night it was, whenever [my father would] come in drunk, he'd say, "Get up and sing me some songs." We didn't want to sing but we sang.Collection: Country
I would just like to say thank you to each one of my fans for supporting me all these years and continuing to come to the concerts and buy my music. I owe them everything.Collection: Years
I hear some new artists that sound country but the record labels and country radio lean more toward a more rock feel for what gets signed to a label and played on the radio.Collection: Country
I've always said that if I could have made a living someway in gospel music, I would have loved to had that break, but it never was offered to me, a job in that field, so naturally, I got lost on that other road.Collection: Jobs
God bless the boys from Memphis, blue suede shoes, and Elvis.Collection: Boys
Anybody who loves country music loves gospel. Even they are competing with the same type of problem that I'm competing with. We older artists are competing with the new style of country, with their new modern style of gospel, with the young people.Collection: Country
If people liked your singing well enough, if you were special to them, then you never left their minds throughout all of the years.Collection: Years
Today they forget you in five years. They give an artist nowadays four or five years and that's it. Some of them don't have that. They get a couple of releases. If you don't sell two million copies, you're gone, you're out of here.Collection: Couple
Before then, Britain was pessimistic and the role of government was largely managing Britain in decline.Collection: Government