Johnny Cash
You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.Collection: Time
Success is having to worry about every damn thing in the world, except money.Collection: Success
I'm very shy really. I spend a lot of time in my room alone reading or writing or watching television.Collection: Alone
Of emotions, of love, of breakup, of love and hate and death and dying, mama, apple pie, and the whole thing. It covers a lot of territory, country music does.Collection: Death
The things that have always been important: to be a good man, to try to live my life the way God would have me, to turn it over to Him that His will might be worked in my life, to do my work without looking back, to give it all I've got, and to take pride in my work as an honest performer.Collection: Work
My father was a man of love. He always loved me to death. He worked hard in the fields, but my father never hit me. Never. I don't ever remember a really cross, unkind word from my father.Collection: Death
God gives us life and takes us away as He sees fit.Collection: God
Sometimes I am two people. Johnny is the nice one. Cash causes all the trouble. They fight.
For you I know I'd even try to turn the tide.
You've got to know your limitations. I don't know what your limitations are. I found out what mine were when I was twelve. I found out that there weren't too many limitations, if I did it my way.
How well I have learned that there is no fence to sit on between heaven and hell. There is a deep, wide gulf, a chasm, and in that chasm is no place for any man.
People call me wild. Not really though, I'm not. I guess I've never been normal, not what you call Establishment. I'm country.
I wear black because I'm comfortable in it. But then in the summertime when it's hot I'm comfortable in light blue.
You've got a song you're singing from your gut, you want that audience to feel it in their gut. And you've got to make them think that you're one of them sitting out there with them too. They've got to be able to relate to what you're doing.
I was wearing black clothes almost from the beginning. I feel comfortable in black. I felt like black looked good onstage, that it was attractive, so I started wearing it all the time.
It's like a novelist writing far out things. If it makes a point and makes sense, then people like to read that. But if it's off in left field and goes over the edge, you lose it. The same with musical talent, I think.
I start a lot more songs than I finish, because I realize when I get into them, they're no good. I don't throw them away, I just put them away, store them, get them out of sight.
God's the final judge for Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash too. That's solely in the hands of God.
I am not a Christian artist, I am an artist who is a Christian.
That was the big thing when I was growing up, singing on the radio. The extent of my dream was to sing on the radio station in Memphis. Even when I got out of the Air Force in 1954, I came right back to Memphis and started knocking on doors at the radio station.
I knew I wanted to sing when I was a very small boy. When I was probably 4 years old. My mother played a guitar and I would sit with her and she would sing and I learned to sing along with her.
I read novels but I also read the Bible. And study it, you know? And the more I learn, the more excited I get.
I love to go to the studio and stay there 10 or 12 hours a day. I love it. What is it? I don't know. It's life.
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!
When my wife died, I booked myself into the studio just to work, to occupy myself.
If you aren't gonna say exactly how and what you feel, you might as well not say anything at all.Collection: Say Anything
You have to be what you are. Whatever you are, you gotta be it.Collection: Truth
Life is rough so you gotta be tough.Collection: Tough
There's no way around grief and loss: you can dodge all you want, but sooner or later you just have to go into it, through it, and, hopefully, come out the other side. The world you find there will never be the same as the world you left.Collection: Death
All your life, you will be faced with a choice. You can choose love or hate…I choose love.Collection: Hate
I love the freedoms we got in this country, I appreciate your freedom to burn your flag if you want to, but I really appreciate my right to bear arms so I can shoot you if you try to burn mine.Collection: Country
There's a lot of things blamed on me that never happened. But then, there's a lot of things that I did that I never got caught at.Collection: Caught
Life is the question and life is the answer, and God is the reason and love is the way.Collection: Religious
Life and love go on, let the music play.Collection: Life And Love
it's good to know who hates you and it is good to be hated by the right peopleCollection: Hate
I learn from my mistakes. It’s a very painful way to learn, but without pain, the old saying is, there’s no gain.Collection: Pain
When God forgave me, I figured I'd better do it too.Collection: Forgiveness
I wore black because I liked it. I still do, and wearing it still means something to me. It's still my symbol of rebellion -- against a stagnant status quo, against our hypocritical houses of God, against people whose minds are closed to others' ideas.Collection: Mean
The more I learn, the more excited I get.Collection: Excited
As sure as God made black and white, what's done in the dark will be brought to the light.Collection: Dark
I don't give up because I don't give up. I don't believe in it.Collection: Giving Up
All your life, you will be faced with a choice. You can choose love positivity and gratitude that things aren't worse or hate negativity and bitterness that things aren't better ...I choose love positivity and gratitude that things aren't worse.Collection: Gratitude
We're all in this together if we're in it at all.Collection: Together
It takes a real man to live for God-a lot more man than to live for the devil, you know? If you really want to live right these days, you gotta be tough.Collection: Real
No matter how much you've sinned, no matter how much you've stumbled, no matter how much you fall, no matter how far you've got from God, don't give up. You can still be redeemed. As someone says, keep the faith.Collection: Giving Up
There is a spiritual side to me that goes real deep, but I confess right up front that I'm the biggest sinner of them all.Collection: Spiritual
You miss a lot of opportunities by making mistakes, but that's part of it: knowing that you're not shut out forever, and that there's a goal you still can reach.Collection: Mistake
I always loved those songs. And with my high tenor, I thought I was pretty good - you know? - almost as good as Dennis Day.Collection: Song
I developed a pretty unusual style, I think.Collection: Thinking
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.Collection: Song