Johnny Cash

“Success is having to worry about every damn thing in the world, except money.”

“I read novels but I also read the Bible. And study it, you know? And the more I learn, the more excited I get.”

“God gives us life and takes us away as He sees fit.”

“For you I know I'd even try to turn the tide.”

“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 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.”

“When my wife died, I booked myself into the studio just to work, to occupy myself.”

“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 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.”

“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.”

“You can choose love or hate…I choose love.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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!”

“My arms are too short to box with God.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I'm very shy really. I spend a lot of time in my room alone reading or writing or watching television.”

“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.”

“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.”