Lainey Wilson

“I took every opportunity you can imagine. I played every honky-tonk talent search, every kind of Colgate Country Showdown, you name it.”

“I'm friends with people from different sides of everything, and everybody shows me nothing but love and support. I do the same right back to them.”

“Anytime I do feel like, 'Man, how much more do I actually have to give?' I have to make time to actually fill my cup so I can give more.”

“My life has just been constantly changing at a very rapid pace.”

“I am the kind of songwriter to where I don't have to have experienced it firsthand to write about it.”

“I always just tell it like it is.”

“I love creating things and I feel like that's what acting is. It's just being creative.”

“For me, I will tell you, when I moved to Nashville, I was 19 years old, I thought I was ready. I thought I was ready to sell out some shows and get a publishing deal, get a record deal. But the truth is, I had not lived enough life at that time to tell the stories that I needed to tell.”

“I think a lot of people found themselves through country music.”

“It's about finding the people who love what you do, and lucky for you, don't want you to change.”

“I really do view it as 'I'm a song farmer.' I just try to take care of what I have, and I take a lot of pride in what we've grown.”

“Trying to be an artist here in Nashville, a female artist specifically, you've got to figure out what you can do that's a little different to stand out - so I definitely leaned into that as much as I possibly could.”

“I would walk up and down Music Row in Nashville and pass out my demos and my CDs. I had a lot of folks slam the door in my face.”

“I do sound a little hippie-dippy, but it works for me. Just kind of starting my day with an attitude of gratitude.”

“I really respect women like that, women who just kind of take the bull by the horns and do it how they want to do it.”

“For so long, I could not get a publishing deal to save my life. I couldn't get a record deal to save my life.”

“Everybody is going to have something to say about everything.”

“What 'Yellowstone' has done for the Western way of life has been a huge turning point.”

“The older I get, the more I find out about who I am deep down.”

“I've been going to CMA Fest since I was 14 years old.”