Ricky Skaggs

“It doesn't matter if you stick the name 'bluegrass' on it. I think people call things bluegrass that I wouldn't necessarily call bluegrass, but what they're calling country music today I'm not sure that I would call country music. But I love music and I try to encourage people.”

“Even with the sun beaming down on me I'm not sweating in my mind. I'm not sweating in my heart or in my career.”

“When I came here it wasn't that I was anti-Music Row, but it was like I was going against the grain of what everybody on Music Row was doing, and that's what has made me successful.”

“When Jack White called and wanted me to do a video and play mandolin with The Raconteurs, I didn't know anything about The Raconteurs at that time.”

“I try to keep my heart and myself available for those little, 'God moments,' are what I call them, where someone calls the office and says, 'Would Ricky be interested in doing this?'”

“I've always moved by my heart. I've moved by the spirit of what I feel was right for me next. I always pray and ask God: 'What's the next thing? What am I supposed to do next?'”

“I hate negative songs; I won't sing them. It doesn't matter if it's sold 2 million more albums.”

“When I hear bluegrass today, I hear so many new sounds in it. It's almost like country music in a way.”

“I mean, I could tell that I really had... a precious gift. And I'm so glad that I have followed through with it and really used that gift and nurtured it, honed it, made it sharp and tried to use it as a tool now to make music and to make a living for my family.”

“That's kind of the mission statement for the label: to try to do great music that touches people's hearts.”

“I just want to keep playing music and keep recording. I feel like my best days are ahead.”

“I always had a standard of, back when I was doing the country music I always told people I would never record a song that I wouldn't sit down and sing in front of my mom and dad.”

“I just love to have fun with music, and try to find songs that say something that people want to hear.”

“I'm not a goody-two-shoes. I'm just a father with four children.”

“We should give the Lord the excellence He deserves in everything we do.”

“I've got tapes that I'm so thankful that my father made - old reel-to-reel tapes. I've got a ton of those things at home. He kept those like fine diamonds, I mean he kept them, you know, in a box and was very, very careful of them, you know.”

“I had some good teachers. One of the greatest teachers I've had is bluegrass music: going back and listening to Bill Monroe's music, the Stanley Brothers, Flatt & Scruggs. When I was with Ralph Stanley I learned a lot from him.”

“The difference between me and the newer artists is that I have the history with the architects, the masters that started the music. I know where the music came from.”

“Country and western is ignored by the intellectuals. They don't look at it as an art form. They think it's just somebody sitting on his couch singing about his life.”

“I don't feel like I've nearly got to the place where I'm ready to even slow down.”