We're all in this together if we're in it at all.

I think in my world of religion, you're called to preach or you don't preach. Called by God to preach. I never been ordained by God to preach the gospel. I have a calling, it's called to perform and sing.

Call him drunken Ira Hayes, he won't answer any more. Not the whiskey drinking Indian, nor the Marine that went to war.

I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.

One day, I just decided I'm ready to go. So I went down with my guitar and sat on the front steps of Sam Phillips recording studio.

I don't like it, but I guess things happen that way.

When I think about country music, I think about America.

If you're going to be a Christian, you're going to change. You're going to lose some old friends, not because you want to, but because you need to.

They're powerful, those songs. At times they've been my only way back, the only door out of the dark, bad places the black dog calls home.

Sam Phillips wanted I Walk The Line up -- you know, up-tempo. And I put paper in the strings of my guitar to get that (vocalizing) sound, and with the bass and the lead guitar, there it was. Bare and stark, that song was when it was released. And I heard it on the radio and I really didn't like it, and I called Sam Phillips and asked him please not to send out any more records of that song.

I recently found myself going through a period of uncertainty about my future as a performer, my status as a personality, the believability of my Christian witness and the knowledge of God's will in my life. I felt a force bigger than myself saying, 'Lay back. Take it easy. Study hard. Read your bible. Think, write and keep your mouth shut for awhile.'

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.

Could it be the girls and boys are trying to be heard above your noise?

What have I become, my sweetest friend. Everyone I know goes away, in the end.

A rose looks grey at midnight, but the flame is just asleep. And steel is strong because it knows the hammer and white heat.

I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel. I focus on the pain, the only thing that's real.

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 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.

I had a song called Folsom Prison Blues that was a hit just before I Walk The Line. And the people in Texas heard about it at the state prison and got to writing me letters asking me to come down there. So I responded and then the warden called me and asked if I would come down and do a show for the prisoners in Texas.

Being rich means you get to worry about everything except money.