Johnny Cash Quotes

He was removed from jail and placed in a place for the insensitive and insane.

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.

Loneliness is emptiness, but happiness is you.

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.

The hardest thing for me in Vietnam wasn't seeing the wounded and dead. It was watching the big transport jets come in, bringing loads of fresh new boys for the war.

I am not a Christian artist, I am an artist who is a Christian.

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

I came to believe in a power much higher than I

Take one fresh and tender kiss
Add one stolen night of bliss
One girl, one boy, some grief,
some joy Memories are made of this.

When God forgave me, I figured I'd better do it too.

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

It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks

I learn from my mistakes. It's a very painful way to learn, but without pain, the old saying is, there's no gain.

All your life, you will be faced with a choice. You can choose love or hate ... I choose love.

When people ask me who my favorite country singer is, I say, 'You mean besides George Jones?'

I'm not really concerned about boundaries. I just follow my conscience and my heart. Follow your heart. That's what I do. Compassion is something I have a lot of, because I've been through a lot of pain in my life. Anybody who has suffered a lot of pain has a lot of compassion.

Happiness is being at peace, being with loved ones, being comfortable ... but most of all, it's having those loved ones.

Gospel music was the thing that inspired me as a child growing up on a cotton farm, where work was drudgery and it was so hard that when I was in the field I sang all the time. Usually gospel songs because they lifted me up above that black dirt.

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

I don't give up because I don't give up. I don't believe in 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.

If this were a movie I'd be the bad guy.

Death and hell are never full, and neither are men's eyes.

Creative people have to be fed from the divine source. I have to get fed. I had to get filled up in order to pour out.

My daddy left home when I was three and he didn't leave much to Ma and me, just this old guitar and an empty bottle of booze.

I wear black for those who never read or listen to the words that Jesus said, about the road to happiness, through love and charity.

Life is
the way God has given it to me was just a platter
a golden platter of life laid out there for me. Its been beautiful.

Understand your man, meditate on it.

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!

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

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.

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

I've never been accused of a felony. I never spent time behind bars except for a few overnight jail times back in the Sixties. [But] I think there's a little bit of a criminal in all of us. Everybody's done something they don't want anybody to know about.

Canadian Railroad Trilogy is an extremely fine piece of songwriting.

Hardin wouldn't run.

I'm thankful for a pair of shoes that feel really good on my feet; I like my shoes. I'm thankful for the birds; I feel like they're singing just for me when I get up in the morning ... Saying, 'Good morning, John. You made it, John.' I'm thankful for the sea breeze that feels so good right now, and the scent of jasmine when the sun starts going down. I'm thankful ...

I could wrap myself in the warm cocoon of a song and go anywhere.

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.

He drank his first strong liquor then to calm his shaking hand, and tried to tell himself at last he had become a man.

As sure as God made black and white, what's done in the dark will be brought to the light.

It's all fleeting. As fame is fleeting, so are all the trappings of fame fleeting. The money, the clothes, the furniture.

You're so heavenly minded, you're no earthly good.

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

Deep in the heart of the infinite darkness, a tiny blue marble is spinning through space. Born in the splendor of God's holy vision, and sliding away like a tear down his face.

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

I have tried drugs and a little of everything else, and there is nothing in the world more soul-satisfying than having the kingdom of God building inside you and growing.

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

However, neither he nor anyone else could have become the star Elvis was. Ain't nobody like Elvis. Never was.

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.

I took the easy way, and to an extent I regret that. Still, though, the way we did it was honest. We played it and sang it the way we felt it, and there's a lot to be said for that.

I wear my crown of thorns on my liars chair, full of broken thoughts I cannot repair, beneath the stain of time the feelings disappears. What have I become, my sweetest of friends?

Life is the question and life is the answer, and God is the reason and love is the way.

Sometimes I am two people. Johnny is the nice one. Cash causes all the trouble. They fight.

I love songs about horses, railroads, land, Judgment Day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. And Mother. And God.

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.

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.

Burn my Flag and I will shoot you ... but I'll shoot you with a lot of love, like a good American

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.

You know, the man's best friend is his dog ... if he's got nothing else.

San Quentin, may you rot and burn in hell. May your walls fall and may I live to tell.

So we raise her up every morning, we take her down every night, we don't let her touch the ground and we fold her up right. On second thought, I do like to brag 'cause I'm mighty proud of the Ragged Old Flag.

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.

This morning, with her, having coffee

God Ain't no stained glass window, cause he never keeps his window closed.

I wear black because I'm comfortable in it. But then in the summertime when it's hot I'm comfortable in light blue.

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've been flushed from the bathroom of your heart.

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.'

This business I'm in is different. It's special. The people around me feel like brothers and sisters. We hardly know each other, but we're that close; somehow there's been an immediate bonding between total strangers. We share each other's triumphs, and when one of us gets hurt, we all bleed - it's corny, I know, but it's true. I've never experienced anything like this before. It's great. It turns up the heat in life.

When you sing, you pray twice.

The gospel of Christ must always be an open door with a welcome sign for all.

Flesh and blood needs flesh and blood, and you're the one I need

Everything I have and everything I do is now given completely to Jesus Christ.

I admit I'm a fool for you, because your mine, I walk the line.

A person knows when it just seems to feel right to them. Listen to your heart.

My arms are too short to box with God.

It makes me so mad that some people underestimate the wisdom and energy of young people. All because they don't look the way older folks think they should look. I'm working on a song about it. Maybe some of those closed minded people will realize long hair and tattoos don't mean they should be ignored. Close minded people are part of what's wrong with this world.

All music comes from God.

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.

When I was a baby, my mama told me son, always be a good boy, don't ever play with guns. But I shot a man in Reno.

My mother told me to keep on singing, and that kept me working through the cotton fields. She said God has his hand on you. You'll be singing for the world someday.

It's good to believe in yourself, but there are people out there who can make or break you.

When I was arrested I was dressed in black

I just hope and pray I can die with my boots on.

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.

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 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.

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.

I'm so uncomfortable wearing colors in public. I really am. Even denim. If I've got a day off in a town, I want to go out for a walk I'll put on denim. But almost everything I've got the black on.

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

Convicts are the best audience I ever played for.

Inside the walls of a prison my body may be, but my Lord has set my soul free.

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he's a victim of the times.
I wear the black for those who never read

Come on boys, you must listen unto me, lay off the whiskey and let that cocaine be.

I'm thrilled to death with life.

I remember everything What have I become? My sweetest friend? E veryone I know goes away in the end You could have it all My empire of dirt I will let you down I will make you hurt.

Of travel I've had my share, man, I've been everywhere.

The beer and the wurst were wonderful, but I was dying to be back in the South, where the livin' was easy, where the fish were jumpin', where the cotton grew high.