Merle Haggard Quotes

Willie Nelson's the one who told me the reason it costs so much to get divorced is because it's worth it.

It's been said that Bill Gates has come up with something that'll be released in December that's gonna put a lid on counterfeiting. If that's a fact then it's really interesting to own your own product - with all the potential methods of downloading.

My 10 year old son likes it. He's trying to play guitar and everything. He likes that kind of music.

Faith is the only way we're going to make it. None of us are smart enough to do it on our own.

Keep your opinions to yourself. I think it's important that I stay neutral on politics and remain hard to understand. I don't want to be pigeonholed as conservative, liberal, independent or anything. I back the man for the things the man believes in, not whether it says "R" or "D" down there beside his name.

There's a rumor that there may be an attempt at organizing a possible script for a series on my life, which, when you look at my police record, you'd have to have more than one hour to tell the story.

I've always known that I was a gifted person ... I've always felt like I would be punished, severely, if I didn't continue to make use of that gift. It's very important that you don't let the muscle get flabby. It's really hard, as an old human being, to press as much weight as you pressed when you were a kid.

Before the Beatles and yesterday, when a man could still work and still would.

I can't really say why everyone loves Bob Wills' music, but I have yet to meet a person who didn't like it.

I'll tell you what the public likes more than anything, it's the most rare commodity in the world - honesty.

And then I have two children by Theresa, one boy 10 and one girl 13.

'Cause I was already a smoker, it was easy to get addicted. The one thing that they don't teach you about marijuana is how addictive it is.

I had some surgery on my feet, which has helped my back some.

By the time you get close to the answers, it's nearly all over.

Stop rolling down hill like a snow ball headed for hell.

Diana Krall knocks me out. I like jazz and I like her simple approach.

We need to have music that contributes to the well-being of the spirit. Music that cradles people's lives and makes things a little easier. That's what I try to do, and what I want to do. You don't want to close the door on hope.

It sounds like something from a Woody Guthrie song, but it's true; I was raised in a freight car.

Well, I'm kinda like George Carlin. I think that there ought to be a time where everybody should have all the drugs they want and there'd be nobody in charge, sort of like ... now!

Sometimes if you get 'em too drunk they don't pay no attention to what you're doin' anyways, so you might as well just do old songs. But if you get one that's paying attention, sometimes we'll do some new material.

Hey, hey, the working man, the working man like me. I ain't never been on welfare, that's one place I won't be.

The turn I made was not the one I planned. And I watched my social standing slip away from me, while I watched the bottle slowly take command.

In 1960, when I came out of prison as an ex-convict, I had more freedom under parolee supervision than there's available ... in America right now.

I wish coke was still cola and a joint was a bad place to be.

I think it was Tommy who told me, 'When your song is called 'XYZ' or whatever, every line has got to make sense against your title.' He showed me little methods of proving to yourself whether the line belongs, and ways of finding out whether you were able to get more out of a line if you tried.

I've got one young family by the first wife, with four children.

Read about some squirrelly guy who claims that he just don't believe in fighting, and I wonder how long the rest of us can count on being free.

Despite of all my Sunday learnin', toward the bad I kept turning.

At my age, I don't buy but a half a loaf of bread, you know?

To be part of what you're singing about is somewhat painful. You've got to climb inside it all.

There's just a few people that call themselves stars can actually sit down with a guitar and sing you a song.

It makes my wife mad, you know, she wants me to stay home all the time. But its what I've done all my life and I think when I quit doing it I'll probably go away pretty quick.

A house without love ain't a home.

I probably wouldn't even be here now if it weren't for chiropractic

We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee, we don't take trips on LSD. We don't burn our draft cards down on Main Street, we like living right and free.

This is America. We're proud. We're not afraid of a bunch of terrorists. But this government is all about terror alerts and scaring us at airports. We're changing the Constitution out of fear. We spend all our time looking up each other's dresses. Fear's the only issue the Republican Party has. Vote for them, or the terrorists will win. That's not what Reagan was about. I hate to think about our soldiers over in Iraq fighting for a country that's slipping away.

Everybody likes Johnny Cash. I think the sad part of it is his health is givin' him problems.

The one true friend I thought I'd found, tonight the bottle let me down.

It's easier to force feed people than it is to give 'em what they want. It makes more money.

When I grew up there wasn't air-conditioning or anything of that nature, and this old car had a wall thickness of about ten inches. So we had a little warmer house in the winter and a little cooler in the summer.

When you get to readin' about where the music and John Steinbeck and all those people like that come from, the further you go the more interesting it becomes.

We are under [government's] control, and if people don't realize that, they haven't looked around. And if they're not paranoid, they haven't thought about it.

The thing that bothers me the most is the recklessness and greed of the local ranchers, who run too many cattle back here, choking with waste the creek that runs through my property. There's certain times of day that the cowboys like to send them turds down the river. Them f**kers piss me off. if you gotta mess up the ecology of the world in order to raise a bunch of cows, well eat somethin else. I'm not a fan of the cowboys.

Running down on a way of life our fighting men have fought and died to keep. If you don't love it, leave it.

I'm just writin' about my little ol' love affair.

Staring at the world through the bottom of a glass, all I see is a man who's fading fast.

The Captain just gave us our orders, and Mom we must carry them through. I'll finish this letter first chance I get, but for now I'll just say I love you.

I enjoy the videos with the sound off, where you can look at the belly buttons and everything. Really some pretty girls, but I don't know about the music.

They shaved a little piece of bone off my small toe. You see, you balance yourself a certain way and this toe had grown under the other ones. So he cut it loose, where I could balance myself and it makes me walk straight.

Momma tried to raise me better, but her pleading I denied, and that leaves only me to blame, cause Momma tried.

And then, of course, there's a couple that claim to be, but I haven't done any DNA tests or anything.

The guitar's not all that expensive either, when you compare it to gettin' a toothpulled or something.

HAG Records, is a company that I've owned. I've had a couple of gospel releases on it. We developed a pretty good distribution setup there and we do have something to use in case they don't want to sign us.

Heaven knows that alcohol is the worst thing in the world, but it's debatable whether cocaine is worse than caffeine or whether it's the same thing and they just changed the name.

No, I had a back injury early on in my life.

No, it's not love, but it's not bad.

I haven't had any problems with my back since I got the foot surgery.

I've got two families.