Hank Williams Quotes

There ain't nobody I'd rather have alongside me in a bar brawl than my mama with a broken beer bottle in her hand. ~ Hank Williams

Speaking of people I had to exclude: Hank Williams. which is to say, songs are part of lyric poetry in my book, my thinking. In fact they are the urgent element of poetry in our time, they carry the most emotion for the most people in our culture. everyone LOVES poetry, because we all love (one form or another) of rock and roll (be it folk to emo to rap). It's all rock and roll and all lyric poetry. ~ Gregory Orr

The Hank Williams Syndrome: Come to Nashville, write some good songs, cut some hit records, make money, take all the drugs you can and drink all you can, become a wild man and all of a sudden die. ~ Waylon Jennings

Every year is different. I'm not getting any younger trying to keep it going. It's always a challenge. It's like a boxer going into a ring. You never can tell what's going to work and what's not going to work until you're in action and everything is going on around you. It's very intense and always a challenge and always a thrill. ~ Hank Williams III

You think about people like Hank Williams, who stood on that spot of wood, and Mr. Acuff, and, of course, George Jones. And just about anybody you can think of who has made country music has been on that stage. That's what makes you so nervous - to think about the historical part of the Opry and how it's played such a part in country music. ~ Alan Jackson

Killed by a man with a switch blade knife, for 43 dollars my friend lost his life. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

Oh, I think country has changed tremendously. I think country has totally changed. Country music when I was a kid was Hank Williams. If you put Hank and Elvis together, there wasn't that musical difference. But as the Beatles showed up and the English invasion, I think country music got pretty far away from rock n' roll. ~ John Mellencamp

But the Grateful Dead, as the fanatic fans point out, are a way of life: someone else's. Twentieth-century teenagers, especially American ones, have been brilliant at creating their own culture, their own music, clothes, and point(s) of view. It's sad and fraudulent that the kind of wholesale worship of some historical way of life has settled over so many young people, infecting them like a noxious gas ... I love the dead
grew up in the thrall of Shakespeare and Hank Williams and James Dean. And I adore the Rolling Stones. But there's a difference between cherishing "Satisfaction" and wearing Keith Richards' hair while doing Keith Richards' drugs. I don't want to be Keith Richards. I wanna be me. Not
like the neo-Deadheads
just another extra in an overblown costume drama about something that wasn't that interesting the first time around. ~ Sarah Vowell

The best pay off in the world is when someone comes up to you and says, 'your music has helped me with some pretty rough times through life. I don't know if I would still be here if it was for your music whether it be country music or heavy metal has done for me.' That's ultimately the biggest payoff for me. I hear it from young kids to military guys and military women to older folks. ~ Hank Williams III

Every time the media brings up the tea party, it's painted as racist and extremists
but there's never a backlash, no outrage to those comparisons ... Working-class people are hurting
and it doesn't seem like anybody cares. When both sides are high-fiving it on the ninth hole when everybody else is without a job
it makes a whole lot of us angry. Something has to change. The policies have to change. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

I was a pretty good imitator of Roy Acuff, but then I found out they already had a Roy Acuff, so I started singin' like myself. ~ Hank Williams

You're singing a song about making love to your drummer, well gay guitar pickers don't turn me on. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

In a way, being raised on the farm and doing chores and stuff it's a natural thing for me to want to work outside. It's almost kind of like a rehabilitation for me with doing that. ~ Hank Williams III

The rush of creating sounds and mixing sounds is always an interesting challenge, especially for someone like me, who doesn't know about sound. ~ Hank Williams III

My grandpa taught me how to live off the land. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

I always wanted a guitar. I always wanted to be a cowboy singer because I also listened to Hank Williams, and he would always sing these neat romantic songs. ~ Dick Dale

I just want the songs to have the staying power as my favorite songs. If you listen to any Hank Williams song, when you're in a good mood, it's going to put you in a better mood. If you happen to be bummed-out, you're going to feel maybe a little more bummed-out and better at the same time. At any time in my life, his music has had meaning and value to me. If a song can shape-shift in that way, that's a sign of success. ~ M. Ward

If Ford is to Chevrolet what Dodge is to Chrysler,
what Corn Flakes are to Post Toasties,
what the clear blue sky is to the deep blue sea,
what Hank Williams is to Neil Armstrong -
can you doubt we were made for each other? ~ Lyle Lovett

The vocals are the very last thing I do. So, it's kinda the opposite: with country. it's singing and guitar first, but with rock, I worry about the riff and music, vocals last. ~ Hank Williams III

My mom nor my father never pushed me into the music business. I always did it because I wanted to. ~ Hank Williams III

Don't take life TOO serious you can't get out alive anyhow. ~ Hank Williams

I'd love to spit some Beechnut in that dude's eye and shoot him with my ole forty-five. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

I would have to go back to being a dog. I've called myself a dog for many years. ~ Hank Williams III

Wherever it left us,
we were barely learning to live with it
when here came Flannery O'Connor and Hank Williams
to tell us that no one has ever been loved
the way everybody wants to be loved,
and that's hard. That's hard.
last stanza of How Step by Step We Have Come to Understand ~ Miller Williams

She loved horses and Hank Williams and had a best friend named Babs. ~ Cheryl Strayed

I went and got a tire tool out of my truck, and straightened him out as cold as a block of ice. It was an attitude adjustment, and it'll work every time. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

You can do anything that you wanna do, but uh-uh, don't step on my cowboy boots. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

We've got a Muslim for a president who hates cowboys, hates cowgirls, hates fishing, hates farming, loves gays and we hate him! ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

Growing up Southern is a privilege, really. It's more than where you were born, it's an idea and state of mind that seems imparted at birth. It's more than loving fried chicken, football, beer, and country music. It's being hospitable and devoted to screen porches, magnolias, red velvet cake, coca cola, and each other. We don't become southern--we're born that way. ~ Hank Williams Jr.

We make our own whiskey and our own smoke, too. Ain't too many things these ole boys can't do. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

I realized a lot of my friends were going to nightclubs and listening to house music. I was hanging out with them and going to clubs as well but I didn't really understand that kind of music. I was listening to country music and was heavily into Hank Williams, bluegrass, and Bob Dylan. So I just decided I really needed to understand what this music I was hearing in the clubs was all about. ~ Hans-Peter Lindstrom

I'd have all the cars made in the Carolinas, and I'd ban the ones made in China. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

Not everybody is going to like what I do or get what I do. With as much positive, you always get the negative to deal with. I get that as well. Most of the time, I'm very honored to have a fan base that they react to my songs. My songs speak to a lot of them. ~ Hank Williams III

Old Hank would be proud, and Elvis would too, cause we like our country mixed with some big city blues. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

If I'm playing country, I gotta have my country hat and my cowboy boots. I gotta have a voice, and the third thing, I gotta have I guess a little music to keep me in the right mind, a little pre-show something to get ya going. Lots of AC/DC, or I'll sit on youtube and find all kinds of stuff before we take the stage to get pumped up. ~ Hank Williams III

I put on the Hank Williams and the Patsy Cline and the Rosemary Clooney on vinyl - I'm not trying to be some cool indie-rock person, I just love the way it sounds - and throw on a T-shirt and jeans. In Texas, we practically come out of the womb in jeans. ~ Kelly Clarkson

Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Merle Haggard, Hank Williams ... all of them are different styles, but those are the songs that make the times ... they're the songs that last through time. ~ Dolly Parton

A one-night stand that waited three years to tell me I had a son. I needed cash flow fast, It was time to get into the business. ~ Hank Williams III

My daddy, he was somewhere between God and John Wayne. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

I don't think you'd call me a traditionalist. But you can say I have an old soul, because I grew up listening to Conway Twitty and Hank Williams. ~ Scotty McCreery

The presidents against Congress, the Senate is against the House, people are against politicians, and I'm against cats in the house. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

Jake La Botz is a creator of dark poetry and haunting song, the kind of music that gets in your bones and rides you for days, a sound and vision only those who've been to the bottom and clawed their way back up can generate. His midnight gifts evoke Hank Williams and Skip James as much as Tom Waits and Dylan. Not everybody will get this music - because not everybody is ready for the truth. ~ Jerry Stahl

I had a good friend in New York City. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

Hell, Justin and I even talking about recording a blues song sometime. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

I ain't gonna worry wrinkles in my brow, cuz nothin's never gonna be alright nohow. No matter how I struggle and strive, I'll never get out of this world alive. ~ Hank Williams

The marketing geniuses on the corporate side of the country music labels had decided to start using focus groups to test their products before they were developed or released. An example of this would be to ask the focus group whether they liked sad songs or happy songs. "We like happy songs!" the focus group would chirp, and the word would go back to the writers and producers to come up with "happy" songs to record. This made it especially hard on the songwriters, who rarely feel a need to write when they are happy, as then they are busy luxuriating in the pleasure of happiness. When something bad happens, they want to find a way to transcend it, so they write a song about it. When Hank Williams, one of the greatest and most successful country artists of all time, wrote a song like "Your Cheatin' Heart" or "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," he wasn't writing "happy" songs, yet they made the listener feel better. The listener could feel that someone else had gone through an experience similar to the listener's own, and then went to the trouble and effort to write it down accurately and share the experience like a compassionate friend might do. In this way, hearing a song like "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" could make the listener feel better, or "happy. ~ Linda Ronstadt

It's a lot harder to keep your cool than it is to lose it. That's on any work ethic. Even if you're a big producer on a movie set, or whatever, it's a lot harder to be a pro than be a baby on your crew. That's one work ethic to keep in mind, as one bad apple could give five people a bad day, when that one person could've stepped up their own efforts a little more and not bring anyone else down. ~ Hank Williams III

I always wanted to have my own farm. I've never been able to achieve that. It's kinda tough. ~ Hank Williams III

Country music is full of affairs and cheating; that's where all those Hank Williams songs come from. ~ Robert Hilburn

Animals have always been therapeutic for me to work with; they help me get me grounded from being on the road. ~ Hank Williams III

And I flirted with the devil and he dealt me a card. He told me that you will never win. So I sold my soul to the devil. I never thought it could be this bad. And I got the devil takin' me away ~ Hank Williams III

Maybe one day the old guys will die off and things will change, 'cuz it's officially getting scary over here in America. ~ Hank Williams III

One of the reasons I sing so much about smoking or drinking isn't about the addiction, but more so that I'm trying to let people have a good time at my shows and forget their problems. Relax and enjoy. There's not certain religions or politics sold on them. Just come out, have a beer, have a laugh, good energy from stage and have a good time. ~ Hank Williams III

When I was asked if I wanted to perform on the Grand Ole Opry, I yelled, 'Are you kidding me?' I've been waiting for that my whole life. To be invited where so many of the greatest country artists have performed is an honor, and I still can't believe it has been bestowed on me. Just to stand in the circle where so many greats have stood-Hank Williams, Kitty Wells, I just couldn't believe it. ~ Darius Rucker

Let me sum it up for ya: We got some people who work for a living, and we got some people who vote for a living. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

Do the thing you love to do. Hank Williams died at the ripe old age of twentynine. Stevie Ray Vaughan at thirty-five. Jesus at thirtythree. Don't think you're special and the Lord's gonna bless you with time. ~ Jill S. Alexander

We gotta control inflation, quit spending our money on everything. But this years tax increase, why it's the biggest in history. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

I got Jimmy Hall from Wet Willie and he also plays now with Hank Williams Jr. ~ Gregg Allman

When I was very, very young, I decided that I was gonna catalogue my times because that's what other people who I admired did. That's what Bob Dylan did, that's what Frank Sinatra did, Hank Williams did, in very different ways. ~ Bruce Springsteen

Country folks will survive ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

Today is a sad day in Country music. We have lost another piece of history. George Jones was not only a good singer, but was a good friend. He will be missed by many. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

Some high society lady said is your horse outside? No ma'am, he's between my legs, but your too fat to ride. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

The greatest of men, they don't get too big to cry. They just loose faith in love and life. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

I'm for turning off the tube and turning down the light, cause I'm for nothing else but me and you tonight. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

The name alone usually attracts about 50 or so curiosity seekers to the show. We know if we're playing the Policeman's Ball or something to have the proper respect, but we like to get rowdy. ~ Hank Williams III

I got girls that can cook, I got girls that can clean, I got girls that'll do anything between. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

Somewhere between raising hell and amazing grace, Lord I know just how they feel. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

Rock 'n' roll is an attitude, it's not a musical form of a strict sort. It's a way of doing things, of approaching things. Writing can be rock 'n' roll, or a movie can be rock 'n' roll. It's a way of living your life. ~ Lester Bangs

It was only his fifth offense, and this time he's killed someone. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

Sitting in the shadows next to the Volvo was Mr. FBI's pickup. Inside of the cab, his lit cigarette burned red then faded to a pale orange. She paused next to his open window, slipping on the jean jacket she'd borrowed from Claire. Old Hank Williams Sr.'s singing Your Cheatin' Heart came from his speakers. ~ Ann Charles

I'd put Hank Williams picture on one hundred dollar bills. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

Good friends, good whiskey, and good lovin', I want to thank you Lord. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

My dad and I could chat for hours about solar systems, dog psychology, and the existence of God, all while listening to Hank Williams and eating Taco Bell. ~ David Crabb

Have pity on a dinosaur. ~ Hank Williams, Jr.

Lessons that come easy are not lessons at all. They are gracious acts of luck. Yet lessons learned the hard way are lessons never forgotten. ~ Don Williams

You see, there's a drill:
1. I [Amy] will say 'Right then, let's go and rescue him [Rory].'
2. The Doctor will say 'Ah yes, but ... '
3. And then he'll list the fourteen things that we have to do before we resuce Rory
4. And why they're all more important than rescuing Rory
5. The list normally includes wounded puppies
6. An exploding bus full of grannies
7. You know what I mean
8. So we'll go and do those instead
9. Cos they're all so important
10. And Rory has to come last. ~ James Goss

I'm closer to being happy. I'm doing things that make me happy. In football I loved to practice and I loved to play, but I hated to be in meetings, hated to talk to the media, hated to have cameras in my face, hated to sign autographs. I hated to do all those things. ~ Ricky Williams

Like a stand of lodgepole pines in a gale Raisa's followers all went down leaving her standing alone ... There's no shelter for me not from any of this. I'll stand alone the rest of my life. THE GRAY WOLF THRONE p. 163 ~ Cinda Williams Chima

In The Bloudy Tenent, Williams points out that Constantine "did more to hurt Christ Jesus than the raging fury of the most bloody Neroes." at least under the Christian persecutor Nero, who was rumored to have had the Apostle Paul beheaded and Saint Peter crucified upside down, Christianity was a pure (if hazardous) way of life. But when Constantine himself converted to Christianity, that's when the Church was corrupted and perverted by the state. Williams explains that under Constantine, "the gardens of Christ's churches turned into the wildernesss of national religion, and the world (under Constantine's dominion) to the most unchristian Christendom." Legalizing, legitimizing the Church turned Christianity into just another branch of government enforced by "the sword of civil power," i.e., through state-sponsored violence. ~ Sarah Vowell

The reason we had an all-black outfield in '51 is Don Mueller got hurt, so Hank Thompson was a legitimate replacement. So what? People talk about, 'You're the first to do this. You're the first to do that.' Don't dwell on race all the time. ~ Monte Irvin

Reason is emotion for the sexless. ~ Heathcote Williams

Every man is the hero of his own song. ~ Tad Williams

The music aids the message, it's there to punctuate and abbreviate and shape the silence. ~ Saul Williams

Smokey Joe (Williams) could throw harder than anyone. ~ Satchel Paige

We are each individuals, but the far greater thing is what we are together, and if that isn't protected and cherished, we are headed to a bad place. ~ Hank Green

The naysayers, they don't mean a thing. ~ Venus Williams

If I got rid of my demons, I'd lose my angels. ~ Tennessee Williams

It's because you're letting the fairy tales you grew up hearing in storybooks and the baseless ideas of love cloud your mind. Love isn't easy. Especially the really good kind. It's difficult, and you'll want to rip your hair out just as many days you'll feel the wind at your back." She paused smiling to herself. "But it's worth it. It's worth fighting for ~ Nicole Williams

That's enough!" Holly scrambled out of her seat, too. "My three-year-old behaves better than all of you." She looked down at LJ, who was trying to stuff a fry up his nostril. "And that's not saying a whole lot. ~ Nicole Williams

Even after they fired me, called me a bigot and publicly advised me to only share my thoughts with a psychiatrist, I did not call for defunding NPR. I am a journalist, and NPR is an important platform for journalism. ~ Juan Williams

And I will write this down / And then I will not be alone again ~ Dar Williams

You don't have to be African American to really enjoy 'Frisky Business'. But as far as being black, a lot of people in New York have been stopped and frisked, so that hits home for them. ~ Jessica Williams

It is not a crime to commit First Degree Writing ~ Temple Emmet Williams

The average man will bristle if you say his father was dishonest, but he will brag a little if he discovers that his great-grandfather was a Pirate. ~ Bernard Williams

I think there is a great deal of interest still in the Christian faith. ~ Rowan Williams

I am like a survivor
of the flood
walking through the streets
drenched with
God
surprised that all of the
drowned victims
are still walking and talking ~ Saul Williams

For a man who purports to have learned of media ethics only this month, Mr. Williams has spent an undue amount of time appearing as a media ethicist on both CNN and the cable news networks of NBC. ~ Frank Rich

My children are 10 and three, and the longing and the need for them is incredibly powerful. ~ Treat Williams

The way he was playing, he probably could have scored on Jesus. ~ Mo Williams

I think I have a tendency to look at things subjectively rather than objectively when I reflect on my experience. ~ Ricky Williams