Quotes

People speak out today, like the guy that did it on the Academy Awards [Michael Moore]. They can make an ass out of themselves if they do that. I don't get mixed in with politics.

I'd never acted in a movie before, and every time I see True Grit (1969) I think my record's still clean!

I'm a jazzer. I just love to get the guitar and play the hell out of it if I can.

I'm not a country singer per se. I'm a country boy who sings.

[on 'Rhinestone cowboy', the number he considered his personal anthem] I thought it was my autobiography set to song.

My third marriage was very difficult. I started on the alcohol and then my wife introduced me to cocaine. I was looking for a way out of my unhappiness although drink and drugs are never the answer. For the next three or four years, I was self-destructing. I'd started freebasing. That's when you smoke the boiled residue of cocaine powder mixed with a solvent. I took a few drags and I thought I was going to die. I prayed to God.

I couldn't smoke pot. It just made me go to sleep.

I've often asked myself, how much information can the brain actually hold? There'll probably come a day when you're able to download it; that's what you have to do when the machine's full. Or else you make a bigger machine. But they can't do that.

People who are advocating burning draft cards should be hung.

Frank asked [the producer] Jimmy Bowen, 'Who's the fag guitarist over there?' I told him I'd slap him if he said that again. Actually, Frank was friendly. When I was playing golf in one of the Bob Hope Classics down in Palm Springs, he said, 'You can have my house, I'm not going to be there. I said, 'Which one?' He had about three of 'em. A guy like Frank, it's like they don't laugh much. I always thought he was bashful. He was kind of off-standing until you made him mad, and then he was a tyrant.

[on his prison sentence in 2004] But I made it a good thing. I went down and took my guitar, my drummer and bass player and played for the other inmates of this holding pen they had. I think I got two days off for good measure. And I haven't had a drink since. Thank you, Lord.

I think I'm most proud of my 1967 hit Gentle Of My Mind ... it's become my theme song. It was a privilege to record all those great Jimmy Webb songs such as Wichita Lineman, Galveston and By The Time I Get To Phoenix too.

True Grit was fun to do but I wasn't cut out to be an actor. I made John Wayne look so good he won his only Oscar. Saying lines of script is a strange experience and the way they'd shoot a scene in the middle of the movie then jump back to a scene at the start was scatterbrained to me.

I've often asked myself, "How much information can the brain actually hold?" There'll probably come a day when you're able to download it; that's what you have to do when the machine's full. Or else you make a bigger machine. But they can't do that.

I think I'm most proud of my 1967 hit "Gentle Of My Mind" . . . it's become my theme song. It was a privilege to record all those great Jimmy Webb songs such as "Wichita Lineman," "Galveston" and "By The Time I Get To Phoenix". too.

Frank Sinatra asked [the producer] Jimmy Bowen, "Who's the fag guitarist over there?" I told him I'd slap him if he said that again. Actually, Frank was friendly. When I was playing golf in one of the Bob Hope Classics down in Palm Springs, he said, "You can have my house, I'm not going to be there". I said, "Which one?" He had about three of 'em. A guy like Frank, it's like they don't laugh much. I always thought he was bashful. He was kind of off-standing until you made him mad, and then he was a tyrant.

True Grit (1969) was fun to do but I wasn't cut out to be an actor. I made John Wayne look so good he won his only Oscar. Saying lines of script is a strange experience and the way they'd shoot a scene in the middle of the movie, then jump back to a scene at the start was scatterbrained to me.

[on "Rhinestone Cowboy", the song he considered his personal anthem] I thought it was my autobiography set to song.