Success can breed contempt, and a casual attitude toward danger.
It was unlikely that anyone had ever heard a black person sing country music.
For most entertainers, there is a single experience, one defining moment, when confidence replaces the self-doubt that most of us wrestle with.
There only have been two people on this earth that I was nervous around: Chet Atkins and Mickey Mantle. It's because of the respect I have for them.
I try to keep my feet on the ground. Even though I appreciate the fame and adoration, I remember once I used to pick cotton, and I felt like even then I was somebody. I have the same feet, hands and heart like everyone else. I'm just also blessed with a good voice.
A fan will grab you and hug you and will not let go. When that happens, you wish it could be that way all over the world.
The time I spent thinking about how I was better than somebody else or worrying about somebody else's attitude was time I could put to better use.
The weight that hangs upon our eyelids - is of lead.
Luck is created by the prepared.
[In Bali] life is a rhythmic, patterned unreality of pleasant, significant movement, centered in one's own body to which all emotions long ago withdrew.
To secure approval one must remain within the bounds of conventional mediocrity. Whatever lies beyond, whether it be greater insight and virtue, or greater stolidity and vice, is condemned. The noblest men, like the worst criminals, have been done to death.