Top 217 Quotes & Sayings by Johnny Cash - Page 3

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

Why me, Lord? What have I ever done to deserve even one of the blessings I've known? Why me, Lord? What did I ever do that was worth love from you and the kindness you've shown? Lord, help me, Jesus, I've wasted it so. Help me, Jesus. I know what I am. Now that I know that I've needed you so, help me, Jesus. My soul's in your hand.

Well, I take great comfort in the words of the apostle Paul who said, ‘What I will to do, that I do not practice. But what I hate, that I do.’ And he said, ‘It is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells within me. But who,’ he asks, ‘will deliver me from this body of death?’ And he answers for himself and for me, ‘Through Jesus Christ the Lord.'

Beneath the stains of time the feeling disappears, you are someone else I am still right here.

If I'm anything, I'm not a singer but I'm a song stylist.

Backstage at the Grand Ole Opry, I got on my knees and told her that I was going to marry her some day. We were both married to someone else at the time. ‘Ring Of Fire’—June and Merle Kilgore wrote that song for me-that’s the way our love affair was. We fell madly in love and we worked together all the time, toured together all the time, and when the tour was over we both had to go home to other people. It hurt.

Some gal would giggle and I'd get red, and some guy'd laugh and I'd bust his head. I tell ya, life ain't easy for a boy named Sue.

We went down [Folsom Prison] and there's a rodeo at all these shows that the prisoners have there. And in between the rodeo things, they asked me to set up and do two or three songs. So that was what I did. I did "Folsom Prison Blues," which they thought was their song - you know? - and "I Walk The Line," "Hey Porter," "Cry, Cry, Cry." And then the word got around on the grapevine that Johnny Cash is all right and that you ought to see him.

After about three lessons [my] voice teacher said, "Don't take voice lessons. Do it your way. You're a song stylist. Always do it your way."

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.

All music comes from God.

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'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.

That was American Recordings. I said, I like the name, maybe it'd be OK. So I said, I'd like to meet the guy [Rick Rubin ].I'd like for him to tell me what he can do with me that they're not doing now.

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

Convicts are the best audience I ever played for.

I kept talking to my producers at Columbia about recording one of those [prison] shows. So we went into Folsom on February 11, 1968, and recorded a show live.

So I simply don't buy the concept of "Generation X" as the "lost generation." I see too many good kids out there, kids who are ready and willing to do the right thing, just as Jack was. Their distractions are greater, though. There's no more simple life with simple choices for the young.

I've always explored various areas of society. And I love the young people. And I had an empathy for prisoners and did concerts for them back when I thought that it would make a difference - you know? - that they really were there to be rehabilitated.

Every week, Dennis Day sang an old Irish folk song. And next day in the fields, I'd be singing that song if I was working in the fields.

I'm thankful for the sea breeze that feels so good right now, and the scent of jasmine when the sun starts going down.

Help me, Jesus. I know what I am.

I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.

Gospel music is so ingrained into my bones. I can't do a concert without singing a gospel song. It's what I was raised on.

I love Bob Dylan, I really do. I love his early work, I love the first time he plugged in electrically, I love his Christian albums, I love his other albums.

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.

There's a man going 'round taking names / And he decides who to free and who to blame / Everybody won't be treated all the same / There'll be a golden ladder reaching down / When the Man comes around.

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

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

My way of communicating with God as a boy (and often even now) was through the lyrics of a song. . . . So I didn't have the problem some people do who say, "I don't know how to pray." I used the songs to communicate with God. . . . To me, songs were the telephone to heaven, and I tied up the line quite a bit.

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

I had an empathy for prisoners and did concerts for them back when I thought that it would make a difference - you know? - that they really were there to be rehabilitated.

The first time I knew what I wanted to do with my life was when I was about four years old. I was listening to an old Victrola, playing a railroad song...I thought that was the most wonderful, amazing thing...That you could take this piece of wax and music would come out of that box. From that day on, I wanted to sing on the radio.

It was kind of a prodding myself to play I Walk The Line straight.

I always loved those songs. And with my high tenor, I thought I was pretty good - you know? - almost as good as Dennis Day.

He went up to heaven, located his dog. Not only that, but he rejoined his arm.

When I get an idea for a song it would gel in my mind for weeks or months, and then one day just like that, Ill write it.

I developed a pretty unusual style, I think.

I like to sit on the front porch of an old cabin I built in the woods and just listen to the birds; I like to fish in the pond and I always throw the fish back.

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.

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

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

My contract with mercury PolyGram Nashville was about to expire. And I never had really been happy. The company, the record company, just didn't put any promotion behind me. I think one album, maybe the last one I did, they pressed 500 copies. And I was just disgusted with it. And about that time that I got to feeling that way, Lou Robin, my manager, came to me and talked to me about a man called Rick Rubin that he had been talking to that wanted me to sign with his record company.

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

Now that I know that I've needed you so, help me, Jesus. My soul's in your hand.

I wear the black for those who never read.

[My mother] called [my voice] the gift.

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

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.

Sam Phillips asked me to go write a love song, or maybe a bitter weeper. So I wrote a song called, "Cry Cry Cry," went back in and recorded that for the other side of the record.

[Sam Phillips] laughed at me. I just didn't like the way I Walk The Line sounded to me. I didn't know I sounded that way. And I didn't like it. I don't know. But he said let's give it a chance, and it was just a few days until - that's all it took to take off.

I expect my life to end pretty soon. You know, I'm 71 years old. I have great faith, though. I have unshakable faith.

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

I sang those old gospel songs for my mother, and she said, is that you? And I said, yes, ma'am. And she came over and put her arms around me and said, God's got his hands on you.

One day, I just decided I'm ready to go. So I went down with my guitar and sat on the front steps of Sam Phillips recording studio.

I worked there [on Pontiac] three weeks, got really sick of it, went back home and joined the Air Force.

I love the young people.

I got really excited about it. But then we went into the studio and tried to record some with different musicians, and it didn't sound good. It didn't work. So we put together the album [Unchained] with just a guitar and myself.

[My father] did every kind of work imaginable from painting to shoveling to herding cattle. And he's always been such an inspiration to me because of the very kinds of things that he did and the kind of life he lived.

I started to write the song. And I was in Gladewater, Texas, one night with Carl Perkins and I said, I've got a good idea for a song. And I sang him the first verse that I had written, and I said it's called "Because You're Mine." And he said, "I Walk The Line" is a better title, so I changed it to "I Walk The Line."