Quotes from Brett Young

I'm still obsessed with the beach whenever I'm home; when I'm on the beach, it feels like home to me.

My dad's a pastor; I grew up in the church, and it's really easy to just have a healthy respect for what some people might be sensitive to.

The power of a label and radio and a booking agency and all that - you never know until you experience it the first time, but being able to have a song on radio, but then go play a show for people that have heard the song on radio, and having it sung back to you, is - I don't know how to describe it.

It's really hard to chase a lofty dream.

It is such a surreal feeling to have my first single go No. 1!

I knew I would always be an artist, but when you move to Nashville, this is a writer's town. I moved here to focus on that and started pitching demos and immediately was asked to be an artist.

I always say, 'If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.' I couldn't be happier with where I ended up and how it worked out.

While I don't feel like I'm an evangelist, country music is about to give me a platform, and so keeping it topically acceptable for everybody, I hope that sets some sort of example.

John Mayer will be around forever, like the Eagles and Eric Clapton.

My first concert was Boyz II Men and Mariah Carey.

If I want people to connect to my words and my stories, I need to tell them where they came from. Because then, when you break into song, they have kind of a blueprint for why I wrote that song, so they can come to it with something they went through that helps them connect to it.

I surfed until I was 18, and being the athlete that I am, I got really frustrated with how I wasn't really getting any better.

When I was young, I would just write poems into textbooks in class. Everybody needs that outlet. For me, I think it's less about learning about myself and more about just needing to get things out sometimes.

I think I realized my parents' relationship was special when I had my first girlfriend, and she came from a broken marriage. I watched how much closeness there was between her and her mom, and also how much bickering.

My very first tattoo was a crown of thorns around my upper left arm that I have since gotten covered up, because I got it right before Pamela Anderson came out with 'Barb Wire.'

It's funny how God will change your plans for you when he's ready.

We've gotten to play shows where I'm the headliner, so people are buying tickets to come see me, and that's when you really learn, 'Okay, who's listening to this music?' That and social media. But I couldn't feel luckier about the fan base that is starting to grow... People have just been super, super supportive and awesome.

It's always helpful to put things down on paper. That's why I started writing.

Country music isn't about being better than the guy next to you - it's just making sure that you keep working hard enough to deserve the position that you get in.

The fact of the matter is, if music is something that you want to do, you need to stick with it with the idea that you're going to do it until it works.

I don't know what it is in me that refuses to quit, but I think it's kind of like, dare to dream.

Gavin DeGraw - his first record is the reason that I wanted to start writing music. The way that he says something that everybody says on a regular basis but he says it differently. It makes you kind of perk up and listen.

I'm personally a hopeless romantic. I always have been.

My parents' example of a loving, caring relationship, I think, has affected my songwriting a ton and allowed me to start writing love songs that people could connect to without sounding like you're being cheesy, because they're coming from a real place, something that I saw coming up. I think they're a huge influence on my songwriting.