Quotes from Merle Haggard

Sometimes if you get 'em too drunk they don't pay no attention to what you're doin' anyways, so you might as well just do old songs. But if you get one that's paying attention, sometimes we'll do some new material.

In 1960, when I came out of prison as an ex-convict, I had more freedom under parolee supervision than there's available... in America right now.

I haven't had any problems with my back since I got the foot surgery.

I had some surgery on my feet, which has helped my back some.

The Captain just gave us our orders, and Mom we must carry them through. I'll finish this letter first chance I get, but for now I'll just say I love you.

If I had a choice, and there was a "Y" in the road, I would always take the one that was more fun as opposed to the one that might make me more money.

There's two kind of cherries, and two kind of fairies, and two kind of mothers I'm told.

And there's some Latino music I like, and some reggae music.

I enjoy the videos with the sound off, where you can look at the belly buttons and everything. Really some pretty girls, but I don't know about the music.

When you get to readin' about where the music and John Steinbeck and all those people like that come from, the further you go the more interesting it becomes.

I can't really say why everyone loves Bob Wills' music, but I have yet to meet a person who didn't like it.

My 10 year old son likes it. He's trying to play guitar and everything. He likes that kind of music.

I was 48-years old before anybody talked me into it for medicinal purposes, instead of some of these drugs that they give you that will lead you to heart surgery and things of that nature.

We are under [government's] control, and if people don't realize that, they haven't looked around. And if they're not paranoid, they haven't thought about it.

Everybody likes Johnny Cash. I think the sad part of it is his health is givin' him problems.

It's a long way from Graceland across Jordan to the Promised Land, but Jesus finally came to lead him home.

I'll tell you what the public likes more than anything, it's the most rare commodity in the world - honesty.

There's a rumor that there may be an attempt at organizing a possible script for a series on my life, which, when you look at my police record, you'd have to have more than one hour to tell the story.

I think I'm most proud of my family right now. I'm more into that then I've ever been. It also gives a new area to draw from in creativity with my songs.

The only thing that I miss lately in all music is somebody that will put out a melody that you can whistle. It doesn't seem like there's anything happening like that.

95% of the album is my writing, by choice, because it seems to be what the distributors want.

I've got two families.

It makes my wife mad, you know, she wants me to stay home all the time. But its what I've done all my life and I think when I quit doing it I'll probably go away pretty quick.

And then, of course, there's a couple that claim to be, but I haven't done any DNA tests or anything.