Josh Turner Quotes

Life is a series of punches. It presents a lot of challenges. It presents a lot of hardship, but the people that are able to take those punches and able to move forward are the ones that really do have a lot of success and have a lot of joy in their life and have a lot of stories to tell, too.

I don't feel like God called me to be a Gospel singer. He didn't call me to be a Christian singer, he called me to be a country singer, and I just happen to be a Christian.

My dream was to go to Nashville. I had my sights set on my dream. I used to have an '89 Toyota Ford truck. On the front of the truck, I had this license plate with cowboy boots and a guitar that I had airbrushed at Wal-Mart. It said 'Chasin' A Dream.' That was kind of my motto.

Look to the Heavens, you can look to the skies. You can find redemption staring back into your eyes.

I'm thankful to have Jesus as my Savior. My relationship with God has always been one to where I'm talking to him all day, every day, about anything and everything. It's just a continuous ongoing conversation that I have with the Lord, and I feel like that's brought me closer to Him.

I grew up like a lot of country boys and girls do - amongst the pine trees, dirt roads, farms, mules and people who were real.

I'm normally the guy that stands off in the corner.

I'm a sinner just like everybody else and I have my faults and I've been through my dark times in my life to where I wasn't walking the walk and talking the talk, or I may have been talking the talk, but I wasn't walking the walk.

I love my boys. I love watching them growing up. I love seeing them develop, and I'm always looking forward to seeing what they're going to become and what they're going to be interested in later in life.

My granddaddy on my momma's side, he was a romantic. He loved love songs. Every Valentine's Day, I remember him buying a red carnation for my grandmomma, my momma and my sister. That was something you could count on every year.

I love Jesus Christ with all my heart and everything He stands for. I think that sums up everything that I want for my life, everything I want for my family, everything I want for my career. I want it to be entertaining. I want people to smile and tap their toes, but I want it to be meaningful when the day is done.

The coolest gift I've ever gotten from a fan was from the Franklin Mint. It was a knife, and it had a picture of General Wade Hampton, who my oldest son is named after. It's a collector's item and came with a case and a stand and everything.

My manager came up with the idea of taking a Pro Tool rig out on the road to record every night and I thought it was a great idea. I felt like it would be good to record over a certain period of time and then take the best performances of that collection of recordings. It appealed to me that it wasn't going to be from just one location.

I grew up going to a real small missionary baptist church. We would sing a lot of the old standards... the hymns and everything. Those songs are still my favorite and are pretty timeless.

'Firecracker' was such a fun song to write and to perform.

Singing allowed me to express myself in ways that I wouldn't be able to do otherwise.

I've found throughout the years that I needed a place where I can go with no TV, no computer, no phone and just have no distractions and just be able to sit and think and just not be disturbed.

It's hard sometimes to capture magic when it comes to live records.

You hear about quality time a lot but I really think that quantity time with a person is really what strengthens a relationship. That's when you really get to know somebody. You get to know their strengths and their weaknesses and that brings you closer. That's what 'Time Is Love' is all about.

I've never had the patience of a teacher.

I was trying to learn how to deal with the freedom that I had away from home for the first time. 'Long Black Train,' the song and the album, are very special to me. It was just one of those things that I felt like God gave to me for a purpose, and I've been out here promoting that purpose.

I care about my legacy that I'm leaving, not only for my fans, but for my wife and my children and my grandchildren. I want them to look back and say, 'He did it right and he stood up for what is right.'

I like to fish when it's not too hot.

You have to make a lot of sacrifices, and the main thing you have to sacrifice is your privacy. It's funny because when I was growing up, my daddy was and still is an insurance agent in our home town. He couldn't go anywhere without somebody recognizing him or needing something from him.

I play basketball all the time. Me and my band play every week on the road. That's something that I've never really given up since high school.

'All Over Me' is a song that I really got fired up the first time I heard it: it just really moved and it really had a lot of energy.

When you get married and have children, and you start having hits and success and your business starts growing, there's less and less time for songwriting.

Not only am I trying to be a daddy, but also a friend, not be the old fogey thats slowing everybody else down... not for a while, at least.

'Long Black Train' was inspired by a vision that I had of a long, black train running down this track way out in the middle of nowhere. I could see people standing out to the sides of this track watching this train go by. As I was walking, experiencing this vision, I kept asking myself, 'What does this vision mean and what is this train?'

I don't ever land on an album title until I know exactly what's going on the record, because you never know until it's all said and done.

What I did to celebrate was I went home to my 535-square-foot apartment by myself and ate supper by myself. That was how I celebrated getting a record deal.

There were only 75 people in my graduating class at the school I attended in Hannah, S.C. It was a small school and that translated into not a lot of opportunities when it came to music. We had academic and sports programs but we never had a consistent music program. We would have a band one year, and a chorus one year, but nothing ever lasted.

A No. 1 record is hard to come by.

I'm always showing pictures off. I have to be careful who I show them to because of who I am, obviously, but I'm a proud father.

When a copier sales person cold calls a purchasing manager whom he has never met is it any surprise that the purchasing manager will most likely never return that call?

I've listened to a lot of outside stuff and just haven't really heard anything that moves me. I don't know if I'm getting old and crotchety or what.

I remember those days right after I graduated from college. All I had to do was wake up in the morning and think about writing songs. It's not like that anymore, needless to say.

My first full year of touring, I did 300 days on the road. That was not including the travel time or publicity or anything else - that was just dates. I was home probably less than 50 days that year.

I haven't always been the guy that walks into a room and automatically the attention is on me. I'm normally the guy that stands off in the corner.

I'm definitely not going to go and sing a song that condones certain things.

I didn't rebel in the way a lot of people do.

I'm not much of a water skier, my legs are too skinny for that, so I just try to tube and have fun, just ride.

Who's not a fan of Don Williams? He's the gentle giant.

I feel like the live record thing is something that I've been getting used to as the years go by and with this being my second one, I'm continuing to learn what works and what doesn't work. A live record is an example of that authenticity and that realness that you find in imperfection and you can hear that in this record.

One of my favorite places is Seattle. Growing up, I never thought I'd be able to go to Seattle. I grew up in eastern South Carolina, so that's as far as you can get from Seattle, unless I lived in Miami.

I grew up around people that enjoyed life day to day and found pleasure in simple things.

I came from a rural background, and I didn't come in contact with a lot of wealthy people.

The life that I live and the experiences that I have always affect what comes out of me creatively. I think that's what makes music real.

We all have those days when you feel like you're against the world, every little thing goes wrong and your blood pressure is up. And you feel like punching somebody!

It's so cool for me to do what I love to do for a living and meet people from all over the world.