Merle Haggard Quotes

We need to have music that contributes to the well-being of the spirit. Music that cradles people's lives and makes things a little easier. That's what I try to do, and what I want to do. You don't want to close the door on hope.

By the time you get close to the answers, it's nearly all over.

Lay in the weeds and wait, and when you get your chance to say something, say something good.

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

Momma tried to raise me better, but her pleading I denied, and that leaves only me to blame, cause Momma tried.

Faith is the only way we're going to make it. None of us are smart enough to do it on our own.

I wish coke was still cola and a joint was a bad place to be.

Running down on a way of life our fighting men have fought and died to keep. If you don't love it, leave it.

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.

Keep your opinions to yourself. I think it's important that I stay neutral on politics and remain hard to understand. I don't want to be pigeonholed as conservative, liberal, independent or anything. I back the man for the things the man believes in, not whether it says "R" or "D" down there beside his name.

Willie Nelson's the one who told me the reason it costs so much to get divorced is because it's worth it.

If I hear another line dance song I think I'm going to puke.

This is America. We're proud. We're not afraid of a bunch of terrorists. But this government is all about terror alerts and scaring us at airports. We're changing the Constitution out of fear. We spend all our time looking up each other's dresses. Fear's the only issue the Republican Party has. Vote for them, or the terrorists will win. That's not what Reagan was about. I hate to think about our soldiers over in Iraq fighting for a country that's slipping away.

A house without love ain't a home.

There's two or three kids out there trying to make good music, and the rest of them sound like it's been strained through some kind of white toast or something. It all sounds just too neat and perfect, with no surprise to it at all. No story, no nothing. It's like building cars, like an assembly line. It doesn't sound like anything that came from a guitar.

Hey, hey, the working man, the working man like me. I ain't never been on welfare, that's one place I won't be.

Stop rolling down hill like a snow ball headed for hell.

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

To be part of what you're singing about is somewhat painful. You've got to climb inside it all.

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.

There's just a few people that call themselves stars can actually sit down with a guitar and sing you a song.

There's one thing I never did do, and that was stink.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Read about some squirrelly guy who claims that he just don't believe in fighting, and I wonder how long the rest of us can count on being free.

The thing that bothers me the most is the recklessness and greed of the local ranchers, who run too many cattle back here, choking with waste the creek that runs through my property. There's certain times of day that the cowboys like to send them turds down the river. Them f**kers piss me off. if you gotta mess up the ecology of the world in order to raise a bunch of cows, well eat somethin else. I'm not a fan of the cowboys.

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.

It's easier to force feed people than it is to give 'em what they want. It makes more money.

It sounds like something from a Woody Guthrie song, but it's true; I was raised in a freight car.

I think it was Tommy who told me, 'When your song is called 'XYZ' or whatever, every line has got to make sense against your title.' He showed me little methods of proving to yourself whether the line belongs, and ways of finding out whether you were able to get more out of a line if you tried.

Heaven knows that alcohol is the worst thing in the world, but it's debatable whether cocaine is worse than caffeine or whether it's the same thing and they just changed the name.

Guitar playing is very important to me. It's like golf to some other people; it's important to me that I play good.

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.

Back when the country was strong, back before Elvis and before the Vietnam war came along.

We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee, we don't take trips on LSD. We don't burn our draft cards down on Main Street, we like living right and free.

When I grew up there wasn't air-conditioning or anything of that nature, and this old car had a wall thickness of about ten inches. So we had a little warmer house in the winter and a little cooler in the summer.

Staring at the world through the bottom of a glass, all I see is a man who's fading fast.

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

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.

The guitar's not all that expensive either, when you compare it to gettin' a toothpulled or something.

Before the Beatles and yesterday, when a man could still work and still would.

I'm proud to be an Oakie from Muskogee, a place where even squares can have a ball. We still wave Old Glory down at the courthouse and white lightning's still the biggest thrill of all.

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.

Despite of all my Sunday learnin', toward the bad I kept turning.

I probably wouldn't even be here now if it weren't for chiropractic

In my life there were a lot of situations where I could have been killed or some officer might have been killed chasing me, a lot of things could be different. Now, you know that's experience you can't buy. And it's there in my rearview mirror and I can refer to it in my writing. I have the experience to talk about things some people only imagine.

Well, I'm kinda like George Carlin. I think that there ought to be a time where everybody should have all the drugs they want and there'd be nobody in charge, sort of like... now!