George Jones Quotations

My mama loved me more than anybody ever did.

I miss all of my old friends who have passed away. Sometimes you just don't understand why they were taken so soon. I loved and miss Johnny Cash. I miss my old buddy Johnny Paycheck, who happens to be buried in an area of the cemetery that I bought for my family.

Roy Acuff was a big hero for me, and I was so sad when he passed. It's hard as you get older to lose your friends and family.

There was no such thing as production at Starday. We'd go in with the band, we'd go over the song, I'd look over and tell the steel player to take a break or kick it off, and I'd get the fiddle to play a turnaround in the middle.

After the first couple of years recording I did a lot of praying. I said, 'Lord, please give me a hit.' I want one so bad.

I just wanted to sing, in church or wherever.

Country fans need to support country music by buying albums and concert tickets for traditional artists or the music will just fade away. And that would be really sad.

When you don't act right to your family and friends, that's bad, but they also have the opportunity to experience the 'good' side as well. Disappointing the fans is an entirely different thing because the fans love your music and save up money to see you in concert.

I tried to be a house painter, but I couldn't stand all that paint all over me.

I loved Roy Acuff with all my heart, and I never dreamed I'd be able to meet him or see him onstage, or especially become good friends with him. For all this to happen, it's hard to explain what a dream this is when you love something as much as I love traditional country music.

I was born in Saratoga, Texas, a little town there in the Big Thicket about 60 miles north of Beaumont. Needless to say, we were very, very poor, but we always managed to have enough to keep our bellies full.

There's nothing prettier in the world than a melody. I can get lost in a song with a melody.

The only music we ever listened to out in the piney woods was Roy Acuff and the Grand Ole Opry. That was the only night of the week I was allowed to lay in the middle of the bed with Mama and Daddy, just long enough to hear Roy Acuff sing; then I had to go back to bed.

There were a lot of songs during my MCA years that I thought should have been singles but were not. You can't worry about what wasn't - I was very lucky to have as many hits as I had.

We'd just go to church and sing. My dad would get me and my sister Doris, and we would sing together. I sung the harmony, and my sister Doris took the lead.

One thing that really makes a place home is having a place where my grandchildren can run and play and do things and I don't have to worry about them. This is a crime-free place. Knowing all of this makes me more relaxed.

I don't know why nobody thought of it earlier.

I am glad Buck and I got to spend some time together on his recent West Coast tour. He was a wonderful friend and he will be dearly missed.

Hits I Missed - - and One I Didn't

I feel great at the moment. In many ways, this is the best time of my life. I'm not fooling with alcohol or drugs anymore and I really feel in great health. I also quit smoking cigarettes when I had my car accident so I have a lot more breath control and can hit notes that I hadn't hit for years.

Our steak and martinis is draft beer with weenies.

The story of the veterans should be told. That's our history. It was a global event that is worthy of our respect.

These are very unusual circumstances. Rarely ones get away from us like this, but with the winds and conditions, we couldn't do anything so we brought in other agencies to get it under control.

We feel pretty comfortable. We're hoping quite confidently there will be enough water to do what we need to do.

I've been working in an engineering field for 20-plus years. And there is just no other place that kids are learning the real fundamentals of engineering like they do in FIRST ... It's fun, and the boys really do enjoy it.

I'm in favor of changing the name today because I feel we will reach more people.

I picked it up and moved it 10 to 15 yards and put it by a brick wall to stop people getting hurt...Then it went off. I was blown across the road, and a couple of nails lodged in my leg and I was hit by concrete and glass.

There was no structural damage in the park.

I don't see the point of this. If there's no plan to sell the land, why even do this?

Walk through this world with me, go where I go. Share all your dreams with me, for I love you so.

Country music to me is heartfelt music that speaks to the common man. It is about real life stories with rather simple melodies that the average person can follow. Country music should speak directly and simply about the highs and lows of life. Something that anyone can relate to.

Maybe some folks are alcoholics and others are just voluntary drunks. Maybe some folks drink due to body chemistry and others due to their lazy characters. Maybe some have drinking problems, while others have problems enough to drink.

There's bad in everything. I dislike people misusing something that I love so much. It goes beyond the money. It goes beyond all of that and the glory. I love what I've done and I just can't stand to see what they're doing to it. But I've learned to live with it because that's what they've done. They've come in with the modern sounds. I call it modern pop. It's not country anymore.

If drinking don't kill me, her memory will.

Loneliness is lessened when you're lonely by choice.

I've had a lot of practice and wrong's what I do best.

Everybody knows in the business how I feel about country music. I'm an old traditionalist. Then they just call me an old man and stuck in my old ways, but with all the fans I've got out there, I can't be all that wrong. I do love traditional country music. I love the good stuff.

Be real about what you do. Stay true to the voice inside you. Don't let the 'business' change what it is you love because the people, the fans, respond to what is heartfelt. They can always tell when a singer is faking it.

I just thank God I'm still here and the main thing is to try to get closer and closer to Him as much as I can so that I can treat my friends and my family the way they should be treated.

You can't put this possum in a cage

You can shut out the world. But you always have to stop, and the world is always waiting when you do.

There, gleaming in the glow, was that ten-horsepower rotary engine under a seat. A key glistening in the ignition. I imagine the top speed for that old mower was five miles per hour. It might have taken an hour and a half or more for me to get to the liquor store, but get there I did.

I lay my head on the wheel and the horn begins honking, the whole neighborhood knows that I'm home drunk again.

I just want to keep living on and enjoying food! Even though I'm gaining weight, I want to record if the Lord wants me to still record, and I just want to do my work on the road as long as I got those fans out there.

I sing from my heart, I love country music and I love the people that respond to it. You never see yourself as others do but I've always beeen proud to be part of country music and I hope that the format is proud of me.

If you're gonna drive me crazy baby, drive me to drink.

I've always said that if I could have made a living someway in gospel music, I would have loved to had that break, but it never was offered to me, a job in that field, so naturally, I got lost on that other road.

If people liked your singing well enough, if you were special to them, then you never left their minds throughout all of the years.

All Patsy Cline had to do was sing somebody else’s song and her version would outsell theirs because it would be so good!

It didn't make much difference what time of night it was, whenever [my father would] come in drunk, he'd say, "Get up and sing me some songs." We didn't want to sing but we sang.

God bless the boys from Memphis, blue suede shoes, and Elvis.

Different people have their ways of measuring success, maybe it's not the right way but wrong's what I do best.

He stopped loving her today, they placed a wreath upon his door.

Anybody who loves country music loves gospel. Even they are competing with the same type of problem that I'm competing with. We older artists are competing with the new style of country, with their new modern style of gospel, with the young people.

Today they forget you in five years. They give an artist nowadays four or five years and that's it. Some of them don't have that. They get a couple of releases. If you don't sell two million copies, you're gone, you're out of here.

A new artist today has to get their teeth fixed, has to tighten their jeans up, and they have to get 'em the right kind of hat, and if anything's wrong with their nose, if it's a little crooked, it's got to be straightened up.

Before then, Britain was pessimistic and the role of government was largely managing Britain in decline.

I’d rather sing a sad song than eat,

There are questions I'm still not wise enough to answer, just wise enough to no longer ask.

The only thing different between sinners and saints is one is forgiven and the other ain't.

I took my $100,000 and bought a new Corvette, a lot of cocaine, and spent the rest on foolishness.