Johnny Cash Quotes & Sayings

Six foot six he stood on the ground He weighed two hundred and thirty-five pounds But I saw that giant of a man brought down To his knees by love — Johnny Cash

I've been flushed from the bathroom of your heart. — Johnny Cash

I wore black because I liked it. I still do, and wearing it still means something to me. It's still my symbol of rebellion
against a stagnant status quo, against our hypocritical houses of God, against people whose minds are closed to others' ideas. — Johnny Cash

I was wearing black clothes almost from the beginning. I feel comfortable in black. I felt like black looked good onstage, that it was attractive, so I started wearing it all the time. — Johnny Cash

You miss a lot of opportunities by making mistakes, but that's part of it: knowing that you're not shut out forever, and that there's a goal you still can reach. — Johnny Cash

You have to be what you are. Whatever you are, you gotta be it. — Johnny Cash

Love is a burning thing and it makes a firey ring. — Johnny Cash

He was removed from jail and placed in a place for the insensitive and insane. — Johnny Cash

God's the final judge for Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash too. That's solely in the hands of God. — Johnny Cash

I'm so uncomfortable wearing colors in public. I really am. Even denim. If I've got a day off in a town, I want to go out for a walk I'll put on denim. But almost everything I've got the black on. — Johnny Cash

When you sing, you pray twice. — Johnny Cash

I'm thankful for a pair of shoes that feel really good on my feet; I like my shoes. I'm thankful for the birds; I feel like they're singing just for me when I get up in the morning ... Saying, 'Good morning, John. You made it, John.' I'm thankful for the sea breeze that feels so good right now, and the scent of jasmine when the sun starts going down. I'm thankful ... — Johnny Cash

If you aren't gonna say exactly how and what you feel, you might as well not say anything at all. — Johnny Cash

Of emotions, of love, of breakup, of love and hate and death and dying, mama, apple pie, and the whole thing. It covers a lot of territory, country music does. — Johnny Cash

Backstage at the Grand Ole Opry, I got on my knees and told her that I was going to marry her some day. We were both married to someone else at the time. 'Ring Of Fire' - June and Merle Kilgore wrote that song for me-that's the way our love affair was. We fell madly in love and we worked together all the time, toured together all the time, and when the tour was over we both had to go home to other people. It hurt. — Johnny Cash

Because you're mine, I walk the line. — Johnny Cash

This business I'm in is different. It's special. The people around me feel like brothers and sisters. We hardly know each other, but we're that close; somehow there's been an immediate bonding between total strangers. We share each other's triumphs, and when one of us gets hurt, we all bleed - it's corny, I know, but it's true. I've never experienced anything like this before. It's great. It turns up the heat in life. — Johnny Cash

After about three lessons [my] voice teacher said, "Don't take voice lessons. Do it your way. You're a song stylist. Always do it your way." — Johnny Cash

You've got to know your limitations. I don't know what your limitations are. I found out what mine were when I was twelve. I found out that there weren't too many limitations, if I did it my way. — Johnny Cash

Life is
the way God has given it to me was just a platter
a golden platter of life laid out there for me. Its been beautiful. — Johnny Cash

All music comes from God. — Johnny Cash

I've never been accused of a felony. I never spent time behind bars except for a few overnight jail times back in the Sixties. [But] I think there's a little bit of a criminal in all of us. Everybody's done something they don't want anybody to know about. — Johnny Cash

The first time I knew what I wanted to do with my life was when I was about four years old. I was listening to an old Victrola, playing a railroad song ... I thought that was the most wonderful, amazing thing ... That you could take this piece of wax and music would come out of that box. From that day on, I wanted to sing on the radio. — Johnny Cash

I'm not bitter. Why should I be bitter? I'm thrilled to death with life. — Johnny Cash

I read novels but I also read the Bible. And study it, you know? And the more I learn, the more excited I get. — Johnny Cash

Sam Phillips always encouraged me to do it my way, to use whatever other influences I wanted, but never to copy ... if there hadn't been a Sam Phillips, I might still be working in a cotton field. — Johnny Cash

The things that have always been important: to be a good man, to try to live my life the way God would have me, to turn it over to Him that His will might be worked in my life, to do my work without looking back, to give it all I've got, and to take pride in my work as an honest performer. — Johnny Cash

I'm not really concerned about boundaries. I just follow my conscience and my heart. Follow your heart. That's what I do. Compassion is something I have a lot of, because I've been through a lot of pain in my life. Anybody who has suffered a lot of pain has a lot of compassion. — Johnny Cash

Let me tell you, Mr. teacher when you say you'll make me right, in five hundred years of fighting not one Indian turned white — Johnny Cash

I love weather. I'm a connoisseur of weather. Wherever my travels take me, the first thing I do is turn on the weather channel and see what's going on, what's coming. I like to know about regional weather patterns, how storms are created in different altitudes, what kinds of clouds are forming or dissipating or blowing through, where the winds are coming from, where they've been. That's not a passion everybody shares, I know, but I don't believe there are any people on earth who, properly sheltered, don't feel the peace inside a summer rain and the cleansing it brings, the renewal of the earth in its aftermath. — Johnny Cash

It's hard for thee to kick against the pricks — Johnny Cash

They're powerful, those songs. At times they've been my only way back, the only door out of the dark, bad places the black dog calls home. — Johnny Cash

I like to sit on the front porch of an old cabin I built in the woods and just listen to the birds; I like to fish in the pond and I always throw the fish back. — Johnny Cash

Get rhythm when you get the blues. — Johnny Cash

Take one fresh and tender kiss
Add one stolen night of bliss
One girl, one boy, some grief,
some joy Memories are made of this. — Johnny Cash

So I simply don't buy the concept of "Generation X" as the "lost generation." I see too many good kids out there, kids who are ready and willing to do the right thing, just as Jack was. Their distractions are greater, though. There's no more simple life with simple choices for the young. — Johnny Cash

I wear black because I'm comfortable in it. But then in the summertime when it's hot I'm comfortable in light blue. — Johnny Cash

My way of communicating with God as a boy (and often even now) was through the lyrics of a song ... So I didn't have the problem some people do who say, "I don't know how to pray." I used the songs to communicate with God ... To me, songs were the telephone to heaven, and I tied up the line quite a bit. — Johnny Cash

The beer and the wurst were wonderful, but I was dying to be back in the South, where the livin' was easy, where the fish were jumpin', where the cotton grew high. — Johnny Cash

I expect my life to end pretty soon. You know, I'm 71 years old. I have great faith, though. I have unshakable faith. — Johnny Cash

The ones that you're calling wild are going to be the leaders in a little while. — Johnny Cash

I learn from my mistakes. It's a very painful way to learn, but without pain, the old saying is, there's no gain. — Johnny Cash

There is a spiritual side to me that goes real deep, but I confess right up front that I'm the biggest sinner of them all. — Johnny Cash

I think in my world of religion, you're called to preach or you don't preach. Called by God to preach. I never been ordained by God to preach the gospel. I have a calling, it's called to perform and sing. — Johnny Cash

When I was a baby, my mama told me son, always be a good boy, don't ever play with guns. But I shot a man in Reno. — Johnny Cash

When I was arrested I was dressed in black — Johnny Cash

You're so heavenly minded, you're no earthly good. — Johnny Cash

Gospel music was the thing that inspired me as a child growing up on a cotton farm, where work was drudgery and it was so hard that when I was in the field I sang all the time. Usually gospel songs because they lifted me up above that black dirt. — Johnny Cash

As sure as God made black and white, what's done in the dark will be brought to the light. — Johnny Cash

The fire and excitement may be gone now that we don't go out there and sing them anymore, but the ring of fire still burns around you and I, keeping our love hotter than a pepper sprout. — Johnny Cash

My father was a man of love. He always loved me to death. He worked hard in the fields, but my father never hit me. Never. I don't ever remember a really cross, unkind word from my father. — Johnny Cash

The gospel of Christ must always be an open door with a welcome sign for all. — Johnny Cash

I have tried drugs and a little of everything else, and there is nothing in the world more soul-satisfying than having the kingdom of God building inside you and growing. — Johnny Cash

I just hope and pray I can die with my boots on. — Johnny Cash

I'm thankful for the sea breeze that feels so good right now, and the scent of jasmine when the sun starts going down. — Johnny Cash

I don't like it, but I guess things happen that way. — Johnny Cash

Of travel I've had my share, man, I've been everywhere. — Johnny Cash

If you're going to be a Christian, you're going to change. You're going to lose some old friends, not because you want to, but because you need to. — Johnny Cash

I don't have Paul's calling - I'm not out there being all things to all men to win them for Christ - but sometimes I can be a signpost. Sometimes I can sow a seed. And post-hole diggers and seed sowers are mighty important in the building of the Kingdom. — Johnny Cash

When my wife died, I booked myself into the studio just to work, to occupy myself. — Johnny Cash

Loneliness is emptiness, but happiness is you. — Johnny Cash

We'll all be equal under the grass, and God's got a heaven for country trash. — Johnny Cash

I came to believe in a power much higher than I — Johnny Cash

By the time I actually recorded Bitter Tears I carried a heavy load of sadness and outrage; I felt every word of those songs ... I expected there to be trouble with that album, and there was ... when it was released, many radio stations wouldn't play it ... The very idea of unconventional or even original ideas ending up on "country" radio in the late 1990s is absurd. — Johnny Cash

I love songs about horses, railroads, land, Judgment Day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. And Mother. And God. — Johnny Cash

Success is having to worry about every damn thing in the world, except money. — Johnny Cash

My mother always told me that any talent is a gift of God and I always believed it. If I quit, I would just live in front of the television and get fat and die pretty soon. — Johnny Cash

Deep in the heart of the infinite darkness, a tiny blue marble is spinning through space. Born in the splendor of God's holy vision, and sliding away like a tear down his face. — Johnny Cash

All your life, you will be faced with a choice. You can choose love or hate ... I choose love. — Johnny Cash

You know, the man's best friend is his dog ... if he's got nothing else. — Johnny Cash

It's all fleeting. As fame is fleeting, so are all the trappings of fame fleeting. The money, the clothes, the furniture. — Johnny Cash

I love to go to the studio and stay there 10 or 12 hours a day. I love it. What is it? I don't know. It's life. — Johnny Cash

I recently found myself going through a period of uncertainty about my future as a performer, my status as a personality, the believability of my Christian witness and the knowledge of God's will in my life. I felt a force bigger than myself saying, 'Lay back. Take it easy. Study hard. Read your bible. Think, write and keep your mouth shut for awhile.' — Johnny Cash

Inside the walls of a prison my body may be, but my Lord has set my soul free. — Johnny Cash

God Ain't no stained glass window, cause he never keeps his window closed. — Johnny Cash

Call him drunken Ira Hayes, he won't answer any more. Not the whiskey drinking Indian, nor the Marine that went to war. — Johnny Cash

When I think about country music, I think about America. — Johnny Cash

I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die. — Johnny Cash

Death and hell are never full, and neither are men's eyes. — Johnny Cash

When God forgave me, I figured I'd better do it too. — Johnny Cash

I admit I'm a fool for you, because your mine, I walk the line. — Johnny Cash

How well I have learned that there is no fence to sit on between heaven and hell. There is a deep, wide gulf, a chasm, and in that chasm is no place for any man. — Johnny Cash

The only really frightening thing about Cinnamon Hill belongs in the realm of the living and serves to remind me that some of them-just a few of them, a tiny minority-are much more dangerous than all the dead put together. — Johnny Cash

The battle against the dark one and the clinging to the right one is what my life is about. — Johnny Cash

A person knows when it just seems to feel right to them. Listen to your heart. — Johnny Cash

Prisoners are the greatest audience that an entertainer can perform to. — Johnny Cash

Understand your man, meditate on it. — Johnny Cash

Everybody was wearing rhinestones, all those sparkly clothes, and cowboy boots. I decided to wear a black shirt and pants and see if I could get by with it. I did and I've worn black clothes ever since. — Johnny Cash

Burn my Flag and I will shoot you ... but I'll shoot you with a lot of love, like a good American — Johnny Cash

There's a lot of things blamed on me that never happened. But then, there's a lot of things that I did that I never got caught at. — Johnny Cash

I'm very shy really. I spend a lot of time in my room alone reading or writing or watching television. — Johnny Cash

When I record somebody else's song, I have to make it my own or it doesn't feel right. I'll say to myself, I wrote this and he doesn't know it! — Johnny Cash

Hardin wouldn't run. — Johnny Cash

Happiness is being at peace, being with loved ones, being comfortable ... but most of all, it's having those loved ones. — Johnny Cash

A rose looks grey at midnight, but the flame is just asleep. And steel is strong because it knows the hammer and white heat. — Johnny Cash

Could it be the girls and boys are trying to be heard above your noise? — Johnny Cash

No matter how much you've sinned, no matter how much you've stumbled, no matter how much you fall, no matter how far you've got from God, don't give up. You can still be redeemed. As someone says, keep the faith. — Johnny Cash

There's unconditional love there. You hear that phrase a lot but it's real with me and her [June Carter]. She loves me in spite of everything, in spite of myself. She has saved my life more than once. She's always been there with her love, and it has certainly made me forget the pain for a long time, many times. When it gets dark and everybody's gone home and the lights are turned off, it's just me and her. — Johnny Cash

Beneath the stains of time the feeling disappears, you are someone else I am still right here. — Johnny Cash

The Master of Lifes been good to me. He has given me strength to face past illnesses, and victory in the face of defeat. He has given me life and joy where other saw oblivion. He Has given new purpose to live for, new services to render and old wounds to heal.
Life and love go on, let the music play. — Johnny Cash