Willie Nelson Quotes & Sayings

I think it is just terrible and disgusting how everyone has treated Lance Armstrong, especially after what he achieved winning seven Tour de France races while on drugs ... When I was on drugs I couldn't even find my bike. — Willie Nelson

I had gotten up to two, maybe three, packs (of cigarettes) a day. And my lungs were bothering me and I'd had pneumonia two or three times. And I was also smoking pot, and I decided, well, one of them's got to go. And so I took a pack of Chesterfields and took all the Chesterfields out, rolled up 20 big fat ones and put it in there, and I haven't smoked a cigarette since then — Willie Nelson

I don't smoke as many joints as I used to. — Willie Nelson

Vaporizers are good for your lungs. Cigarette smoke will kill you. I never heard of anybody dying from marijuana smoke. Vaporizers I think are smarter. — Willie Nelson

I started out really young, when I was four, five, six, writing poems, before I could play an instrument. I was writing about things when I was eight or 10 years old that I hadn't lived long enough to experience. That's why I also believe in reincarnation, that we were put here with ideas to pass around. — Willie Nelson

I use vaporizers a lot. It cuts down on the heat and the smoke. And for a singer that's not a bad idea. — Willie Nelson

When it's on us, seems like the storm will never pass. But it always does. — Willie Nelson

When you put your life in a good place, good things follow. — Willie Nelson

I live one day at a time, one day at a time. Yesterday's gone and tomorrow is blind, so I live one day at a time. — Willie Nelson

If you start out looking at somebody, wondering whether he's good or bad, I think you're starting out in the wrong direction. I think we're all good and we're all bad. — Willie Nelson

We're still here trying to get the word out that 330 farmers are quitting every week. — Willie Nelson

I wanted to connect all people who are thinking about peace on Earth. — Willie Nelson

The fight to save family farms isn't just about farmers. It's
about making sure that there is a safe and healthy food supply for all of us.
It's about jobs, from Main Street to Wall Street. It's about a better
America. — Willie Nelson

Let's get the government stay out of our private lives, once and for all, and stop arresting smokers. Let's take a stand for personal freedom. — Willie Nelson

I'm a romantic slob! — Willie Nelson

Well, it's a Bloody Mary morning, my baby left without warning. — Willie Nelson

I don't like to think too far ahead. — Willie Nelson

Oh, I think it's definitely spiritual. All music is. I think it's maybe one of the highest forms of spirituality. — Willie Nelson

If you go to a magic show, you don't want to see logic. — Willie Nelson

When I'm driving the highway by myself is when I write best. — Willie Nelson

When I would sell encyclopedias, I would drive down the road looking for a house with a swing set in the back, and I'd say, "Oh, those folks got kids. They need some books." I'd knock on their door and sell them a set of encyclopedias, and those books were from $300 to $600. I'd look around the house, and if there wasn't that much furniture in the house, I felt a little bad about selling a $600 set of books to people who couldn't afford a couch. So I didn't last at that job very long. — Willie Nelson

We've already been reincarnated about a million times, maybe. It doesn't make sense any other way. — Willie Nelson

Little things I should have said and done I just never took the time You were always on my mind — Willie Nelson

I think most art comes out of poverty and hard times. — Willie Nelson

God has blessed you richly, so get down on your knees and thank him. Don't forget the less fortunate or God will personally kick your ass. I'd love to do it for him, but I can't be everywhere. — Willie Nelson

Americans don't eat horses. They are not raised as food animals and they are treated with chemicals that render them unsafe for consumption. The regulations needed to change their status to "food animals" would cripple every aspect of the horse industry as we know it. Plus, it would be wrong. — Willie Nelson

Gay or straight? So what? It doesn't matter to me. We have to be concerned about other people regardless. — Willie Nelson

I never pretended to have a great voice. It works and I can carry a tune. If you have a good song, that's about all that's required. — Willie Nelson

I like to stick with music I know I can play. I love classical, but I don't think I could ever play it. I'm just not qualified. — Willie Nelson

You could make any song sound creepy if you wanted. It's all about the inflection. — Willie Nelson

The first time I got onstage was when I was about 5 years old. It was at a church social, and I had a poem to recite. — Willie Nelson

Everything about Sinatra was good. He had the ability to pick great songs, and once Sinatra had sung them, that pretty much was it. He pretty much put his stamp on everything. — Willie Nelson

The whole house came up and I came up with it ... I was just praying to the Lord to take care of me. — Willie Nelson

A frozen river is not a dry one, it's just a still river on the surface but is still moving, and so am my winter writing. — Willie Nelson

I believe in looseness. — Willie Nelson

My doctor tells me I should start slowing it down - but there are more old drunks than there are old doctors so let's all have another round. — Willie Nelson

There's a freedom you begin to feel the closer you get to Austin, Texas. — Willie Nelson

I got in at 2 with a 10, and woke up at 10 with a 2. — Willie Nelson

And when I die, put it on my stone. God said, Sucker get your bad ass home. I wasn't Superman. I wasn't Superman — Willie Nelson

I started out writing poems before I figured to put melodies to them and play the guitar. Somewhere, there's a book out there on all those early songs and poems. I hope no one ever finds it. I don't think it's my finest work. — Willie Nelson

And as far as guitars go, I loved Jimmy Bryant and Speedy West's stuff. — Willie Nelson

Freedom is control in your own life. — Willie Nelson

A lot of country music is sad. I think most art comes out of poverty and hard times. It applies to music. Three chords and the truth - that's what a country song is. There is a lot of heartache in the world. — Willie Nelson

It was and is always nice to work with the kids. — Willie Nelson

I just enjoy both working and not working. — Willie Nelson

On the road again, goin' places that I've never been. Seein' things that I may never see again, and I can't wait to get on the road again. — Willie Nelson

Indecision may or may not be our biggest problem. — Willie Nelson

You know why divorces are so expensive? They're worth it. — Willie Nelson

Waylon Jennings and I had a lot of fun recording together. — Willie Nelson

When you're singing, you're using extra muscles, and it requires a lot of exercise and breathing. You can't do that if you're a sissy. If I have any fitness advice for people, I'd tell them to sing more. It's good therapy, too. — Willie Nelson

Small family farmers are the only things that can save us because they take care of the land. Future farmers of America are going to be our heroes. Same with biodiesel, either way we need small family saustainable and organic farmers. — Willie Nelson

How would you like to bite that in the ass, develop lock jaw and be dragged to death? — Willie Nelson

Where I grew up, Bob Wills and his western swing was very popular. And western swing is not that far from jazz and blues. — Willie Nelson

Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results. — Willie Nelson

I started writing cheating songs when I was too young to have any idea what I was writing about - broken hearts and things like that. I just think it was something I already knew, something I had experienced in another lifetime. — Willie Nelson

I got along without you before I met you and I'll get along without you a long time after you're gone. — Willie Nelson

I was born in Abbott, Texas, a little small town in central Texas, and I was raised by my grandparents. And my parents divorced when I was six months old, and my grandparents raised me. — Willie Nelson

You will never find love until you stop looking. — Willie Nelson

At 82, Nelson (who wrote the song "On the Road Again," among a thousand or more others) is the elder statesman of country music, a steadying and powerful voice in the industry and on environmental issues, and he's still on the road much of the year. The music keeps calling. — Willie Nelson

Inside every cowboy there's a lady who'd love to slip out. — Willie Nelson

Ninety-nine percent of the world's lovers are not with their first choice. That's what makes the jukebox play. — Willie Nelson

My granddaddy died when I was about 6 years old, I think. And my grandmother took a job cooking in the school lunchroom. So she did great. She made $18 a week. — Willie Nelson

I am not a pig farmer. The pigs had a great time, but I didn't make any money. — Willie Nelson

You'll never get ahead by blaming your problems on other people. — Willie Nelson

It doesn't hurt to feel sad from time to time. — Willie Nelson

I'm drowning in whiskey river. — Willie Nelson

I like to play small clubs. — Willie Nelson

I have more dumb luck thank anybody I know. There must be a convey of guardian angels working twenty-four hours a day looking after me[ ... ] Like the night I first got to Nashville that I laid down in the middle of Broadway, waiting to get run over. It didn't happen [ ... ] I could swear they were keeping me alive just to see what I'd get next, I'm glad they feel that way. I'm trying to help them a little more this days. — Willie Nelson

I used to work in the cotton fields a lot when I was young. There were a lot of African Americans working out there. A lot of Mexicans - the blacks and the whites and the Mexicans, all out there singing, and it was like an opera in the cotton fields, and I can still hear it in the music that I write and play today. — Willie Nelson

If you can be content right now, then you'll always be content, because it's always right now. — Willie Nelson

Well the country songs themselves are three-chord stories, ballads which are mostly sad. If you are already feeling sorry for yourself when you listen to them they will take you to an even sadder place. — Willie Nelson

I think most people realize that our problems are our government, not me and you individually, except that we can - must have some sort of responsibility, because they're in there and they were elected, so we have to defend ourselves on those lines. — Willie Nelson

If you really want to get along with somebody, let them be themselves. — Willie Nelson

I think Ray Charles did as much as anybody when he did his country music album. Ray Charles broke down borders and showed the similarities between country music and R&B. — Willie Nelson

The life I love is making music with my friends. — Willie Nelson

I'm crazy for trying, crazy for crying, and I'm crazy for loving you. — Willie Nelson

When I was out in the bars drinking and fighting I was a little bit less of a peacemaker than I would be if I'd had a coupla hits of a joint and gone and laid down somewhere. — Willie Nelson

There are more serious problems in life than financial ones, and I've had a lot of those. I've been broke before, and will be again. — Willie Nelson

If you're not crazy there's something wrong with you.
Willie Nelson — Willie Nelson

When I was about 12, I had my first paying gig - 8 dollars to play rhythm guitar in a polka band. Pretty soon, I ended up playing in all the bars within driving distance of Abbott, Texas. — Willie Nelson

What goes around, comes around. — Willie Nelson

Since I was a kid, music was what I wanted to do. I thought I could make it by my own talents. That's what I wanted to prove. — Willie Nelson

A lot of guns there's no need for civilians to own those those are for military — Willie Nelson

In the twilight glow I see her, blue eyes crying in the rain. As we kissed goodbye and parted, I knew we'd never meet again. — Willie Nelson

I'm not prejudiced in any way that I can think of. That's just not the guy I am. — Willie Nelson

Be here. Be present. Wherever you are, be there. — Willie Nelson

I don't think any person has any special knowledge about what God has planned for me and you any more than me and you do. — Willie Nelson

(Songwriting) It's a gift. It all comes from somewhere. I started out really young, when I was four, five, six, writing poems, before I could play an instrument. I was writing about things when I was eight or 10 years old that I hadn't lived long enough to experience. — Willie Nelson

If you've made your own hell, then only you have the power to escape it. — Willie Nelson

Sometimes there is a 36-piece orchestra going off in my stomach. — Willie Nelson

Horses were a way to travel to get to where we are today, and it is our job to protect them. — Willie Nelson

I never gave up on country music because I knew what I was doing was not that bad. — Willie Nelson

I guess if you can't sing, you better have a style! — Willie Nelson

As long as there's a few farmers out there, we'll keep fighting for them. — Willie Nelson

In church I was told that if I so much as smoked a cigarette or tasted alcohol, I'd be damned in hell for all eternity[ ... ]it didn't take long for me to start thinking that sounded all wrong [ ... ]I didn't cotton to the idea that your religion should be flaunted to other people. Your religion is for you, and is best kept close to your heart. — Willie Nelson

Those people out there like good music. They don't stop and ask themselves, 'Is it country or rock and roll?' If they like it, they will tell you. — Willie Nelson

What has changed is that nothing has changed ... that's what has made me more unhappy than everything else. — Willie Nelson

I'm from Texas, and one of the reasons I like Texas is because there's no one in control. — Willie Nelson

I believe that all roads lead to the same place - and that is wherever all roads lead to. — Willie Nelson

Writing books is fun because after I do a show for a couple hours, I'm in a bus for 22 hours. It's not hard for me to look out the window and tell a joke here and there. — Willie Nelson