Best Johnny Cash Quotes & Sayings

There's no way around grief and loss: you can dodge all you want, but sooner or later you just have to go into it, through it, and, hopefully, come out the other side. The world you find there will never be the same as the world you left. — Johnny Cash

Here is the easiest way to explain the genius of Johnny Cash: Singing from the perspective of a convicted muderer in the song "Folsom Prison Blues,: Cash is struck by pangs of regret when he sits in his cell and hears a distant train whistle. This is because people on that train are "probably drinkin' coffee." And this is also why Cash seems completely credible as a felon: He doesn't want freedom or friendship or Jesus or a new lawyer. He wants coffee. Within the mind of a killer, complex feeling are eerily simple. This is why killers can shoot men in Reno just to watch them die, and the rest of us usually can't. — Chuck Klosterman

I am not a Christian artist, I am an artist who is a Christian. — Johnny Cash

Basically, Sam Phillips recorded Bill Haley, Johnny Cash, and all those other Memphis guys; Chuck Berry played the top two strings; Elvis appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show above the waist; the Beatles made all the girls squirm by singing about wanting to hold their "hands"; Ray Davies got lost in a sunset; Pete Townshend smashed his guitar; Brian Wilson heard magic in his head and made it come out of a studio; the Rolling Stones urinated on a garage door; and then (skipping a bit) you've got Joey Levine and Chapman-Chinn and Mott the Hoople and Iggy and the Runaways and KISS and the Pink Fairies and Rick Nielsen and Jonathan Richman and Johnny Ramone and Lemmy and the Young brothers and Cook and Jones and Pete Shelley and Feargal Sharkey and Rob Halford ... and Foghat. You get what I'm saying. It didn't happen in a vacuum, but it did happen, and now here we are in the aftermath. — Frank Portman

Life is rough so you gotta be tough. — Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash was a rebel, not only just in the musical sense, but he was somebody who was for the people, and an advocate for labor, for workers, for prisoners, people who have been trapped by the criminal justice system. — Michael Franti

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he's a victim of the times.
I wear the black for those who never read — 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

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

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

I could enjoy the simple life with a small living quarters, a scratched album of Johnny Cash and a Box of Twinkies — Stanley Victor Paskavich

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

Johnny Cash has always been larger than life. — Kris Kristofferson

It's good to know who hates you and it is good to be hated by the right people — Johnny Cash

James Ralston, my guitar player, has performed with Tina Turner for about 22 years. Jim Hanson on bass has played with Johnny Cash, Rodney Crowell and Bruce Springsteen, and they're fantastic musicians and amazing singers they get a really cool vocal sound together. — Vonda Shepard

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

You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space. — 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

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

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

Johnny Cash was the champion of the voiceless, the underdogs and the
downtrodden. He was also something of a holy terror, like Abraham Lincoln
with a wild side. He represented the best of America. — Kris Kristofferson

Convicts are the best audience I ever played for. — Johnny Cash

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

Everything I have and everything I do is now given completely to Jesus Christ. — Johnny Cash

The battle against the dark one and the clinging to the right one is what my life is about. — 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 love Johnny Cash, and I respect Johnny Cash. He's the biggest. He's like an Elvis in this business, but no, he's never been the rebel. — Waylon Jennings

I've always been an outsider. When I did magic, I was the only kid. When I worked with Johnny Cash, I was completely out of place in Nashville. And when I started Def Jam, I was the only white guy in the hip-hop world. — Rick Rubin

You're nothing like your sister," he tells me. "She meant a lot to me, okay? It's true. But the things I like about you have nothing to do with her. You - you are so strong and stubborn it drives me crazy. You're the one going through all this and you still put Laney first every time, instead of throwing yourself the pity party we both know you deserve. You call me out on my shit, and I like that, because sometimes I need someone to call me out on my shit. And you get Johnny Cash, and you take these incredible photos, and everything about you makes me hurt, in a good way, and it blows my mind that someone can be so amazing and not even see it. — Hannah Harrington

Some gal would giggle and I'd get red, and some guy'd laugh and I'd bust his head. I tell ya, life ain't easy for a boy named Sue. — Johnny Cash

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

Okay, the question is, 'What enormously popular novel by William Peter Blatty, set in the posh Washington D.C. suburb of Georgetown, concerned the demonic possesion of a young girl?' '
'Johnny Cash', Henry replied.
'Jesus Christ!' Tricks Postino yelled. 'That's what you say to everythin! Johnny Cash, that's what you say to fuckin everythin!'
'Johnny Cash is everything,' Heny replied gravely... — Stephen King

What would Warhol be without his paranoia, Hunter S. Thompson without his Quaaludes, Johnny Cash without his philandering? We Somebodies are not expected to walk the line. — J.T. Lawrence

He went up to heaven, located his dog. Not only that, but he rejoined his arm. — Johnny Cash

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