Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
We do not let slip from our understanding that America was founded on a bonding of many people, from many places and of various color and religion.
There are a lot of things about my father, various things, that people connect with. He was that diverse of a person, and he has a diverse fanbase.
Mom was very protective of me. Her hands were gentle, and her touch was soothing. She always talked quite a bit, but she was bright and affectionate.
Well, my parents were sort of packrats. They never threw anything away and, all through their time together, they stored away various things in a vault.
There are thousands upon thousands of new Johnny Cash fans every year, inspired by the music, talent, and - I believe hugely - by the mystery of the man.
Voice of the Spirit' was a project I'd been talking about for a long time. It began as an Appalachian record. But it's a record of all pure Southern gospel.
I like so many kinds of music, and I work with so many kinds of music as a producer. When you work in 14 different genres, I find myself writing in those genres.
He gave me a picture of himself when I was 14 and it said, 'To John Carter: My Best friend, Dad.' That meant so much to me. We were best friends, but we struggled.
To my father, art had no restrictions. He was a true 'American Primitive.' He greatly enjoyed sketching and photography, carrying a camera with him whenever he could.
I'm always writing my own music, recording my own music, even if I am 9/10 of the time recording stuff for other people. I'm still working on my own creative endeavors.
My father was always respectful to my grandfather. I really wanted that to be known because I never saw him disrespect my grandfather, and I never saw them have a cross word.
He was just Dad. But it's hard to deny who he was when you're brought out on stage, and you're standing beside this great man singing at the end of a show, and the crowd loves him.
My father had a great sense of humor. He wasn't only the Man in Black. He said it himself in the song 'Man in Black:' 'Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day.' He was a man of hope.
My father saw a separation between Johnny Cash the entertainer, his business, and the person. The good ole boy. He carried that with him. Or he tried to. Sometimes the lines got crossed.
If you were going through your attic and found a Van Gogh, what would you do? You wouldn't put it in your bathroom; you'd want to share it with the world because you know people will love it.
People come to Nashville where I live and they say, 'What's a great Southern restaurant?' Well, you got to know the right grandmother, because there's a lot of magic to good Southern cooking.
Within the first six years of my life, if asked what Dad was to me I would have emphatically responded: 'Dad is fun!' This was my simple foundation for my enduring relationship with my father.
I don't think anyone in the world could play my father, look just like him, act just like him, and make you believe he's Johnny Cash. Joaquin Phoenix gets as close as anybody I think ever could.
My parents were on the road a lot in the 1970s. Winifred Kelly, a nurse from the hospital where I was born, was hired to care for me. Her love and discipline had a big influence on my upbringing.
I try to weigh out the dark and the light. They were both very real aspects of my Dad. To me, the good and the healing and the light outweigh the dark so much, and that's why I focus on the good.
I can't think of another artist who has a fan base as diverse, in that the ladies in their 70s at the 4-H club have the same collection of Johnny Cash records as the punk on the street in Amsterdam.
My mom, dad and me were a compact group. They instilled in me a love for the outdoors. On school breaks, we'd go fishing for a week in the wilds of Alaska or Canada. The land was always in their souls.
When I began looking into the Carter catalog and came across 'Will My Mother Know Me There,' it seemed like such a joyful number and such a song of the spirit that I could hear them all singing it together.
I always heard my dad talk about playing music right through till the end. He may have talked in the early 90s about how he was ready to get off the road. But retirement, for my dad wasn't part of his make-up.
There's an image that my mother saved my father in 1968 and everything was a bed of roses after that. And that just wasn't true. There were as many struggles in the 1980s and the 1990s as there were in the 1960s.
I was introduced to the church through my parents but I had to struggle and find it on my own. In the end I learned much of my faith and found much of my strength through watching my father's and mother's journeys.
There's something magical that happens to every three-year-old that hears 'Ring of Fire.' That's usually where it starts for most people. They immediately want to put on a black shirt, grab a guitar and sing 'Ring of Fire.'
Rick Rubin and my father had a great friendship and it's because of it that the work my dad did at the end of his life was created - that he felt creativity and invigorated again, even though he was being consumed by frailty.
Life was something Dad enjoyed to the fullest. He put some tough years on himself. He probably would have had another 10 years to live if he hadn't been so hard on himself. But there again, he sure did live while he was here.
When I was young, my mother said to me, 'Momma loves her little son.' Now, this tender endearment holds a firm meaning within my life, inside my spirit. It reminds me that in sharing love, it grows that much greater in our hearts.
My father was a wildfire. Really. Nobody could save him from anything. His family turned away from him, and he broke up with his first wife. It just happened to be that when he was going to get back up on his feet, my mother was there.
My father was a great outdoorsman. From when I was about six we would spend countless hours together in the woods or on a lake. He taught me how to skin a rabbit and pluck a wild turkey. He showed me there is much more to nature than we can ever understand.
Along with the music, there is a large part of my father's legacy that has to do with what he had to say. What he believed in, what he stood for, the understanding of his own darkness, the faith that he had that drove him, and the great love that he had for people.
My mother did a fried vegetable dish called 'stuff.' It's fried potatoes and carrots. Then you add bell peppers, mushrooms and other softer vegetables. At the end you add onion. Then, you steam the dish with hot pepper cheese on the top and it melts down through the dish. It's delicious. It's wonderful.
When my father was, you know, a very big artist in the 1970s and then later up through the '80s. And then I began playing guitar with him in the road in the late '80s until he retired in 1997. So I traveled the world with them for years, you know, and all around the world and got to meet some great people.
Personally (and I believe I can speak for my sisters on this), I am against any organization or individual who believes they are superior to and/or may wish harm upon another because of race, ethnic background, religion, or sexual orientation. We also believe in the potential unification of humanity as a whole.
So many use dad's name, saying 'Johnny Cash would not like this' or 'Johnny Cash would do this' or 'Johnny Cash would vote for... ' Please, let his actions speak for who he was: A simple, loving man who never supported hate or bigotry. He was non-political, and a patriot with no public political party affiliation.
My father claimed no political affiliation. He supported Al Gore because he knew him as a human being. He supported Lamar Alexander, who was the governor of Tennessee, who was a Republican. It was based on the individual. He didn't believe in politics. He based his support for someone on their heart and their integrity.
God probably shook his head and said 'Oh, my goodness' many times in dealing with my father. But what God saw in my father was that he was a rock, a foundation in a lot of ways - someone people could relate to who could shine strong and was not afraid to reveal himself. I think he was a great role model to many people in that way.
Right before my dad died he was planning to go to New York City for the video music awards that he was nominated for, the MTV music awards. You couldn't tell him he wasn't going to go. It was going to happen. But he wound up having to check into the hospital there, and not too long later he died. But his spirit never gave up - his body did.