Johnny Cash citations

“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.”

“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.”

“All your life, you will be faced with a choice. You can choose love or hate…I choose love.”

“it's good to know who hates you and it is good to be hated by the right people”

“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.”

“Well, I'd love to wear a rainbow everyday and tell the world that everything's okay / But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back / 'Til things are brighter, I'm the man in black.”

“I love the freedoms we got in this country, I appreciate your freedom to burn your flag if you want to, but I really appreciate my right to bear arms so I can shoot you if you try to burn mine.”

“Hello, I'm Johnny Cash.”

“Flesh and blood needs flesh and blood, and you're the one I need”

“The beast in me
Is caged by frail and fragile bars.”

“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.”

“I took the easy way, and to an extent I regret that. Still, though, the way we did it was honest. We played it and sang it the way we felt it, and there's a lot to be said for that.”

“This morning, with her, having coffee”

“Listen to the words long written down,
When the man comes around.”

“My arms are too short to box with God.”

“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.”

“Beneath the stains of time the feeling disappears, you are someone else I am still right here.”

“I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.”

“You're so heavenly minded, you're no earthly good.”

“Sometimes I am two people. Johnny is the nice one. Cash causes all the trouble. They fight.”

“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'm not bitter. Why should I be bitter? I'm thrilled to death with life.”

“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.”

“I keep a close watch on this heart of mine;
I keep my eyes wide open all the time.
I keep the ends out for the tie that binds.
Because you're mine, I walk the line.”

“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.”

“There's always rhythm going in my mind. … I'm either singing them — June will tell you, I'm either singing them, or I have got the beat going from one, or I'm writing one.”

“You can ask the people around me. I don't give up. I don't give up… and it's not out of frustration and desperation that I say I don't give up. I don't give up because I don't give up. I don't believe in it.”

“I think it speaks to our basic fundamental feelings, you know. 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.”

“When, I was just 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
Just to watch him die.
When I hear that whistle blowin'
I hang my head and cry.”