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

- Johnny Cash

2. 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

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

- Johnny Cash

4. 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

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

- Johnny Cash

6. 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

7. Flesh and blood needs flesh and blood, and you’re the one I need.

- Johnny Cash

8. 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

9. If you don’t get outside every day, even for a minute, you have not appreciated what God has done. It makes you grateful for our surroundings, and it starts your day differently.

- Johnny Cash

10. 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

11. Jesus will not fail me, I shall not be moved.

- Johnny Cash

12. 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.

- Johnny Cash

13. Life is rough so you gotta be tough.

- Johnny Cash

14. Happiness is being at peace, being with loved ones, being comfortable…but most of all, it’s having those loved ones.

- Johnny Cash

15. There’s no more simple life with simple choices for the young.

- Johnny Cash

16. 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

17. 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

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

- Johnny Cash

19. 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.

- Johnny Cash

20. 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

21. 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

22. The spirit of June Carter overshadows me tonight with the love she had for me and the love I have for her. We connect somewhere between here and Heaven. She came down for a short visit, I guess, from Heaven to visit with me tonight to give me courage and inspiration like she always has. She’s never been one for me except courage and inspiration. I thank God for June Carter. I love her with all my heart.

- Johnny Cash

23. I found out that there weren’t too many limitations, if I did it my way.

- Johnny Cash

24. It’s good to know who hates you and it is good to be hated by the right people.

- Johnny Cash

25. Life and love go on, let the music play.

- Johnny Cash

26. 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

27. If you aren’t gonna say exactly how and what you feel, you might as well not say anything at all.

- Johnny Cash

28. However, neither he nor anyone else could have become the star Elvis was. Ain’t nobody like Elvis. Never was.

- Johnny Cash

29. My arms are too short to box with God.

- Johnny Cash

30. We’re all in this together if we’re in it at all.

- Johnny Cash

31. 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

32. She’s the greatest woman I have ever known. Nobody else, except my mother, comes close.

- Johnny Cash

33. Life is the question and life is the answer, and God is the reason and love is the way.

- Johnny Cash

34. 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

35. 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.

- Johnny Cash

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

- Johnny Cash

37. That was the big thing when I was growing up, singing on the radio. The extent of my dream was to sing on the radio station in Memphis. Even when I got out of the Air Force in 1954, I came right back to Memphis and started knocking on doors at the radio station.

- Johnny Cash

38. It’s like a novelist writing far out things. If it makes a point and makes sense, then people like to read that. But if it’s off in left field and goes over the edge, you lose it. The same with musical talent, I think.

- Johnny Cash

39. 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

40. I’m very shy really. I spend a lot of time in my room alone reading or writing or watching television.

- Johnny Cash

41. 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

42. If you aren’t gonna say exactly how and what you feel, you might as well not say anything at all.

- Johnny Cash

43. We’ll all be equal under the grass, and God’s got a heaven for country trash.

- Johnny Cash

44. You’ve got a song you’re singing from your gut, you want that audience to feel it in their gut. And you’ve got to make them think that you’re one of them sitting out there with them too. They’ve got to be able to relate to what you’re doing.

- Johnny Cash

45. 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

46. The ones that you’re calling wild are going to be the leaders in a little while.

- Johnny Cash

47. 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

48. People call me wild. Not really though, I’m not. I guess I’ve never been normal, not what you call Establishment. I’m country.

- Johnny Cash

49. 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.

- Johnny Cash

50. I’m not bitter. Why should I be bitter? I’m thrilled to death with life.

- Johnny Cash

51. 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

52. 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 shelte

- Johnny Cash

53. 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

54. If this were a movie I’d be the bad guy.

- Johnny Cash

55. That was the big thing when I was growing up, singing on the radio. The extent of my dream was to sing on the radio station in Memphis. Even when I got out of the Air Force in 1954, I came right back to Memphis and started knocking on doors at the radio station.

- Johnny Cash

56. It makes me so mad that some people underestimate the wisdom and energy of young people. All because they don’t look the way older folks think they should look. I’m working on a song about it. Maybe some of those closed minded people will realize long hair and tattoos don’t mean they should be ignored. Close minded people are part of what’s wrong with this world.

- Johnny Cash

57. Money can’t buy back your youth when you’re old, a friend when you’re lonely, or peace to your soul.

- Johnny Cash

58. 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

59. You have to be what you are. Whatever you are, you gotta be it.

- Johnny Cash

60. The Master of Life 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

61. 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

62. 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

63. For you I know I’d even try to turn the tide.

- Johnny Cash

64. 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