I spent so many years just saying what I felt without thinking about the ramifications, without understanding that I have this opinion but not everyone might share that opinion and now they don't like me because of it.

I think that everybody has a right to their own thoughts, their own feelings and their own private moments, if they want them.

In my career, I'm very grateful for the opportunities.

Obviously my career's important to me and I'm really, really passionate about trying to keep it.

Herman Melville was supposed to be an accountant. Van Gogh was meant to be an art dealer. I was meant to take the train into New York and work for a bank. To be an artist, you have to say goodbye to your family.

I have always made my own rules, in poetry as in life - though I have tried of late to cooperate more with my family. I do, however, believe that without order or pattern poetry is useless.

I think the way country music is set up, we all came from a family background.

I grew up in Florida in different cities. I was born in Mississippi. My parents moved a lot, so I moved to Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, Virginia, all through the South. But my family's roots were from central Florida, like Daytona Beach area, so we ended up moving there.