Top 191 Dolly Parton Quotes

I’ve used my femininity and my sexuality as a weapon and a tool… but that’s just natural.

God and I have a great relationship, but we both see other people.

I don’t kiss nobody’s butt.

I can write a song in about an hour if it’s a simple country song.

You’ll never do a whole lot unless you’re brave enough to try.

I used to always sit in church looking out the windows at the boys, wondering if I could make an excuse to go out and, you know, go to the bathroom because all the outdoor toilets. But anyhow, I was only going out to see the boys.

My husband and I had to raise five of my younger brothers and sisters. They lived with us. We sent them to school.

I’m an energy vampire. I just suck off everybody’s energy. But I give it back.

I’ve… been accused of being involved with every man I’m ever seen with or worked with. Maybe I have, maybe I ain’t. I never tell if I have.

I have tennis shoes with little rhinestones that I slip on if I exercise. But I always wear heels, even around the house. I’m such a short little thing, I can’t reach my kitchen cabinets.

I still have my first paycheck. It was just, I think, a dollar or two that I got when I started as a songwriter with BMI, and I had some songs there that I had through the company, and in the mail I got this big old check for, like, a dollar and a half or something. Somebody had recorded one of my songs.

Children have always responded to me because I have that cartoon-character look.

No matter what, I always make it home for Christmas. I love to go to my Tennessee Mountain Home and invite all of my nieces and nephews and their spouses and kids and do what we all like to do – eat, laugh, trade presents and just enjoy each other… and sometimes I even dress up like Santa Claus!

I was very honored to get to be part of ‘American Idol.’

I never thought, in my lifetime, that you’d be able to watch movies, read books and listen to music from a phone, but I guess the technology of tomorrow is here today.

I’m always amazed by the people who work on stage who sing night after night, day after day, week in week out.

I have a tendency to be awfully big-hearted and it’s very hard for me to say no, even when I need to.

I had to get rich so I could sing like I was poor again.

I know some of the best Dolly Parton jokes. I made ’em up myself.

My songs are like my children – I expect them to support me when I’m old.

I don’t make people bend over backwards, and I don’t like that in people. I am definitely no diva.

I am not gay, but if I were, I would be the first one running out of the closet.

Adjusting to the passage of time, I think, is a key to success and to life: just being able to roll with the punches.

I have suffered most of the things I write about – or my friends have.

Some guys look better as they get older.

When I was with Andy Warhol, I thought, ‘God, his wig looks cheaper than mine!’

After momma gave birth to 12 of us kids, we put her up on a pedestal. It was mostly to keep Daddy away from her.

Storms make trees take deeper roots.

I didn’t know any gay people in my childhood.

I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb… and I also know that I’m not blonde.

I’ve never had a divorce, but I’ve seen so many of my friends, my sister, my family go through that stuff, so I try to write for the people that can’t write about it. I take on their sorrow, so I’m able to kind of express it, or their joy.

Songwriting is my way of channeling my feelings and my thoughts. Not just mine, but the things I see, the people I care about. My head would explode if I didn’t get some of that stuff out.

God has his plans and his reasons. Sometimes we are supposed to go through things so that we learn lessons.

I’m not happy all the time, and I wouldn’t want to be because that would make me a shallow person. But I do try to find the good in everybody.

I really learned to sing in church, I think, really with emotion.

I do have a few little tattoos, but they were mostly done to cover scars because I’m so fair.

I can’t keep somebody from being a star, and I can’t make somebody a star, and nobody can.

I think country music is popular – has been popular and will always be popular because I think a lot of real people singing about a lot of real stuff about real people. And it’s simple enough for people to understand it. And we kind of roll with the punches.

Kitty Wells was the first and only Queen of Country Music, no matter what they call the rest of us. She was a great inspiration to me as well as every other female singer in the country music business. In addition to being a wonderful asset to country music, she was a wonderful woman.

People like bluegrass. It’s had a following amongst a lot of hip and young people. A lot of college kids like bluegrass.

Actually, I hear a lot of rock music. My husband is a big rock fan.

I’ve enjoyed all the parts of my career.

Funny thing is that the poorer people are, the more generous they seem to be.

A lot of my heartbreak songs are inspired by things my sisters are going through, or friends.

I still close my eyes and go home – I can always draw from that.

It’s always great to perform at home in the good ol’ U.S.A.

My nails are my rhythm section when I’m writing a song all alone. Some day, I may cut an album, just me and my nails.

People get a kick out of my stupidity.

Every seven years, I sit down and make a whole new plan.

You don’t need to buy expensive cosmetics; almost anything will do if you know how to apply it.

My biggest extravagances are also investments. I have several houses in California, a house in Nashville, an office complex, and I bought the old home place in Tennessee. They are different places for me to write, but I can turn right around and sell them.

My mother was always fascinated with the fact that I could rhyme so much stuff.

I know that I always wanted things. I was always proud of my people, proud of my home, but I always wanted more. I think most people do.

I hated school. Even to this day, when I see a school bus it’s just depressing to me. The poor little kids.

My weaknesses have always been food and men – in that order.

My husband calls me ‘catfish.’ He says I’m all mouth and no brains.

All of my brothers and sisters are very talented. They all sang all right.

A lot of people don’t realise I came out of the Smoky Mountains with a load of songs.

Stop this attitude that older people ain’t any good anymore! We’re as good as we ever were – if we ever were any good.

I want to go and go, and then drop dead in the middle of something I’m loving to do. And if that doesn’t happen, if I wind up sitting in a wheelchair, at least I’ll have my high heels on.

When I’m inspired, I get excited because I can’t wait to see what I’ll come up with next.

Tell me I have to be somewhere, and I’ll be there 20 minutes early and stay there longer than anybody else. You hold up a lot of people if you’re not on time.

I was probably 7 years old when I started playing the guitar and writing some serious songs.

I’m pretty sure in my older years, I’ll be doing old-time flavored folk-mountain music.

I’m comfortable in my own skin, no matter how far it’s stretched. Ha ha.

I would honestly say that with all the awards and all the other things that I’ve done in my life, Dollywood is one of the greatest dreams that I’ve ever had come true – I am so proud of that I can’t even begin to tell you, Dollywood is real special to me.

I just kind of wake up with a new idea and new dreams every day, and I follow that dream, as they say.

I’m not going to limit myself just because people won’t accept the fact that I can do something else.

Someone once asked me, ‘How long does it take to do your hair.’ I said, ‘I don’t know, I’m never there.’

God tells us not to judge one another, no matter what anyone’s sexual preferences are or if they’re black, brown or purple.

I’ve been around longer than most of my fans have been alive.

I’ve tried different things through the years to get some play on mainstream. I’ll try to tailor-make it.

Of course, ‘I Will Always Love You’ is the biggest song so far in my career. I’m famous for several, but that one has been recorded by more people and made me more money, I think, than all of them. But that song did come from a true and deep place in my heart.

I do remember how it was to be poor. I do remember that in my early years, we had to grow and raise all of our food, even our animals. And I remember in my early life, we didn’t even have electricity. So it was very, very hard times then.

A lot of people think I’m a comedian.

The only way I’d be caught without makeup is if my radio fell in the bathtub while I was taking a bath and electrocuted me and I was in between makeup at home. I hope my husband would slap a little lipstick on me before he took me to the morgue.

I’m working on my life story. I’m not decided if it’s going to be a musical or a movie with music in it.

Until I was a teenager, I used red pokeberries for lipstick and a burnt matchstick for eyeliner. I used honeysuckle for perfume.