Top 33 Quotes about Willie Nelson

I’ve always said I’ve wanted to be around forever. I never wanted to be the latest, greatest thing. I want to be like Willie Nelson – touring when I’m 70. To do that, you can’t be the latest, greatest thing because those things fizzle out.

I admire those old road dogs, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan. That’s their life.

Somehow you can tell the difference when a song is written just to get on the radio and when what someone does is their whole life. That comes through in Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Willie Nelson. There is no separating their life from their music.

In 2012, the city of Austin erected an eight-foot-tall bronze statue of Willie Nelson in the heart of the business district. Schoolchildren, churchgoers, tourists, slackers, conventioneers, tech geeks – everybody, it seems – now congregate around this ponytailed shrine to outlaw country.

But it was great, we sit in the same dressing room where, like, Johnny Cash sat and Willie Nelson and all those guys. That was in itself something amazing – I was on the same space these guys stood on, ya know?

Now, I know you expected me to say that, well, I just kick back in the rocking chair, fished a little bit, listened to Willie Nelson tapes and watched old baseball games on the Classic Sports network. And, tell you the truth, I have done that for maybe about five total minutes.

What is that song that Willie Nelson sang? ‘Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few.’ I think of that. No big deal. I’ve reached a stage in my life where I am content.

I am a music freak. My tastes run the gamut from Willie Nelson to Metallica to Miles Davis.

Farm Aid was started in 1985 by Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews as a concert to support small local farms in the U.S.

I’ve dreamed of being on the road, traveling and touring, for as long as I’ve been into doing music. It’s what I live for. I just wanna be Willie Nelson.

I looked at Willie Nelson and Farm Aid as a role model; they do it every year, and it draws people together, and drawing people together where they realize they’re not alone, to me, is strategic in healing.

Willie Nelson is a true champion. He pushed me to the limit where I had to figure out what punches to throw. But I put the pieces of the puzzle together and got the knockout, baby.

Willie Nelson is the perfect person, it seems to me, to think about. Because something tells me that he operates on his own frequency.

You never hear a country-western station saying ‘We have old school artist Willie Nelson in the house.’ They say ‘We have the legendary Willie Nelson.’

It’s like Willie Nelson. You’re an artist and you have different styles inside of you.

Long before Wesley Snipes decided he didn’t need to pay the IRS, Willie Nelson was dodging the tax men.

When I was really little, I listened to Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Barbara Mandrel, Crystal Gayle, Kenny Rogers, Willie Nelson, and Patsy Cline.

Steve Earle had a mainstream career. Dwight Yoakam had a mainstream career. Willie Nelson did. But they always made good music, they always stuck to who they were. They weren’t relying on radio like a lot of people are in Nashville.

Willie Nelson, Marty Robbins, Merle Haggard and Keith Whitley – guys like that were huge influences.

I grew up with the Highwaymen, which was Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson. Mom and Dad rode rodeo, so country music was always in the house and the car. They threw in some Dolly Parton, too.

Willie Nelson, out there 200 days a year, calls his band family. And it is.

If they keep playing us on country radio and we get to keep doing cool stuff like playing with Willie Nelson, that’s great.

Willie Nelson is not just a star or a headliner, he’s a legend.

Whenever I’d go anywhere with my dad – in his 1980 burgundy Dodge Ram – he’d always listen to mix tapes of country-music stars like Garth Brooks, Clint Black and Willie Nelson. Those were the first songs I ever learned the words to.

Working with Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson takes you up another level.

I’ve been a fan of old country music, like Willie Nelson, Patsy Cline. I think I’m drawn to it because of the sense of sadness and sort of loss that a lot of good old country music has.

I laughed at Willie Nelson, wondering why he spends all his life on that tour bus. And I look at myself, and I’m sitting in airplanes half the time.

It must be very strange to live in the world of Willie Nelson or Bruce Springsteen or Pearl Jam. I don’t know what kind of handle they have on their own loss of talent.

I’d just gotten into Los Angeles from Texas, where I live, and the phone rang and it was the guy calling about the Willie Nelson video. I was totally excited about it.

Ever since Willie Nelson brought rednecks into an alliance with hippies back in the psychedelic ’70s, Austin has milked its quirky libertarian spirit for a worldwide bonanza of free publicity.

I always loved Willie Nelson, but I loved the songs that Willie made famous.

You hear a Willie Nelson solo, he doesn’t play real fast, but it’s so melodic and beautiful. It’s kind of, to be human is to have space and not show all your stuff all the time.

I’ve worked with some of the best of them. Not just directors like Sam Peckinpah and David Lynch, but writers like Sam Shepard and singers like Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson.