Defoe says that there were a hundred thousand country fellows in his time ready to fight to the death against popery without knowing whether popery was a man or a horse.

A country that relies on aid? Death is better than that. It stops you from achieving your potential just as colonialism did.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations all pride all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death leaving only what is truly important.

I grew up between the two world wars and received a rather solid general education the kind middle class children enjoyed in a country whose educational system had its roots dating back to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.

I have a lot of boyfriends I want you to write that. Every country I visit I have a different boyfriend. And I kiss them all.

My dad and grandpa were in the army and as a country singer you're constantly playing at military bases all across the country and meeting soldiers and their families and hearing their stories.

I had always loved music. I grew up listening to classic country Waylon Jennings Merle Haggard. My dad loved Vern Gosdin and Keith Whitley. So I kept going to class and started getting totally into playing guitar and teaching myself these songs.

I always had a standard of back when I was doing the country music I always told people I would never record a song that I wouldn't sit down and sing in front of my mom and dad.

My dad is a bank president and my mom was an accountant and they didn't think that seeking the life of a freelance writer was very practical you see. Of course I was just as determined to do it.

I went to my dad when I was 17 and said 'I want to be a country music star.' Which every dad loves to hear. And he said 'I want you to go to college.' So we had a discussion. And I'm pretty stubborn. I'm a lot like him. And he said 'If you go to college and graduate I'll pay your first six months of rent in Nashville.' So he bribed me.