Dolly Parton

I love story songs because I've always loved books.

It's a good thing I was born a girl, otherwise I'd be a drag queen.

I look at myself like a show dog. I've got to keep her clipped and trimmed and in good shape.

I'm just a simple country girl.

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

I look just like the girls next door... if you happen to live next door to an amusement park.

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

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

I'm a workin' girl.

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'm not a politician. And I don't want to be.

People make jokes about my bosoms why don't they look underneath the breasts at the heart? It's obvious I've got big ones and if people want to assume they're not mine then let them.

We cannot direct the wind but we can adjust the sails.

You know I look like a woman but I think like a man. And in this world of business that has helped me a lot. Because by the time they think that I don't know what's goin' on I then got the money and gone.

I think that I know the value of a dollar.

I can't do nothing just a little.

A lot of people have said I'd have probably done better in my career if I hadn't looked so cheap and gaudy. But I dress to be comfortable for me and you shouldn't be blamed because you want to look pretty.

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.

I'm gonna be making records anyway even if I had to sell 'em out of the trunk of my car. I'm that kind of musician and singer.

I'm almost like three people. There's me the Dolly the person. There's me the star. And then there's me the manager.

I've enjoyed all the parts of my career.

Storms make trees take deeper roots.

I was the first woman to burn my bra - it took the fire department four days to put it out.

If I see something sagging bagging or dragging I'll get it nipped tucked or sucked.

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

I feel that sin and evil are the negative part of you and I think it's like a battery: you've got to have the negative and the positive in order to be a complete person.

I think I became more productive through not having children. I never really had the desire to have them. My husband didn't want them either so it worked out well.

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

Oh I can spot a phoney a mile away.

Every day I pray about all I do.

I have a big gay and lesbian following and they've been very loyal and kind to me.

I'm not trying to be fashionable. Never was!

I was probably 7 years old when I started playing the guitar and writing some serious 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 can't tell anybody else how to run their life or their business but I really believe I've got a good bead on myself.

If you talk bad about country music it's like saying bad things about my momma. Them's fightin' words.

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.

My life has been very full.

I think I've got my business notions and my sense for that sort of thing from my dad. My dad never had a chance to go to school. He couldn't read and write. But he was so smart. He was just one of those people that could just make the most of anything and everything that he had to work with.

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

I think that I'm perfect.

I think every entertainer's had nights when things go wrong. I mean you can't remember everything all the time and especially if you're having hard times personally things going on that you - you know and then people make it worse. And that makes you feel worse.

My grandpa was a preacher.

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

I don't have anything to say about other people's art and their work.

If I hadn't been a woman I'd be a drag queen for sure. I like all that flair and I'd be dressing up in them high heels and putting on the big hair. I'd be like Ru Paul.

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 old enough and cranky enough now that if someone tried to tell me what to do I'd tell them where to put it.

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

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

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

You'd be surprised how much it costs to look this cheap!

Plastic surgeons are always making mountains out of molehills.

People get a kick out of my stupidity.

The way I see it if you want the rainbow you gotta put up with the rain.

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

If you don't like the road you're walking start paving another one.

I've copyrighted 3 000 songs.

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

I write for myself things that I've gone through.

I know who I am I know what I can and can't do. I know what I will and won't do. I know what I'm capable of and I don't agree to do things that I don't think I can pull off.

I was always a junk food person still am.

I wanted to be the first woman to burn her bra but it would have taken the fire department four days to put it out.

I've been very fortunate.

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

I modelled my looks on the town tramp.

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.

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 have surrounded myself with very smart people.

I love to flirt and I've never met a man I didn't like.

It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.