Kellie Pickler Quotes

Standing center stage in the six foot circle of wood cut from the stage of the Ryman is something I never take for granted. The history and legacy of that circle is awe-inspiring.

Growing up, the Opry was my Hollywood.

I can honestly say that everything I've ever listened to has influenced me or motivated me in one way, form or fashion.

The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician. Things like old folks singing in the moonlight in the back yard on a hot night or something said long ago.

I've always listened to music, since I was really, really young.

My music had roots which I'd dug up from my own childhood, musical roots buried in the darkest soil.

There's so many great things that happened at the Grand Ole Opry in 50 years. You get the chance to go out and visit with your peers. You get a chance to sing your song and say hello to so many friends and neighbors and all that you have. It's just - well, it's a second home.

So much of what I create has been due to the influence of Miles Davis and Donald Byrd, and so many of those that have passed on. Their music, their legacy lives on with the rest of us because we are so highly influenced by their experience and what they have given us.

I try to write like the writers I admire - I rip them off in form. It comes from George Strait and Merle Haggard records, and country music in general is really good at that, the twisted phrase... So I'm always looking for that angle in my own work.

There's a lot of music at my fingertips that I can be influenced by. And just because I play a horn, I don't need to sound, or try to capture, what was happening before me. I can just respect it and learn from it.

I really do love Diana Ross; I grew up listening to her records. I grew up in a little town in Mexico, so while we got the music, we never got the experience of watching her.

My most powerful memory was hearing Earl Scruggs on 'The Beverly Hillbillies' as a 5 or 6 year old. That sound just blew me away, shook my head up.

When I played, Old-Timers' Day was my favorite day of the whole season, because I got to share a locker with one of the great Yankees... It was an out-of-body experience.

Before you can make good music, you just have to shut up. Then the music can say what it has to say.

Music has always been in my family down to my dad through my uncle. I'm just the next generation, since it's always been around me when I was younger when I looked up to my mom and dad, to Michael Jackson, and B2K was my favorite band growing up.

It was so strange. I knew that Josephine Baker had performed on the same stage but that night I felt it. Many of the same people who worked with Josephine Baker are still here. They know what they're doing. And that was a very comfortable feeling.

The problem as you get older is, from my perspective, after a certain amount of songs, you tend to start writing something and then you stop and say, 'Wait, I think I've written that before.'

My earliest memories of country music are the Grand Ole Opry.

There was no television, so the radio provided you with everything.

I love to listen to the music that first inspired me - I get that fresh feeling back.

When I'm home on a break, I lock myself in my room and play guitar. After two or three hours, I start getting into this total meditation. It's a feeling few people experience, and that's usually when I come up with weird stuff. It just flows. I can't force myself. I don't sit down and say I've got to practice.

Songs go through cycles for me. And sometimes I lose my passion for some of them.

I knew, regardless of anything else, singing in front of an orchestra was going to be inspirational. It would feed me.

I first started listening to Sondheim's work when I was a kid.

I've been hearing what a lot of people been doing and what a lot of people been putting out musically, I've been listening.