Merle Haggard Quotes

It is my fondest wish that the gift of song that God has given me will flow from my soul to yours and help ease any burden that might weigh upon you.

I have learned that music helps a lot of people survive, and they want songs that can give them something - I guess you could call it hope.

I don't know if music can change the world overnight but I know that music can help someone make it through a difficult night.

Kind words are the music of the world. They have a power which seems to be beyond natural causes, as if they were some angel's song, which had lost its way and come on Earth, and sang on undyingly, smiting the hearts of men with sweetest wounds, and putting for the while an angel's nature into us.

There's been times when I've been standing in a line at a movie and someone's hit me with something really heavy about someone really close and how our music has helped them get through it. Even in our darkest moments we try and find something beautiful.

To think that my heart and my words and my music saved somebody's life, it takes a while to just sink in with me. But it proves to me that music is powerful.

I think all the best songs do that: they offer some sort of hope and light in the darkness.

Music is such a powerful tool, and there are so many people who need love and encouragement and hope.

I fell in love with music because it gave me an escape, it gave me strength, and it gave me confidence.

Whatever deceptions life may have in store for you, music itself is not going to let you down.

Poetry can't cure cancer, but it can save your life until you die.

It's part of the calling to at least do a few songs in the show that give people some hope. There's so much hurt in this world and... music is such a great healing balm and a great way to forget your troubles.

Life can be challenging and sad... but music is the easy part.

In the midst of hardship, it was the music that restored my soul.

I won't hold any illusions of changing the world or any such nonsense. But maybe, just maybe, I'm helping someone else change his or her life a little bit for the better, even if it just means giving someone a magical place in which to hide.

I would hope my legacy would be bringing smiles to faces. Happiness with my music.

The best music, you can seek some shelter in it momentarily, but it's essentially there to provide you something to face the world with.

Even the most dismal and hopeless-sounding Wilco music, to my ears, has always maintained a level of hope and consolation.

Music should be truthful and real, but it should also be healing and uplifting.

Every single day, I get letters - very moving, overwhelming letters - testifying how much my books have meant to people in times of crisis in their lives, when they were very ill, say. If I ever doubted that writing could play an important part in people's lives, I don't doubt that now.

'Harry Potter' changed my life in more ways than one, and it helped me get through my mother's death.

Music does a lot of things for a lot of people. It's transporting, for sure. It can take you right back, years back, to the very moment certain things happened in your life. It's uplifting, it's encouraging, it's strengthening.

When I run into a person or a kid that comes up and gives me the spiel about, 'Hey, I got your record at this time in my life, and it really helped me,' that stuff totally still rings true. If you're standing there talking to someone, it's really easy to tell if they're being authentic or not. And that's great.

But back then the thing that saved me was the music, and it's certainly the music that saves me now. The music, my family and my friends and everybody around me.

Music is probably the only real magic I have encountered in my life. There's not some trick involved with it. It's pure and it's real. It moves, it heals, it communicates and does all these incredible things.