I think between us, Bill Clinton and I have settled any lingering myths about the brilliance of Rhodes scholars.

The number-one rule of the road is never go to bed with anyone crazier than yourself. You will break this rule, and you will be sorry.

[on working with Barbra Streisand on A Star Is Born (1976)] Filming with Streisand is an experience which may have cured me of movies.

(on Heaven's Gate (1980)) I was real surprised to see the critics line up on the side of the philistines so fast. To me, the film was about the American dream, and it shows one of the basic flaws in the dream - the idea that money is more important than people. I'll be proud of that movie as long as I'm in the business. It was a work of art. Michael Cimino, the director, says he's unrepentant and plans to sin again, and I hope he gets the chance.

(on the current state of America and the world) I remember getting this creepy feeling back when I was doing "Heaven's Gate" which was about the Cattleman's Association getting government backup to go in with mercenaries and kill a bunch of civilians. I remember thinking at the time that maybe there's always been a dark part of this American dream where money was more important than people. That's exactly what's going down now. The money involved in this Iraq reconstruction is shameless. It's right in your face and everyone can see it. I don't know if its apathy or if it's more a feeling of powerlessness. What can we do? They elected Bush without him really winning the election. The Supreme Court is stacked and we're fixing to stack it worse. All this destruction is done in our name. And the simple things that Bush keeps saying are so embarrassing. He says, "These are evil people who hate peace and hate freedom and that's why they're blowing themselves up." Christ.

(on Merle Haggard) When I started getting recognized, a lot of people saw me and Merle as antagonists, because of the nature of "Okie from Muskogee", "The Fightin' Side of Me" and some of the political stuff that I had done, I guess. That was never the case. As far as I'm concerned, he's the closest thing to Hank Williams walking the streets today.

Freedom is just another word: It seems to get truer the older I get. It makes me think about the time when my apartment got robbed and everything was gone and I was disowned by my family. I owed money to a hospital and I owed my wife five hundred a month for child support and I thought, "I'm losing my job." I hadn't any money, I hadn't anything going for me, but it was liberating. I was in this Evangeline Motel, like something out of "Psycho", a filthy place, just sitting there with this neon Jesus outside the door, in the swamps outside of Lafayette, Louisiana, and I thought, "Fuck. I'm on the bottom, can't go any lower" -- and from then on, man, I drove my car to the airport, left it there, and never went back to get it. Went to Nashville and called this friend of mine, Mickey Newberry, and told him I'd just got fired, and he said, "Great. Johnny Cash is shooting a new TV show. Come up, and we can pitch him some songs." The next moment, they cut three of my songs, and they were hits. I never had to go back to work again.

The desire to be fucked-up probably leaves you, but the desire to be high never does.

I was a slow starter. I mean, I grew up in the fifties, and, jeez, I wasn't even laid in high school. Looking back on it, I didn't know anything, which was kind of unfortunate for my first couple of wives. When I found out that girls like sex as much as guys, I was, for many years, feeling like that was my function. I mean, I wasn't as bad as Clinton, but I was led by the pecker.

Never give up, which is the lesson I learned from boxing. As soon as you learn to never give up, you have to learn the power and wisdom of unconditional surrender, and that one doesn't cancel out the other; they just exist as contradictions. The wisdom of it comes as you get older.

[on A Star Is Born (1976)] (Filming) It was like Ranger School.

I grew up in a time when people believed in duty, honor and country. My grandfathers were both officers. My father was a General in the Air Force. My brother and I were both in the Army. I've always felt a kinship with soldiers; I think it's possible to support the warrior and be against the war.

I think I'm a much better father as an older man than I was with my first kids. Occasionally, I have to yell at the little guys, but they don't take me seriously. 'Listen to the old guy,' they say. 'Isn't he great? He's mad.'

Recently, my oldest son, Kris, and I were coming out of an airport, and I saw this little kid I'd seen back at the gate with his mother, and I said, 'Look-that's the kid who was coming out of the gate with us.' And Kris said, 'Dad, you're getting old. You noticed the little kid and I was looking at his mother.

I should have been dead many times over. The way I used to fly attack-choppers I should have died. When I got numerous concussion from football I should have died. When I continued to box even after losing my memory I should have died - they're trying to tear your head off for Christ sake. I've rolled cars many times, been drunk on a motorcycle too often. It's embarrassing now, sitting here, knowing you took all the good things for granted, that I didn't cherish my life a bit more.

(on Retired General Wesley Clark's bid for the Democratic nomination in 2004) Just when the world is being dragged into the death spiral of an unending cycle of violence by a visionless, coldblooded collection of think-tank warriors goose-stepping their way into the new millennium with a stunning lack of respect for human rights, the environment, or international law, along comes a man with the proven credentials of intelligence, integrity, and courage singularly equipped by his spirit and experience to lead us out of this mess. Don't listen to what the lying liars say about him; listen to what he says. Wesley Clark is a prayer answered.

I wish my memory weren't so bad. They tell me it's from all the football and boxing and the concussions that I got. A couple of years ago my memory just started going. I can remember my songs so I can perform, but other than that ...

[on drugs and alcohol abuse and not getting any more contracts/sales ] It's rare to have that kind of opportunity, to face that kind of transition, to go from the absolute pinnacle of success to being unhireable. And my personal life was falling apart at the exact same moment. My marriage to Rita Coolidge got hit from behind by a truck. All of a sudden, I was a bachelor father taking care of our little girl. People would come up to me and say, 'Didn't you used to be somebody?' I was in a pretty dazed condition.

[when asked by Rolling Stone if he ever made up with his parents] Before he died, my father told me that, 'I'll never understand what you have been doing with your life, but I do understand your need to do it.' You see, he had really wanted to be a pilot, and he understood my drive - nothing would have ever stopped him from flying.

[on how his beard was an accident] I had pneumonia and I had to go into hospital for a week, didn't shave the whole time. And when I came out, some magazine took a picture of me and called it 'the new face of country music'. Ever since then Willie, too, has just looked as wild as heck.

[on wiinning a Best Actor Golden Globe for "A Star Is Born" and speaking about "Heaven's Gate"] I was in a place where I'm making as much money as anybody working' in the movies. Then, when the movie comes out - I couldn't get arrested. Well, I could get arrested, but that was about all I could do.

[ when asked by Rolling Stone about his political envolvement in the 80's] I was so taken with what I was doing politically and trying to bring people's attention to what our country was doing down in Central America, trying to use what I'd learned, that I didn't know how far from the mainstream I'd fallen. I was driving up through Texas one time and heard the guy on the radio refer to me as 'washed up.' I'd had no idea. I was in a blessedly stupid state of shortsightedness, not allowing doubt to paralyze me.

What is even more difficult than failure, is when you are perceived as a 'success' and you are failing.

I had the benefit of an education. After college I got to go to Oxford. Given that, I should've been a lot smarter than I was, but even still I volunteered for Vietnam. Christ, I should have known better, so I can't really be critical of individuals. Ultimately, I was really lucky I didn't go over there.

People say, 'Now that you're a "sex symbol," are they taking your lyrics less seriously?' But they weren't listening to them at all before, you know?

I just fell into the acting. Down in Peru I thought I'd like to learn to direct a movie, but acting? It didn't interest me then, and I sure as hell ain't no Laurence Olivier now, nor will I be. Jesus, these guys who really study for it, they must figure, who the fuck is this, some shit-kicker they hauled off the Troubadour stage.

I agree with you totally about all the conditioning that makes us want to feel masculine and tough. I mean, I'm sure that's why I went to Ranger School and Jump School. And I'm proud of that Ranger tab - still am. But the notion of bombing a defenseless country that's never threatened us and the fact we all accepted it and said, 'That's politics!' Damn. I'm not really interested in polities. We've come to a place that I never dreamed and I know my father never dreamed that America would get to.

I feel about my acting the same as I do about my performing. I'm sure as hell no Laurence Olivier. When it works, I feel blessed that it does, but it works just when I'm being as honest as I can be with whatever it is I am playing.

I drink wine today, but at the time I just went cold turkey. It was probably harder on the people around me than on myself.

[on Johnny Cash] He was the most driven, gifted, exhilarating and self-destructive artist I'd ever met, and I wanted to be exactly like him. I was going to have to hustle to go out like Hank Williams, 'cause I was already 29. But I thought it was the function of an artist to burn, not rust.

For me it was about intensity, wanting to do something, anything good! To be a part of any creative act is exhilarating. To get out there and tell the truth - through songs or through performance, it doesn't matter. I'm a good writer but I'm not a singer like the people I admire.

The general [Kristofferson Sr] wasn't as shocked by it as the general's wife. Country music at that time was held in very low esteem outside of the south - 'shitkicker music' - but I bought every one of those old Hank Williams singles, old 78s, when they first came out. I'm old enough that his death was a real blow to me.

Once you get right down there on the bottom, totally broke and an embarrassment to your loved ones, and it still hasn't killed you, suddenly it's all easier - nothing' left to lose, ya know? But there was something taking care of me. Back when things looked the darkest, like when I lost my job in the Gulf, I thought I had hit the bottom. I had a lot of expenses at the time. I owed child support, and my son had just gone in the hospital.

For years I couldn't get anything cut! And I could have been looked at as a joke - here's this Oxford-educated army captain come to Nashville, and now he's emptying ashtrays and sweeping the floors. But I never felt like I was failing ... I guess occasionally I did. When my peers or my parents would remind me.

I'll tell ya what - he was on the way out. When we were on Convoy, they tried to fire him, and I told them I'd walk, too, if they did. And I guess I was hot enough then that they gave a shit. But afterwards I'm walking out of there back to my truck and Peckinpah comes out and says, 'Goddamn you, ya stupid son of a bitch, I was almost outta here and you dropped me back in this shit!'

When I was smashed it seemed clear I would never write songs, nor a novel, nor do much of anything, so I drank more. It was very rough. When you are not doing what you think you should in life you can take it out on your old lady.

I had a half-gallon of Jose Cuervo in my trailer and they never let it empty. They just kept coming back in and filling it up, same half-gallon bottle. I don't know how much I was drinking, but it was a lot, and I had to quit it soon after. Doctor said my liver was the size of a football and that if I didn't quit, I was gonna kill myself. I had a new little daughter, so I quit.

Iran-Contra! We should have jailed all those guys for ever back then, and we wouldn't be where we are right now - because it's the same guys now, the same 20 guys!

Looking back, I was selfish. If I hadn't been, I never would have been able to put up with the hardship I was causing other people.