Dolly Parton Quotes

Don't judge me by the cover, 'cause I'm a real good book.

Songwriting is my way of channeling my feelings and my thoughts. Not just mine, but the things I see, the people I care about. My head would explode if I didn't get some of that stuff out.

When you come from where I come from, if anyone in the family makes it out, the others kind of come with you.

When I sit back in my rocking chair someday, I want to be able to say I've done it all.

I'm a workin' girl.

I embrace everybody for who and what they are.

Sometimes when I'm under pressure, if I think somebody is expecting stuff from me, I'll do better than if I was just left on my own. I can sit down - I'm a skilled writer, I've been doing it all my life - and I can get down to it.

I love thinking, I love coming up with great ideas. I just get excited. Sometimes if I get a big idea, I'm just like a kid, like I've found a new toy.

Mine is only one of the millions of hearts broken over the death of Whitney Houston. I will always be grateful and in awe of the wonderful performance she did on my song and I can truly say from the bottom of my heart, 'Whitney, I will always love you. You will be missed.'

I can't keep somebody from being a star, and I can't make somebody a star, and nobody can.

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

Paradise is a state of mind.

I have just one tube of lipstick, but it's as big as a can of hairspray.

I am confident that partnering my Dollywood Company with a great company like Gaylord will create something truly special.

The freewill you have given, we have made a mockery of.

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

I'm a fool to keep staying, when you've made hurting me such an art.

A lot of dreams can turn to nightmares... if you don't really work them.

I just try to be true to myself and look the way that I'm comfortable looking. Because if I'm comfortable with me, then you're going to be comfortable with me as well.

My mother was always fascinated with the fact that I could rhyme so much stuff.

I've never let a rhinestone go unturned

You never know what's going to happen to you when you head out into the big world. And when you get older, you don't know how you're going to be thought of or seen.

If there's something bothering me in the business end of things with people I work with, I just say it right out.

I wake up with new dreams every day...more I can do to channel that into things that I love to create is healthier for me and probably for everybody around me.

That little Miley Cyrus... she's like a little Elvis. The kids love her because she's Hannah Montana, but what people don't realize about her is she is such a fantastic singer and songwriter. She writes songs like she's 40 years old!

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.

Sometimes if you jump into something too quickly, you can screw up something that might have been good two years down the road.

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

I've always believed in my talent. And I've always had more guts than talent.

I listen to my old records and I think, 'How did I ever get on the radio?'

I love traveling all over the world; but it's true: there's nothing like home.

I was always a junk food person, still am.

I don't trust anyone who does their own hair. I don't think it's natural.

I used to try to write a song a day. I've been so busy lately.

The tits and the hair and the personality helped build the whole Dolly deal, but it was my music that brought me out of the Smokey Mountains.

There's no such thing as free love. Have you seen the price of Viagra?

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

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.

People get a kick out of my stupidity.

I love everybody. My heart's open to everybody.

I think [music and acting], they are connected, all that stuff. It's your emotional self, is pretty much how you do it, I think, from whatever place you do it, whether you're acting or you're singing.

I always think of myself as a working girl.

Until I was a teenager, I used red pokeberries for lipstick and a burnt matchstick for eyeliner. I used honeysuckle for perfume.

I'm easy to look like, so there are lots and lots of Dolly look-alikes.

There's a lot of women now with a whole lot of style but they are not necessarily song stylists. Some of their style is a lot like me and a lot of people sound a lot alike - you can't tell them apart.

My songs are the door to every dream I've ever had and every success I've ever achieved.

Storms make trees take deeper roots.

I don't listen to music for fun. I ain't got enough time for fun! I'm always busy writing my own music. I don't try to compete or see what other people are doing.

Believe it or not, I was just given an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Tennessee.

You gotta keep trying to find your niche and trying to fit into whatever slot that's left for you or to make one of your own.

Energy begets energy.

I've... been accused of being involved with every man I'm ever seen with or worked with. Maybe I have, maybe I ain't. I never tell if I have.

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

Some people say that less is more. But I think more is more.

In fact, I bought our first family television with my own money, putting it on credit and then paying it off every week.

Truth is, I wouldn't know a gigabyte from a snakebite.

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.

There's a lot of rednecks in the country where I grew up.

Nobody can ever make enough money for as many poor relatives as I've got. Somebody's got a sick kid, or somebody needs an operation, somebody ain't got this, somebody ain't got that. Or to give the kids all a car when they graduate.

The worst thing about poverty is not the actual living of it, but the shame of it.