Dolly Parton Quotes

“You can't really make people be any different than what they are.”

“Understanding isn't learned from punishment and anger. An iron has no gentle touch, and love ain't learned from hate.”

“I just write all the time. In my whole life I've never had what I've heard people talk about writer's block. I've never had that. Life is like a song to me. I just hear everything in music, so I have never once thought "Well, I'm never gonna be able to write again." I've got thousands of songs.”

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

“I say, 'Yeah, Taylor Swift.' I think she is a smart, beautiful girl. I think she's making all the right moves. She's got a good head on her shoulders. She's surrounded with wonderful people. Her songs are great. She keeps herself anchored. She knows who she is, and she's living and standing by that.”

“Music, I suppose, will be the thing that sustains me in the time of my life when I am too old for sex and not quite ready to meet God. It has always been an essential part of me.”

“Living in America and, of course, just being women in general, we've got more strength than we think we do.”

“I just love life. I love people. I love to write, that's my gift. I love to sing. I have a good attitude. I like to think I shine from the inside.”

“My husband says I look like a Q-tip.”

“My boobs are fake, my hair's fake but what is real is my voice and my heart.”

“I often get myself in love trouble because I'm so passionate; I love so much and so deep.”

“I just kind of wake up with a new idea and new dreams every day, and I follow that dream, as they say.”

“My mama never wore a pair of pants when I was growing up, and now that's all she wears. It was so funny for me when I first started seeing Mama wear pants. It was like it wasn't Mama. Now I've bought her many a pantsuit because she just lives in them.”

“I don't think I'm a great actress. I think I can act or I can react. Coming from a musical background and being a dramatic singer and writer, when I write stuff I really feel it. So I sing it like it comes from here. That's how I do the acting.”

“I'm so thankful I can write songs. I can capture all those memories in my songs and keep those memories alive.”

“I was born with a happy heart, and I try to keep a good attitude. It's not true that I'm happy all the time because nobody is, and we all go through our things.”

“A lot of my heartbreak songs are inspired by things my sisters are going through, or friends.”

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

“I have little feet because nothing grows in the shade.”

“I'm just a simple country girl.”

“Less is not more. More is more.”

“I know when something ain't right, and I know exactly what I will or won't tolerate.”

“I tried the Scarsdale diet and the Stillman water diet (you remember that one, where you run weight off trying to get to the bathroom).”

“People don't realize that, you know, we have - "we" meaning people in show business have the same problems as everybody else. Money don't change that. Fame don't change that. Sometimes that brings on more problems. You know, it's just a - different kind of problems. As they say, money ain't everything.”

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