“After my first No. 1 song back in 2006, I worried I may never have another one.”

“Alabama - they were the masters of that. They could come out with 'Mountain Music' or 'Tennessee River' and then turn around and come out with 'Feels So Right.' Go out and have fun and be those guys that like to party, then turn around and make every woman in America want Randy Owen.”

“As a new artist, you come out, and there are so many other new artists. It seems like there's a whole wave of new artists that come along every year. In '05, I was part of the crop. It was a lot harder trying to set myself apart from the rest of the pack.”

“But for me, I thought you made a record, you got on a bus, went out and played your shows and made a lot of money. That was the way it was supposed to go down. But there's a lot more to it than that. There are a lot of early mornings, late nights, a lot of traveling, a lot of being away from home, being away from your family.”

“Country music in the mid-'90s was a big influence on my career, and I played all the songs that are referenced in '94' back in my club days. Joe Diffie was rocking a sick mullet, and he was hotter than ever... just putting out monster hit after monster hit. It totally takes me back to those days, and it makes me smile every time I hear it.”

“Entertainer of the Year, to me, there's never been any question that that's one on my bucket list that I want. I'm not going to sit here and lie to you. If there's one that I ever could get - I would trade all the rest of them in for that one.”

“I didn't want my records to sound like anybody else, and when I've got my guys in the studio, I have a language with those guys because we work together every day. A lot of times, you bring in outside guys, studio players, whatever, and they're great musicians. It's just that they don't necessarily play the way I want it to be played.”

“I don't know if Nashville will ever be ousted as the Music City. But I also think that here, over the last few years, Georgia has definitely kind of risen to the top as far as the crop of young artists coming out of this area that are kind of making waves, you know?”

“I don't think I really have any wisdom. Stay out of trouble. Good luck. Stay away from women because they will burn you, haha.”

“I got a hat deal with Resistol, where I have my own line of cowboy hats.”

“I grew up listening to all kinds of music, everything from country to rock, pop, R&B and even rap, so for me, music is music and a great song is a great song.”

“I grew up listening to everything. And rock and roll has always been a big, big part of it - as big a part of what I do as any other type of music.”

“I had a friend, Melissa, who was 28 years old. She was my best friend's wife, and she was my wife's best friend. She died of breast cancer. When she passed away back in 2004 was the last time I cried.”

“I had an opportunity to play baseball in college, but I just didn't want to go to school. I started focusing on my music and it was game over!”

“I had no idea 'Big Green Tractor' was going to be as big a hit as it was. You just can't predict those things.”

“I have a love of baseball and a love of music.”

“I haven't figured out why people like what they like. I don't know. I wish I did. I could sell that to everybody, man, and be a millionaire.”

“I know I'm not gonna please everybody when I make a record. I don't let that affect any of my decisions.”

“I love fried okra. The fact that it's okra makes me feel like it's good for you - I forget the fact that it's fried.”

“I love playing music. And that's what it's all about.”

“I think every artist wants to have that 'Grammy award winner' tag in front of their name.”

“I think from an artist standpoint, you have to put out music that you feel like represents you and things you feel like your crowd wants to hear. And if that drives them to go and download the album or the single, that's what we want.”

“I think it's important for artists to work together. It's great for fans to see, like, Ludacris came out to our show in Atlanta and kinda made a surprise appearance there, it shows a mutual respect for what each other does.”

“I would say, 'Go ask any couple that's been married for 30, 40, 50 years... It hasn't always been roses.'”

“If you say, 'I'm going to cut this song because I know the teenagers are going to love it,' well, then you're going to alienate everybody else. When I cut my record, I'm just going to cut the things that I like, and whoever likes it, likes it. That's too much work to try to figure out the demographic. That's too much like a business.”

“I'm a country boy. I'm from Georgia.”

“I'm trying to get an acting gig on 'CSI' or something like that, so we'll see how that works out. I'm a singer, definitely not an actor, so I just follow directions.”

“In the music business, especially the country music business, every 10 years or so you're going to have this changing of the guard, this wave of new artists that comes in.”

“It feels good when your hometown supports you, and Macon's always done that with us. Every time we come here, it's an event - which is nice.”

“It's one of those things where if I do a movie, I don't even know if I'm any good. So, I may do one and it sucks and I'm a horrible actor, and I'll never do another one.”

“I've been wearing Wrangler jeans for more than a decade now, all the way back to when I first started playing clubs in my teens in Georgia.”

“Macon has such a rich musical history - and the state of Georgia, as well.”

“My golf score is really bad. I don't know. I'm definitely not a good golfer. Off the tee box, I can drive it about 275, and I'm in the fairway about 99% of the time. It's my next shot that needs work.”

“My main lucky number is 9. That was my baseball number in high school. My other lucky number is 3, because that's the one I wore before I got to high school and had to pick a different one.”

“My mom was a single mom, and she had enough on her plate. I knew when I was doing something I wasn't supposed to, and I tried to keep her from finding out about it. I did a pretty good job of that.”

“My producer, Michael Knox, he's kind of my eyes and ears on Music Row. While I'm out on the road, he's looking for songs, and then he and I will get together and go over songs.”

“Now one thing I think is really lame, is if you're an artist and you go to a karaoke bar and sing your own song. I like to get up there and sing stuff that I would never sing on stage anywhere else. Like Neil Diamond.”

“People see you onstage and the glamorous side, but they don't see you traveling 600 miles a night, eating truck stop food and spending by yourself staring at walls.”

“Playing a stadium is a big adrenaline boost for me and I dig it. It keeps me on my toes and makes me revamp everything I'm doing and not get stagnant with how I approach every show, which is something I like.”

“'Tattoos' reminds me of where I'm from, and some of the stuff I did when I was growing up. That was one of the things that was appealing about the song when I heard it the first time.”

“That's kind of fuse for the show - those first 10-15 seconds you're onstage. The curtain drops and you see the crowd for the first time and they see you for the first time. The response and the energy that's going on right there - to me, that sets the tone for the rest of the night.”

“The DVR thing has rocked my world. Being on the road, I used to not keep up with any shows. Now I got a DVR, so I'm watching everything: 'CSI: Miami,' my favorites 'Criminal Minds' and 'The Mentalist.' I like some of the HBO stuff, 'Entourage' and 'Eastbound & Down.' My wife got me into the 'Grey's Anatomy' deal, so I'm watching that.”

“The 'Night Train' has already been a crazy ride for me. We flew around making TV appearances and stadium announcements all over the country, fueled by little more than coffee and adrenaline... so many fans jumped on board with us, and I couldn't be more thankful.”

“The only person that anybody's ever said I resemble is a young Elvis. It used to happen a lot more when I was younger, and more when I don't wear a hat.”

“The worst gig story I have is from a club in Alabama that I think is still up and running, so I won't name the name of the club. We got hired in there to play, and the owner was pretty annoying. He kept coming up to me during the show and asking me to play 'Purple Rain.'”

“There are people out there who are into traditional country music and for those people you have artists like Brad Paisley and Josh Turner and Alan Jackson. Then you have artists with a progressive style of country music, like myself and Eric Church and Luke Bryan and Miranda Lambert.”

“There's nothing cooler than a good fitting, worn-in pair of Wrangler jeans, so it's great that with the new Retro line, my fans can go out and rock the same styles that I love.”

“To me, a critic is someone who gets paid for their opinion, and they're entitled to that opinion but I don't really put a lot of stock into their opinion. I'm going to cut the kind of records and the kind of songs that I like, and the kind of things that I enjoy doing. If critics dig it, that's fine, if they don't, that's fine.”

“We call them impact songs, and people buy impact songs. But you just never know what those songs are going to be. One of those songs that really went through the roof for us was 'Big Green Tractor,' which I thought was kind of a fun little ditty song that I never in a million years thought would be as big as it was. But it was.”

“When I was a kid, we went to St. Augustine, Fla., and I was lying on the couch one night with a Q-tip, cleaning my ear out after I'd taken a shower. I hit my arm on something, jabbed the Q-tip through my ear drum, busted my ear drum and couldn't get back in the water the rest of the time we were there.”

“You have record companies that sign acts that they think are great, and then they never do anything. Acts that they don't think are really going to do much end up having a career. I don't think anyone really knows what it is that drives somebody to get on their computer and want to download a song.”

“You're not going to hear me singing songs about Wall Street because I don't know anything about that.”