"Nashville's like any other hometown - after a while, it's stifling."

"I always watched movies and rooted for the bad guys, you know? I've always been that kind of guy. I still hold some respect for criminals that are good at their jobs."

"I've always written. When I was in school, the only teacher who ever liked me was my creative writing teacher. I used to enter poetry competitions, and I don't think I ever lost one. So I had the idea for a while of being some kind of poet."

"I grew up in a racially mixed neighborhood. So going over to friends' houses for dinner, their parents listened to Al Green and Luther Ingram. It was something that hit me early on, the feeling that came across."

"Of all our possessions, wisdom alone is imortal."

"I'm the kind of guy who can't keep a plant alive for a week, let alone a relationship."

"Happiness, contentment, the health and growth of the soul, depend, as men have proved over and over again, upon some simple issue, some single turning of the soul."

"Life is lost at finding itself all alone. Mere egoism is a labyrinth.… Really to live is to be directed towards something, to progress towards a goal."