Josh Turner's Quotes

I've known from a very early age that singing was what I was supposed to do. There was this unmistaken, undeniable passion within me to sing country music.

In today's time, writing stuff that actually happened is touch-and-go, because you don't want to be too personal. If you are, then it probably won't relate to a mass audience. A lot of times you have to make it sound like it's about everybody else, but you really went through it.

'Long Black Train' was inspired by a vision that I had of a long, black train running down this track way out in the middle of nowhere. I could see people standing out to the sides of this track watching this train go by. As I was walking, experiencing this vision, I kept asking myself, 'What does this vision mean and what is this train?'

My dream was to go to Nashville. I had my sights set on my dream. I used to have an '89 Toyota Ford truck. On the front of the truck, I had this license plate with cowboy boots and a guitar that I had airbrushed at Wal-Mart. It said 'Chasin' A Dream.' That was kind of my motto.

My first full year of touring, I did 300 days on the road. That was not including the travel time or publicity or anything else - that was just dates. I was home probably less than 50 days that year.

My granddaddy on my momma's side, he was a romantic. He loved love songs. Every Valentine's Day, I remember him buying a red carnation for my grandmomma, my momma and my sister. That was something you could count on every year.

My manager came up with the idea of taking a Pro Tool rig out on the road to record every night and I thought it was a great idea. I felt like it would be good to record over a certain period of time and then take the best performances of that collection of recordings. It appealed to me that it wasn't going to be from just one location.

One of my favorite places is Seattle. Growing up, I never thought I'd be able to go to Seattle. I grew up in eastern South Carolina, so that's as far as you can get from Seattle, unless I lived in Miami.

Raising three boys is a huge responsibility for me, especially in this day and time when I look around and there's a lack of good, strong, upstanding Christian men who are not afraid to be men and just own up to their responsibility.

Sometimes it feels like I've been in the business forever, but then other times, it feels like kind of a flash. Growing up, all I wanted to do was sing. All I wanted to do was get on a bus and ride around the country and sing for people and be a household name.

The coolest gift I've ever gotten from a fan was from the Franklin Mint. It was a knife, and it had a picture of General Wade Hampton, who my oldest son is named after. It's a collector's item and came with a case and a stand and everything.

There were only 75 people in my graduating class at the school I attended in Hannah, S.C. It was a small school and that translated into not a lot of opportunities when it came to music. We had academic and sports programs but we never had a consistent music program. We would have a band one year, and a chorus one year, but nothing ever lasted.

To think that my heart and my words and my music saved somebody's life, it takes a while to just sink in with me. But it proves to me that music is powerful.

We all have those days when you feel like you're against the world, every little thing goes wrong and your blood pressure is up. And you feel like punching somebody!

We're blessed to be at a level in my career where I can afford to take out a bus of my own and bring my whole family with me, so that's great, too. The boys are out with us all the time, and it's just great to be able to turn around onstage and see my wife back there behind me.

What I did to celebrate was I went home to my 535-square-foot apartment by myself and ate supper by myself. That was how I celebrated getting a record deal.

When I first started out in this business, it was easy because nobody wanted anything from me. But now everyone wants something from me, so it's hard to break away and just be a songwriter.

When I'm up on stage, I'm thinking more about my fans and about myself as a singer and an artist. When I'm at home being a daddy, the last thing I'm thinking about is being an artist. It is two things that I never really put together.

You have to take time and make time for each other. My current single 'Time Is Love' gives a lot of advice in that area, just spending quantity time with the one you love and the one you care about because that's when you really develop a relationship.

Life is a series of punches. It presents a lot of challenges. It presents a lot of hardship, but the people that are able to take those punches and able to move forward are the ones that really do have a lot of success and have a lot of joy in their life and have a lot of stories to tell, too.

You hear about quality time a lot but I really think that quantity time with a person is really what strengthens a relationship. That's when you really get to know somebody. You get to know their strengths and their weaknesses and that brings you closer. That's what 'Time Is Love' is all about.

I grew up around people that enjoyed life day to day and found pleasure in simple things.

It's so cool for me to do what I love to do for a living and meet people from all over the world.

I'm a sinner just like everybody else and I have my faults and I've been through my dark times in my life to where I wasn't walking the walk and talking the talk, or I may have been talking the talk, but I wasn't walking the walk.

I love my boys. I love watching them growing up. I love seeing them develop, and I'm always looking forward to seeing what they're going to become and what they're going to be interested in later in life.

A No. 1 record is hard to come by.

'All Over Me' is a song that I really got fired up the first time I heard it: it just really moved and it really had a lot of energy.

Don't let your children take priority over your marriage and your work and everything else.

'Firecracker' was such a fun song to write and to perform.

I came from a rural background, and I didn't come in contact with a lot of wealthy people.

I didn't rebel in the way a lot of people do.

I don't ever land on an album title until I know exactly what's going on the record, because you never know until it's all said and done.

I grew up like a lot of country boys and girls do - amongst the pine trees, dirt roads, farms, mules and people who were real.

I haven't always been the guy that walks into a room and automatically the attention is on me. I'm normally the guy that stands off in the corner.

I like to fish when it's not too hot.

I love Tennessee, but they don't have the pine trees and the sandy soil and the black water that I grew up around.

I play basketball all the time. Me and my band play every week on the road. That's something that I've never really given up since high school.

I'm always showing pictures off. I have to be careful who I show them to because of who I am, obviously, but I'm a proud father.

I'm definitely not going to go and sing a song that condones certain things.

I'm not much of a water skier, my legs are too skinny for that, so I just try to tube and have fun, just ride.

I've listened to a lot of outside stuff and just haven't really heard anything that moves me. I don't know if I'm getting old and crotchety or what.

I've never had the patience of a teacher.

It's hard sometimes to capture magic when it comes to live records.

Not only am I trying to be a daddy, but also a friend, not be the old fogey that's slowing everybody else down... not for a while, at least.