Quotes By George Strait

I didn't want to be 40 or 50 years old and still playing clubs, I didn't feel like I was making any progress, and I actually gave the band notice at one point. I began to have doubts about my abilities.

I listen to Mark Chestnutt and think he's a great singer - and he really does good material.

We work hard when we're in the studio, but then when we take our breaks, we walk outside and look around.

Even though I've been doing it for so long, I still feel fresh. Even when I walk out on stage, I still feel pretty much the same as I've always felt.

I've always liked Frank Sinata and Big Band music.

I'm just not going to tour. One point I want to get across to everybody is that I'm still going to make records and I may still do some events. It's not the last time I'm onstage. It's been a part of my life for too long to quit everything. I have done it since the '80s, and I think it's time now to maybe see if I can live without that part.

I'm a country singer. I love all kinds of music, but country is where my loyalty lies. That's just me and what I do, and I'm not going to change it.

Of all the songs I've recorded, 'Amarillo By Morning' always sticks out in my mind.

I've had great fans, and they've been so loyal over the years.

I think that all my albums are different enough where I don't feel like I did this the last time.

I can only say thank you and thanks also to all of the great songwriters who wrote those wonderful songs that became number ones.

I don't mind traveling that much when I can go somewhere and stay there for a while, but touring is different. You rarely see anything. You get there early in the morning and you're resting all day, and you go in and do a sound check, and you do the show, and then bam you're gone.

If twang isn't what I do, I don't know what is.

If it's a good song and it fits me, that's what I'm going to do, I'm not out there trying to change the world. I'm just out there trying to sing country music the best way I can.

I love to fish offshore for billfish, and have fished all over for them from the Bahamas, St. Thomas, Venezuela, Panama, Costa Rica, Mexico to the Texas gulf. I haven't made it to Australia yet, but someday I'm going.

I'm going to write, and after two years, when I've quit touring, if a special event comes up that I want to do, by all means I will do it, but as far as a structured tour goes, at the last date of 2014 goes, that will be it for touring.

I get asked sometimes 'What's the highlight of my career?' because I've been doing it for so long, and I always have a hard time coming up with something, because so many good things have happened.

I always enjoy it when I walk on stage. There were some times when I was working so much in the '80s, and I felt really burnt-out. But I'd be up there singing and not be 10,000 million miles away, you know, just opening my mouth and the words coming out.

I remember that in '81, country radio was pretty pop, and everybody wanted a crossover record - and all of a sudden it came back to traditional. Now it's kind of swung the other way a little bit, but it always comes back.

I discovered in college that country music could be fun adding some swing to it.

You've got to keep the stage world and your real world separated or you're headed for trouble.

Country music is important to me, and I love it, but it's not my whole life... I like to be outdoors, I like to hunt, I like to fish, I like to play golf.

I love to fish. You can go hours without anything happening, and all of a sudden a big blue marlin comes into the spread and it's cockpit chaos. My dream is to catch a grander, a 1,000 pounder.

When I think about putting together an album, the process of listening to hundreds of songs each time and picking out the best 10 or so that will go on the record, it really sinks in as to just how many songs I've listened to all these years.

I like people who are loyal to me, and I like to be loyal, too.

This is the kind of problem you want to have! Country radio has been great to me my whole career. I can't thank those folks enough.

I used to do a lot of interviews in the early '80s, when my career started, but it came to a point when I decided I didn't want to talk anymore, and people kind of understood that and left me alone.

Country music is important to me, and I love it, but it's not my whole life.

I've been blessed with the ability to sing, and that has taken me so many places I never would have gone otherwise.

You know, legends are people like Haggard and Jones and Wills and Sinatra. Those people are legends. I'm just a young buck out here trying to keep in that same circle with the rest of 'em.