In the late '70s, I was falling into the middle lane. I was way too country to be rock, and way too rock to be a country act.

The first five albums I did, I tried a little bit of everything. I was trying not to conform at all.

Basically, I grew up watching Carter girls on stage, watching my grandmother, my mom and my aunts perform. They used to say, 'Okay, Carter girls, you're on!'

I wanted to play rocking country music, and when I started out in the late Seventies, it took me a couple of albums to figure out how to do that.

Be yourself. And every person is unique.

Don't try to be like somebody else. You'll be miserable. You need to be yourself, and don't ever get a big head.

Eccentricity has never been discouraged in our family.

I've always wanted to make records that rock like hell. But also, I've never wanted to compromise that Country place deep inside.

Whenever I've not known what to do, I've always gone back to the Carter Family because there was nothing like singing with my aunts and my mom to my grandma.

My grandma passed in '78, and that's the year I started recording. It's also the year that my dad retired from his career. So it's funny how torches get passed on, and you feel a responsibility to be connected to the music that they did and try to carry it on in your own way.

The first time I went on stage as an adult was touring with the Johnny Cash Show. I'd sang as a child. But my grown-up initiation was as part of that band.

I learned how to sing in front of a lot of people and to hone my skills alongside some of the greatest performers of all time.

Whenever I get to a point I'm so tired that I forgot the verse of a song, I know I'm burnt out.

I feel the audience are friends that have come to see us. That was always how we look on it in the Carter Family. I've never suffered stage fright.

When I'm on stage, I know exactly where I am. It's not an ego thing or anything like that, but I am more in my body and aware of myself and aware of what I'm doing, and I feel more from that, from sharing the music.

I love rock n' rollers.

Even city people have ancestors who had their hands in the dirt.

I grew up on the side of the stage. I never had a fear of an audience. I never felt like they were separated from us. We were all in the living room, and it happens to be a big living room. I continue to operate on that assumption.

A lot of people said I was a rebel. I wasn't.

I never, by any regard, ever denied any part of my family roots.

Sometimes I get emotional when I'm doing 'Lonesome Valley' or 'Wildwood Rose.'

I wood-shedded for a year to play Grandma's simple stuff. It's not that simple, and I don't use picks the way she does. But I played them as authentically as I could, with the flat-picking.

Hopefully, people will rediscover real country music. After all, it's in my blood.

I hate parameters. They immediately alienate a bunch of people.

Music should be judged on what you hear, not what you think you might hear.

When I first came out, country wouldn't touch me because I was way too rock, and rock wouldn't touch me because I was definitely country.

I grew up quick because my family was away a lot, and I took care of my sister. Then in my 20s, I went through my teens, with these 'wild abandon' things.

My mom is a great entertainer.

You can have a big hit and not get rich.