I love Christmas. I love the music... I love everything about Christmas. I'm a big fan.

I always say, no matter what happens to me as a black man in country music, I can handle it if Charley Pride could handle all the stuff he went through.

The music I like or the football teams I like or the food I eat has nothing to do with me being black.

I'm black because I was born this way. I'm proud of it. Thank God I am who I am.

If you hear a song and you like it, you like it.

One of the great reasons to be in Nashville is, you get guys like Shane McAnally to write songs with.

When I'm singing a song, I'm in that song, and I'm thinking about what emotions I should bring to the song. Voicing a character was very similar. It was high energy, and I had to really think about the emotion of what was going on in the scene.

I'll take the kids to school after breakfast. I love doing that - love being a dad.

I've played golf since I was fourteen. I like how no two rounds are ever the same. And I get to be out in nature... and hang out with my buddies.

I love Hootie & the Blowfish and what we do, but that's not my main focus anymore.

I'm used to being the only black guy. I've seriously walked onstage, looked out in the audience, 15,000 people - and I'm the only one in the place. It's no big deal. My whole career's been like that.

Hearing Radney Foster was big for me, like hearing Al Green or R.E.M. for the first time.

The other guys in Hootie were into rock. I brought the country influence.

Getting people to come play my 'Darius and Friends Show' was so easy because it's for St. Jude, and that's a great thing.

I grew up in South Carolina. A lot of what I remember back in the day is AM radio. When I was a kid, you could hear Stevie Wonder and Buck Owens on the same station. All the walls and lines between music were taken down for me.

I'm going to make country records back to back for a while - until country radio doesn't want me anymore or until I get my own theater in Branson - one of the two.

Ric Flair was such a huge part of my childhood and teen years. He's an icon.

I've got some great stuff in my sports memorabilia collection. But my favorite thing by far is the robe. I actually have a Ric Flair robe with 'the Nature Boy' on the back. That's awesome. When I look at it, it brings back so many memories of my childhood and my teen years.

I was an 8-year-old who loved wrestling and watched it religiously every Saturday at one o'clock.

For me, the Mount Rushmore of greats would be Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, Hulk Hogan, Bruno Sammartino or Lou Thesz. You can do either one of them in that fourth spot. But I think Ric Flair is the greatest of all time. He's the greatest I've ever seen... on the mic and in the ring.

Music education was always big for me. Ever since I was a young kid, I always said it was the reason I went to school sometimes and knowing if I didn't do well in class that my mom wasn't gonna let me sing in school or sing at that concert.

It's hokey, but I love sitting in an inner tube and taking it easy on a lazy river ride. I can sit there all day.

I'm such a lover of golf, and I've been at the Masters a couple times, and I've been so blessed to get to play there.

I've gotten to play so many of the great courses around the country and overseas. Sometimes it pays to be the golf guy. People always want to take me to the golf course. I love it.

My kids don't care about anything. I'm just Dad to them. They don't get excited about anything.

There's a lot of stuff I thought I'd do in the world, but I never thought I'd have a street named after me in my hometown. It's a great feeling.

I think I made records, since early on, that people wanted to listen to.

If I did a show and didn't do Hootie songs, I would be ripping people off.

People looked at me as a carpetbagger coming over from pop to country. But it helped because it got me in the room.

I've always listened to country music. I wanted Hootie to become a country band at first, but I was outvoted.

I'd work with Charles Kelley anytime. I'd go do a 'Pancho and Lefty' record with Charles. He is class, man.

Billy Graham isn't about politics - Billy Graham is about God.

Everything that I do on stage comes from seeing the Black Crowes in '95 in Charlotte. For 'Let Her Cry,' I was just trying to write 'She Talks to Angels.'

I'm a big Black Crowes guy. I think they are one of America's greatest rock & roll bands ever.

I think the people who are sitting in their living room doing those, 'Let's take country music back' blogs and all that stuff, that's crazy to me. No one's saying that about rock & roll, and no one sounded like the Beatles since 1960. No one says that about R&B, and no one sounded like the Commodores since 1970.

People go, 'Oh, you're another guy who crossed over to country.' I say, name another one. Name one other pop singer who's done what I've done as a country singer. There isn't one.

I pay almost no attention to the charts.

I love Bob Dylan. 'Blood on the Tracks' is one of my top five records.

There are so many people who would like to see me not make it in Nashville. But that's good motivation.

Every time I make a record, it's make-or-break time. I hope I always have that mentality - that's what keeps me fired up.

No doubt about it, country is a much more family-friendly business than pop.

We work so hard to stay true to country music. People can say they don't like it, but they can't say it's not country.

The first year I started liking the Dolphins was Super Bowl VI, which they lost to the Cowboys. I was 5. My whole family was pulling for the Cowboys, so I rooted for the Dolphins. They lost, and I cried.

I played every position, from right tackle to quarterback and everything in between.

I think I could take a job as an NFL scout.

I live for the NFL. I watch so much of it.

Everybody wants to have a good time, especially at a concert. That's why everybody goes.

It's always a positive when radio is playing your music and fans are responding.

Every time I have a song that does well, that's a great feeling to have.

You're always proud that people still want to hear what you're doing.