I went on tour with Ricky Skaggs and his wife, Sharon White, and the White Family in 2015. It was fantastic. They're all the greatest singers of that country stuff, traditional country up into bluegrass.

I've been wanting an ice cream truck forever.

You go through these phases. That's how life is. Over the long term, you just can't do one thing. I saw that back in the Sixties when I was getting started.

When I was little, 4 or 5 years old, the first guitar I had was given to me by a blacklisted violinist - a lefty, commie guy, pinko man.

What kills music in films is when it's done as performance, drawing attention to the fact that someone's in the background playing it.

Sure, immigrants will do work that no-one else will do. There was even a movie about it - 'A Day Without Mexicans.'

How many BMWs do you need? How many Rolex watches you gonna wear in your lifetime, for crying out loud? What is it about that kind of desire? I don't understand it.

I didn't come from a very rigid background, where there's a clan or a tribe or a religion.

Film work is a job I like to do because I really love to solve problems.

Some people have career plans, long-range career plans. I don't know anything about that. I'm no good at it.

I like the idea that something happens to everybody who comes to L.A. - whether they are Mexican, Irish, black, or hillbillies. You come here, and you leave all your traditions behind. And since there's no traditions here, you just make one up.

I think I'm more relaxed; I think I'm more philosophical. I don't get worried as much as I used to about things.

The world will always love Cuban music, however it changes.

I'm a great lover of ballads.

If every song is in the past tense, that's a drag, so you have to predict the future.

People respond to any good you can do in music.

Music is all starting to sound alike in the modern era. Afro-pop sounds exactly like L.A. pop - there's no difference, no ambience, no real resonance.

That's what records do: represent a compressed, heightened version of the sound. Because of the compression of the tubes and microphones and the wax, it's magic!

I didn't want tunes that preach heaven: you know, life on Earth is bad and heaven is the only hope we have. I don't quite care for that. I mean, when people sing that stuff, it's good when they do it, but I didn't want to do it.

It's crazy to make records nobody buys. It's just a waste of time.

A microphone has a certain range. It's not as good as your ears, but it will capture an enclosed space, the harmonic content in a room. Nice old tube mikes do that pretty well. And that's a good sound.

I've listened to blues my whole life. I know it, I play it, I understand it.

Music is a treasure hunt. You dig and dig, and sometimes you find something.

You can play as good as you want, but you have to sing from a place of living.

I had a lot of luck in meeting great musicians who were kind enough to show me things.

The biggest inspiration I had was to take norteno soul music and fuse it with Mexican music. It was my great big idea to do that.

After all is said and done and institutions fail, people still have some ability to care for each other.

Travelling is hard. I'm no traveller. I hate flying, and I hate hotels.

The thing I always found about the gospel music was that it reached further into your being if you like, your mind. It takes hold of you - especially if you sing it and play it.

Musicians understand each other through means other that speaking.

I'm sort of an osmotic fellow.

Everyone thought my first album would be instrumental, but I didn't want to do it - it took me eight months to make.

I always think you should push your envelope every chance you get.

Nat King Cole - I listen to him a lot.

Promoters don't book you 'cause they like you; they do it 'cause there's good business to be done.

R&B and all that stuff was always very spare and spontaneous. Nobody made those records under solid gold situations. It was just in and out, and you didn't labor over the thing. I like music like that.

With country, it's hard to penetrate the thick layers of commercialism that have been applied like shellac coatings over the real thing.

The ocean is very comfortable. I could never live inland.

I love listening to gospel records.

I give up on pop music. As far as a commercial entity, as far as pop music goes, I quit; I absolutely throw in the towel. I can't handle it. I can't do it. I can't be what they need you to be.

I've tended to look at my albums as research and development. I was just trying to get someplace new on each one.

All I know is, I play the guitar, beat it out, and sing a song that has some damn resonance that we feel as musicians. We send it out and people get it, and that's a good thing.

People who get together, regardless of other structures, will find something in common. They are bound to. That was the Pete Seeger let's-all-sing theory.

If you're white working with non-white people, you will be branded as a colonialist by some people, regardless of your efforts or intentions.

Chavez Ravine is the dawn of Chicano consciousness.

People who aren't as interested in recorded music as they used to be will say, 'Oh, 'Buena Vista?' Loved it.' And I'll say, 'Well, how about any of my other recent records. I've been doing some pretty good ones. You like those?' And they go, 'Huh?'

Back in the early '70s, when Susie and I were first married, we had a little house that we rented, and we used to have parties. People would come, and they wouldn't leave. I used to get so tired. I'd put on the Stanley Brothers, 'Songs for the Good People,' and the house would clear in five minutes. It was not liked; it was alien. It was weird.

I don't like being watched, and I don't like being an entertainer.

Music is fragile: people die, and it's forgotten.

I hate films. Films make me sick now, and if something makes me sick, I always back off.