I like to play pool. When the ball goes in the pocket, you win.

It occurred to me the thing that broke my heart the most was when I grew up and realized everything wasn't an adventure. I got to a certain age and realized I couldn't be Indiana Jones.

Terrible things happen all of the time, and they can happen in a second. The best thing is to be prepared to react. If you try to control every little thing, you're going to end up miserable - and you're going to fail.

I'm not looking to be a superstar. I just want to be in a room with good people who are similar to me and are at least open to things that I have to say.

Sometimes I leave an encounter or a conversation hoping that I didn't come off as above my raisin' - hoping that I didn't make somebody feel bad for not having as much as we're fortunate to have.

I like not having to worry about paying the bills, but I have to watch myself because I don't come from money.

A lot of the world turns into checklists for me when I'm on the road. Like, OK, this person's alive, this person's fed, this person's good. Soundcheck is done. Everything becomes a checklist except for the actual show.

I need enough room to eventually throw a baseball with a child; that's all the yard I need. That's all I want.

I think for anything to be successful, your problems have to become different problems over time.

When I was writing 'Southeastern,' I'd just recently gotten sober. For me, that was a major turning point in my life. It changed things I did on a day-to-day basis. My whole routine was upended. It took me some time to get used to that and figure out how do I keep myself entertained.

My dad, he worries a bit, usually with good reason. There were quite a few years there where he was probably trying to resign himself to fact that I wouldn't live too much longer, just because of the way I was living.

I think Spotify is honestly just another one of Sean Parker's ways of ripping musicians off.

My dad, as much as I love him, has one of those signs - 'The Isbell's' - on his front door, and he's got the damn apostrophe in there. I haven't strangled him yet.

I don't remember a lot of the good times from my days with the Truckers.

Good sounds, they just make you feel good.

The good thing about songwriting is you don't have to delineate between what's true and what's fiction; records aren't put on the shelf that way. Books are, movies are, but records aren't.

I go to the movies a lot on off days. I exercise. I have routines that I go by.

I don't believe all music is good. I believe some music is bad for people to listen to. I think it makes their taste worse, I think it makes their lives worse, I think it makes them worse people.

I've dealt with a lot of physical pain, with a lot of emotional pain; anybody's who's ever been an alcoholic has handled both of those in extreme.

I spend a lot of time wondering how to best support the people that I love, because I think sometimes that means getting out of the way. When should I leave them alone to have their own life?

Sometimes a song becomes rhetoric, but you have to really empathise. You also have to leave room for both sides of the argument: even if you're not telling the other side, you have to put that part in parentheses and make sure it's understood.

An incredible number of people have raised children who aren't too screwed up. Surely, I won't be the worst at it.

I've always wanted to pull off 'No One is to Blame' by Howard Jones. I've done that a couple times in solo shows, but I can't figure out how to do that with a full band and make it work.

The south is very focused on family... the musical heritage of Muscle Shoals especially and the bands from the region.