I love Johnny Cash, and I respect Johnny Cash. He`s the biggest. He`s like an Elvis in this business, but no, he`s never been the rebel.

You know, I feel sorry for the young artists.

I never have any problem getting enthusiastic with a good song and a good band.

Cuz I was never pretty anyway and never cared anything about that.

So I`m not very popular here with those inside the system, as you might guess. I never wanted to be.

I may be crazy, but it keeps me from going insane.

The rock and roll spirit. I learned a lot of that because I worked with Buddy Holly. I played bass with him, and he taught me a lot about that.

And the whole thing is that you`re treated like a step-child. Here it was down here, everything in the black, because they were stealing, basically. Stealing from us old country boys down here.

But ya know what, I am a part of something that happened. I`m a part of the music that happened. My voice is one more instrument, is what it is. So that`s the way I feel about people who play on sessions.

Finally, my manager negotiated a deal where I got to produce my own records.

Now, I was on drugs, and that didn`t help a whole lot. He hated that. That was part of where Chet and I had problems, so I take complete blame for that.

Because Ritchie Valens WAS the real deal. He was only starting, but in the time he spent in the business, he made big impact. I don`t know if anybody could have made a bigger one.

I think Kelly Willis is a good writer.

We did an album one time called White Mansions, about the civil war, but it was written by a guy from England. His looking at it from over there and it not being a part of his history made it so he could be objective.

Jesse is a great person. She really is. She`s been a friend to me all through all my bad times, and she`s understood what I was doing. She came up with that one saying, which was great.

You know, in the days when I started, if you had Chet Atkins` name on your record as a producer and it was on RCA, you could work the road. It didn`t have to be a big hit record, it just had to have that on it.

Honesty is something you can`t wear out.

But Buddy was an upper. He was happy. He loved music, and he was really happy. I don`t know... I don`t believe in reincarnation at all, but if all that stuff is true, then he might have been on his last time around.

Mainly what I learned from Buddy... was an attitude. He loved music, and he taught me that it shouldn`t have any barriers to it.

Now, I don`t know how they judge all that, but if anybody in the world deserves to be in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, Ritchie Valens does.

It was all devastating. I`d never dealt with losing anyone close to me, and I didn`t know where to put it in my life. I was very young then. Buddy taught me so much in such a short time.

Don`t ever try and be like anybody else and don`t be afraid to take risks.

A lot of times they don`t want to hear it. But you know, if some good is done to you, you should pass it on.

But you know, the system almost destroyed itself while it was goin` on trying to destroy us.

One thing is that I wasn`t getting booked that well, and they had control over who got the awards, they had control over who sold. And they really did not want Willie or me, either one, to have a hit record. They wanted the money, but they didn`t want us to be the ones.

Chet loved artists. He did. But he was caught up in the system. He had two hats. He had to have `em because he did two things: he was an artist, and he was an executive.

I mean, I think we`re put here on earth to make your own destiny, to begin with. I don`t think there`s anything you can do this way or that way to change anything.

Besides that, I felt guilty. I thought for some reason... I was alive, and Buddy and those boys were dead, and I didn`t know how, but somehow I`d caused it.

I didn`t aim at anything except good music.

I was king of the mountain for a long time, well, I don`t want that no more. I like to perform every once in a while for people who want to see me, and cut albums of music that is what I`m really about.

[1984, in an interview in the CMA`s "Close Up" magazine] I did more drugs than anybody you ever saw in your life.

Some people have their music. My music has me.

There`s always one more way to do something - your way.

[about his "outlaw" image] It was a good marketing tool. In a way, I am that way. You start messing with my music, I get mean. As long as you are honest and up front with me, I will be the same with you. But I still do things my way.

[his last comment to friend Buddy Holly] Hope your darn ole plane crashes.