Reba McEntire

I’ve got CDs in my car, listening all the time for that next song, because everybody’s looking.

Besides, I’m a gypsy at heart and I like to travel around.

My family, you know, are all still, you know, very close. We’re all still very close. Mom and Daddy are still alive. So, what more can you ask for? Your kids are healthy.

I always thought that was so strange that people would try to corral you and pigeonhole you in one category and not play you anywhere else.

So, I think it has to do with the product and what you take to the public. If they like it, they’re going to come see you, and if they don’t, and if you’re kind of getting out of the trendy line of things, then they won’t come see you.

Being a strong woman is very important to me. But doing it all on my own is not.

[on quitting smoking] I quit smoking four months ago and since then I have been biting-chewing-fidgeting with anything that isn’t nailed down. I quit cold turkey. I was up to two packs a day, I’m coughing, my eyes are red, I don’t have energy, I’m not even enjoying it, so I just said, ‘That’s it.’ I think it might’ve been easier if I went with Nicorette or one of those supplements, but I just don’t get that. Let’s see, I’m addicted to something, so I know! Let’s pop some pills to get over it! Yeah, that makes sense. But now I find myself in conversations where people are looking at me and I’m salivating all over myself. This is how pathetic and sad it is: you start thinking, ‘Who am I without a cigarette in my hand?’

I was always loud and obnoxious and giggly and funny.

They put all this money into these huge movies, and then no one goes to see them… That sort of shows that they’re out of touch. Then, everyone in town passes on my little movie, and it does really well.

I’ve never been cool and I don’t really care about being cool. It’s just an awful lot of time and hair gel wasted.

I believe I could do dance on ice, or play in a musical of Freud’s life called ‘It’s Your Mother’ – or maybe one for the symbolists: ‘Jung at Heart’. There’s always the one about India: ‘The Gandhi Man Can’.

My mum and my dad are the sweetest couple.

It’s OK to quote from your past. But I’m more interested in quoting from my present and pointing towards the future.

Know what? Bitches get shit done.

If there are 10 people there, two or three are going to recognize you.

[On how she handles people who disagree with her] I’ve learned the art of ignoring people. When people give you some piece of direction you don’t like, you just nod and ignore it. Just don’t do it! Most people want to be heard and acknowledged, anyway. Just do what you want to do.

My husband said it was him or the cat. I miss him sometimes.

I always said marriage should be a fifty-fifty proposition. He should be at least fifty years old, and have at least fifty-million dollars.

We don’t want to be influenced, just informed.

We’ve been on our peace gig, as we call it, for a year solid. And people say, ‘Do you think it’s having any effect?’ I can’t answer that. It’s like asking me in the Cavern, ‘Are you gonna make it?’ In the back of my mind I thought, I’m gonna make it, but I couldn’t lay it on the line. And I think that peace is more tangible than Beatles.

No one wants to quit when he’s losing and no one wants to quit when he’s winning.