If I'd married someone in show business, there'd be too much competition.
— Dolly Parton
I think there is a little magic in the fact that I'm so totally real but look so artificial at the same time.
My mother was always fascinated with the fact that I could rhyme so much stuff.
I grew up around lots of men - my father, my brothers, my uncles - so I wasn't intimidated by them.
I love story songs because I've always loved books.
I don't have anything to say about other people's art and their work.
My grandpa was a preacher.
I'm almost like three people. There's me the, Dolly, the person. There's me, the star. And then there's me, the manager.
I can't do nothing just a little.
People get a kick out of my stupidity.
I write for myself things that I've gone through.
I'm not trying to be fashionable. Never was!
I just kind of wake up with a new idea and new dreams every day, and I follow that dream, as they say.
If I see something sagging, bagging or dragging I'll get it nipped, tucked or sucked.
I can't tell anybody else how to run their life or their business, but I really believe I've got a good bead on myself.
It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.
I have surrounded myself with very smart people.
My husband says I look like a Q-tip.
After momma gave birth to 12 of us kids, we put her up on a pedestal. It was mostly to keep Daddy away from her.
I've never been a feminist.
I've never been pregnant, so I just feel God didn't mean for me to have kids so that everybody else's children could be mine.
My husband and I had to raise five of my younger brothers and sisters. They lived with us. We sent them to school.
My husband calls me 'catfish.' He says I'm all mouth and no brains.
The only way I'd be caught without makeup is if my radio fell in the bathtub while I was taking a bath and electrocuted me and I was in between makeup at home. I hope my husband would slap a little lipstick on me before he took me to the morgue.
You know, I look like a woman but I think like a man. And in this world of business, that has helped me a lot. Because by the time they think that I don't know what's goin' on, I then got the money, and gone.
I feel that sin and evil are the negative part of you, and I think it's like a battery: you've got to have the negative and the positive in order to be a complete person.
I've been around longer than most of my fans have been alive.
Oh, I can spot a phoney a mile away.
I'm just a simple country girl.
If I hadn't been a woman, I'd be a drag queen for sure. I like all that flair and I'd be dressing up in them high heels and putting on the big hair. I'd be like Ru Paul.
My life has been very full.
I'm gonna be making records anyway, even if I had to sell 'em out of the trunk of my car. I'm that kind of musician and singer.
I've been very fortunate.
I think I've got my business notions and my sense for that sort of thing from my dad. My dad never had a chance to go to school. He couldn't read and write. But he was so smart. He was just one of those people that could just make the most of anything and everything that he had to work with.
I usually get up at 3 A.M. I don't require a lot of sleep, and if I get tired, I'll take a powernap during the day.
God and I have a great relationship, but we both see other people.
I have tennis shoes with little rhinestones that I slip on if I exercise. But I always wear heels, even around the house. I'm such a short little thing, I can't reach my kitchen cabinets.
I was born with a happy heart, and I try to keep a good attitude. It's not true that I'm happy all the time because nobody is, and we all go through our things.
I think that I'm perfect.
Every day I pray about all I do.
I'm a workin' girl.
I was always a junk food person, still am.
I have a tendency to be awfully big-hearted and it's very hard for me to say no, even when I need to.
I've never had a divorce, but I've seen so many of my friends, my sister, my family go through that stuff, so I try to write for the people that can't write about it. I take on their sorrow, so I'm able to kind of express it, or their joy.
I'm not happy all the time, and I wouldn't want to be because that would make me a shallow person. But I do try to find the good in everybody.
Children have always responded to me because I have that cartoon-character look.
I have a big gay and lesbian following and they've been very loyal and kind to me.
I know who I am, I know what I can and can't do. I know what I will and won't do. I know what I'm capable of and I don't agree to do things that I don't think I can pull off.
I've tried different things through the years to get some play on mainstream. I'll try to tailor-make it.
I think that I know the value of a dollar.
