Dolly Parton Quotes

Among the most prominent under-the-tree drinkers were a pair of characters named Red and Clarence. They were two of the biggest drinking carousers around, but when the spirit hit them, they could get very religious. Once Red had decided he had received the “gift of tongues,” a common practice in our Pentecostal church. He went to church a few times and would, on impulse, stand up and go into seemingly meaningless strings of syllables, to which the believers would respond with “Bless him, Lord.” The story is that one day Red and Clarence were downtown in a truck belonging to one of them, and Red looked out the window and was reading a sign, somewhat haltingly. “E-CON-O-MY-AU-TO-SUP-PLY, Economy Auto Supply,” Red sputtered, to which Clarence, assuming his friend had gone into “tongues,” quickly came back with, “Bless him, Lord.”
That story circulated through the ranks of the church membership and was the source of great laughter for a time around the Parton household. It became something of a running joke that would crop up whenever anybody said anything that could be mistaken for “tongues.” Sunday morning, getting ready for church, a brother would say, “Come tie my bow tie,” and some smart-aleck sibling would shout, “Bless him, Lord,” and the rest of us would join in, all pretending to be caught up in the spirit.

I'm sometimes asked what it takes to be pretty. For me, feeling pretty is feeling like I accomplished what I wanted to do that day. That's a different thing from fashion or how you wear your makeup or your eyelashes. If you know who you are and keep that in mind at all times, then you won't sacrifice your principles, your values, your true self. You can look in the mirror and feel good about yourself - even feel pretty - inside and out.

Now Momma's done away with the old black kettle she used to cook in when I was just little And the door ain't sprung on her electric range That little old farm and home we had it ain't there no more and that's too bad Folks are doing away with the simple things...

I just wanted to be different. I wanted to be seen.

I love being busy, I'm very creative, I'm very inventive, and there are a lot of people a lot smater than me but I've always said I'm a very professional Dolly Parton, I know what I can do what I want to do, and what I believe is best for me.
Like when I started the imagination library, I wanted to have a charity that was something that I could believe and, something that meant something that was personal to me. And so that's how I built my whole life whether it be the theme park, production companies, or whatever.

Find out who you are and do it on purpose, with purpose.

We can't just hope for a brighter day, we have to work for a brighter day. Love too often gets buried in a world of hurt and fear. And we have to work to dig it out so we can share it with our family, our friends, and our neighbors.

I know what I can do and what i want to do, but I try to be smart about the things I choose to do. I also surround myself with really good people. I ask God every day to bring all the right things and all the right folks into my life and help me recognize them when they show up.

I tried every diet in the book. I tried some that weren’t in the book. I tried eating the book. It tasted better than most of the diets. I tried the Scarsdale diet and the Stillman water diet (you remember that one, where you run weight off trying to get to the bathroom). I tried Optifast, Juicefast, and Waterfast. I even took those shots that I think were made from cow pee. I endured every form of torture anybody with a white coat and a clipboard could devise for a girl who really liked fried pork chops.
One night while I was on some kind of liquid-protein diet made from bone marrow, or something equally appetizing, I was with a group of friends at a Howard Johnson’s and some of them were having fried clams. I’ll never forget sitting there with all of that glorious fried fat filling my nostrils and feeling completely left out. I went home and wrote one of my biggest hits, “Two Doors Down.” I also went off my diet and had some fried clams.
There were times when I thought of chucking it all in. “Damn the movie,” I would say. “I’m just gonna eat everything and go ahead and weigh five hundred pounds and have to be buried in a piano case.” Luckily, a few doughnuts later, that thought would pass and I would be back to the goal at hand. I remember something in a book I read called Gentle Eating. The author said you should pretend the angels are eating with you and that you want to save some for them. I loved that idea, because I love angels. I have to admit, though, there were times I would slap those angels out of the way and have their part too. A true hog will do that.

If you want the rainbow, you have to put up with the rain.

Young boys were dragged to church the same way I was. But since they were destined to become men, they were given more leeway. I suppose when they started growing pubic hair they were allowed to wander out of church before the service was over to take their places outside, as if training to be men. Much of their training apparently involved staring back into the church at us girls.
It was the custom after church for the boys and girls to do some limited socializing, flirting, and so on, while the women gossiped and the men smoked and spit. This flirtation, however, was limited by the distance the boy could get the girl to walk into the woods, and the girl’s own boundaries.
So there I sat, trying to be holy, praying for forgiveness for sins I couldn’t put my finger on, repenting for things I had put my finger on, and all the while being aware of the boys looking at me, the woods behind the church, and the possible combinations of all of these things. The devil and I certainly had one thing in common: We were both horny.

Dark night, bright future
Like the phoenix from the ashes, I shall rise again

The way I dress, for the most part, is how most people would dress for a costume party. It would scare most people to death to look this cheap or whore-y, but to me, I’m comfortable. The way I look was really a country girl’s idea of what glamour was. I patterned my look after the town tramp. I thought she was the prettiest thing in the world, with all that bleached hair and bright-red lipstick. People would say, ‘Oh, she’s just trash,’ and I’d think, ‘That’s what I want to be when I grow up.'

If you want to make it in this town, being talented is just one little tiny part of the battle. Fearlessness is mandatory. And shamelessness sure as hell don’t hurt.

Its hard to be a diamond in a rhinestone world.