Reba McEntire

To me, there’s two types of songs, good and bad. And I just like to stick with the good ones.

Be different, stand out, and work your butt off.

I think it’s a wonderful time for a woman.

I have learned a lot about myself and come to deal with a lot of things that, at first, bothered me.

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.

I don’t enjoy any kind of danger or volatility. I don’t have that kind of ‘I love the bad guys’ thing. No, no thank you. I like nice people.

I sing and dance as well, and I would like to do the whole Hilary Duff thing.

Because every person, no matter who you are-how tall you are, how short you are-some things work on you and some things don’t. I don’t like to wear things that feel like costumes. Whenever I work with a stylist, I always find myself saying the same thing: ‘I want my dress to say, I’m just here from New York.’ That’s why I always end up in black or brown. If I try to wear too much color, I feel like I’m pretending to be from Los Angeles and I’m not getting away with it.

I think the most embarrassing part of that was just the normal dancing. When the rock band comes. I think there was two days where the crew was like, “Just dance, just dance.”. So, you can’t, in a club or whatever…That was really awkward.

I’ve been gone for a long time. I really want to give the fans something that they deserve to have. So, I’m working really hard on this. I really want to make it the best work I’ve done so far.

I am very proud of the titles I have earned. However, the honorary title I have been given this year as chairman of the VA National Salute to Hospitalized Veterans program is one I accept with great humility and pride. I encourage all Americans to visit some true champions this Valentine’s week and find out how you can serve those who have served us so well.

I get more people approaching me about how good I was in ‘Napoleon Dynamite’ than being in Coldplay.

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.

I never dreamed I would receive the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, mostly because my style is so typically Austrian.

[on motherhood] I feel good, I’m proud of Election (1999) and very proud of this (her child). It couldn’t be a better time. It’s always the right time when it happens. You make it the right time.

I made my life ambitious and big and crazy, and basically now I am the helmsman of this mad affair, and I need to take stock. I write these songs, and I live and die in the middle of them, but I can’t really tell you the truth about me, cause I don’t know what it is. It’s a f***ing great journey but it doesn’t all smell of roses.

In my neighborhood if you’re too aggressive, you intimidate someone, they kill you. Or if you decide to be emotional and you start crying, you’re a victim. You know, the kid in the schoolyard that doesn’t want to fight always leaves with a black eye. You have to find a way to stay in the middle, somewhere where people just don’t mess with you because they know that you don’t have a problem with it if it goes there.

I found myself a sophisticated, educated American. He’s not an actor. He’s traveled the world. He knows where Europe is, unlike a lot of Americans. He’s very cultured, but he’s all man.

[on The Who’s performance at Woodstock] It was the worst gig we ever played.

I know nothing about sex, because I was always married.