Dolly Parton Quotes

When I was little, we lived on 8 acres and my mom had a horse. But when I was 7, my mom kicked my dad out, and then in order to feed us five kids, she got critters cheap or for free and raised them for food. We milked a cow, raised chickens, pigs and beef cattle. We heated our one-story house with wood and stayed cold all winter.

We were so poor as kids. I didn't even see a bathtub, running water, hot water, commode - we didn't have any of that. We started with a humble log house, milk cow, garden-raised our own food, killed a hog every year in the fall, and had the meat hanging up in the smokehouse - that was our childhood, me and ol' Si.

I grew up off the grid in Vernon, and I saw my parents work hard every day, as teachers but also while farming and building a log home. So from a young age I knew the value of hard work.

I grew up in a very modest home. We grew a lot of our food in our backyard. We fished; my brothers hunted.

During my adolescence, our family dwelt in rural Alaska. We were dirt poor, Depression-era poor. Tarpaper shack and kerosene lamps. In those days I read because that's all I had. I wrote because that's all I had.

When my mother was raising me, she moved us upstate to the Woodstock area. Our closest neighbor was a mile away. She planted all her own vegetables.

Their humble dwellings were of their own rearing; it was they themselves who had broken in their little fields; from time immemorial, far beyond the reach of history, had they possessed their mountain holdings.

When we were on the farm, we were isolated, not just by geography but by the primitive living conditions: no electricity, no running water and, of course, no computer, no phone.

I've picked butter beans, okra, watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew. I've butchered pigs, chickens. We made our own sausage and pudding.

Homesteading is gone.

It would be nice to live off the land and fix cars.

I grew up in a house with no running water, 16 miles from the closest place that had a post office. I had a very parochial view of the world.

I'm the kind of person who, if I were living in another time, if I had to pick any time, I would probably be a pioneer. I just love the simplicity of what it means to work hard with your hands - to eat and survive.

I'm a farmer now, and it's fantastic. My goal is to be totally self-sufficient and grow everything that I eat. There's something about earning your dinner that's cool.

I grew up hard. I picked cotton and plowed with the mule and fixed the cars and played with the guitar and the piano.

My mother had very humble beginnings - to put it mildly. Her dad built their home out of timber that he cut down on their land. No heat, no air-conditioning - 'no foolishness,' as he would call it.

If we grew it, we ate it. If Daddy shot it, Mamma cooked it.

I grew up taking care of the pigs. I love this country that, you know, somebody can do something like that.

I was raised on farms by people who didn't have Wal-Mart. They had to make their own sleds, harnesses, clothing, etc.

I had a free-range childhood. We lived in town but with a cow, chooks, bees, and multiple veggie gardens so we could live self-sufficiently.

Life for my family was a real struggle, as it was for most in those farming communities in Alabama.

My mom had to be resourceful. She grew up dirt poor in rural Louisiana.

If I wasn't acting, I would own a farm. Not like growing crops but maybe have a few animals like cows, and maybe an alpaca or a llama. I would chop wood all day. I would make a living doing that; it's, like, an idealistic scenario for me. It's very contrary to my upbringing, but maybe that's the appeal to it.

I often think I am a better person because I lived for many years of my life with a flashlight. I have developed skills I did not think were possible - bathing with a cup of water by candlelight, for instance, and writing a story with a headlamp on.

My plan was to release a tape, move to Arkansas, live on a farm, and make music like Bon Iver.