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Dolly Parton

From Wikiquote, the free quote compendium
I hope life treats you kind
And I hope you have all you've dreamed of.
And I wish to you, joy and happiness.
But above all this, I wish you love.

Dolly Rebecca Parton (born 19 January 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, instrumentalist, actress, author, and philanthropist, known primarily for her work in country music.

Quotes

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Coat of Many Colors (1971)

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  • They didn't understand it and I tried to make them see
    That one is only poor only if they choose to be
    Now I know we had no money but I was rich as I could be
    In my coat of many colors that Momma made for me
    Made just for me...

My Tennessee Mountain Home]] (1973)

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  • 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...
    • "Old Black Kettle"

Jolene (1974)

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  • Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
    I'm begging of you please don't take my man
    Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene
    Please don't take him just because you can
  • You can have your choice of men but I could never love again
    He's the only one for me Jolene
    I have to have this talk with you
    My happiness depends on you and whatever
    You decide to do Jolene...
    • "Jolene"
  • I hope life treats you kind
    And I hope you have all you've dreamed of.
    And I wish to you, joy and happiness.
    But above all this, I wish you love.

  • If I should stay,
    I would only be in your way.
    So I'll go, but I know
    I'll think of you ev'ry step of the way.

    And I will always love you.
    I will always love you.

    • "I Will Always Love You"

New Harvest...First Gathering (1977)

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Light of a Clear Blue Morning

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Full lyrics online · Light of a Clear Blue Morning (2026 version) ft. Lainey Wilson, Miley Cyrus, Queen Latifah & Reba McEntire
  • It's been a long dark night
    And I've been a waitin' for the morning
    It's been a long hard fight
    But I see a brand new day a dawning.
  • I've been looking for the sunshine
    'Cause I ain't seen it in so long
    But everything's gonna work out just fine
    Everything's gonna be all right
    That's been all wrong.'
  • I can see the light of a clear blue morning
    I can see the light of a brand new day
    I can see the light of a clear blue morning
    And everything's gonna be all right
    It's gonna be okay.

1980s

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  • A lot of people get all turned off by the wig, the heels, the fingernails, the whole artificial bit. I do dress kinda pretty but old-fashioned. I think maybe I dress this way partly because of the image, you know, and partly because when I was a little girl growing up in a big old poor family, this was the way that the rich folks' wives dressed, when we'd see them drivin' through in their big old cars. As for the 'real me.' Well, under this wig, my own hair is about the same length and color, and I wear it about the same. But sometimes I'll dress up in a baggy old shirt and go out with my husband in a camper or something, just havin' ourselves a good time, and nobody recognizes me.

2000s

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Parton in 2006
  • 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.'
  • Even when I’m writing a modern song, I’ll find myself pulling stuff from those days before I ever left home, the days of Mama and Daddy and my grandmas and grandpas, and church days. All I ever have to do is close my eyes and just kind of go inside.
  • I think that if I am smart in business, it’s just that I’m smart about who I am. I know what I can, can’t, will and won’t do, and if I have to be strict about that, I will.
  • Do not confuse dreams with wishes. There is a difference. Dreams are where you visualize yourself being successful at what's important to you to accomplish. Now, dreams build convictions because you work hard to pay the price to make sure that they come true. Wishes are hoping good things will happen to you, but there's no fire in your gut that causes you to put everything forth to overcome all the obstacles. So you have to dream more and never, ever, ever blame somebody else if it doesn't happen. That is in your department.

2010s

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  • We [at Dollywood] don’t try to shove anything down anybody’s throat. We are very open. So many of my businesspeople and my best friends are different faiths, and I work with them, live with them, love them. The gays and lesbians, they come to our parks. I think people just know I’m a very open and accepting person. And in any religion we’re supposed to be that—we’re supposed to be kind...we’re not supposed to pass judgment. Our Bible says, ‘Judge not, lest ye be judged,’ and I believe in all those kinds of things. We’re all God’s children. No matter how we try to get to heaven, we all wanna go there. We just have our own routes to take, and that’s how I look at it.

2020s

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  • Now, that's some lines from the song that you and I did together. I know usually, at a memorial, people talk about somebody. Well, I'm gonna talk to you. 'Cause there is that place on the other side, and I'm certainly gonna see you there, little brother. You left a lot of people here with a lot of precious, precious memories. Everybody loved you. But I doubt that many of 'em loved you more than I did. Anyhow, I just want you to know that we all love you, we all miss you and I bet you're having a big laugh over all of us being sad and sorrowful and I know that would be the last thing you would want us to be. So, anyway, you made us happy while you were here, and we're happy that you're at peace. And I just want you to know that I will always love you. Goodbye, my sweet Leslie. See you over there.
  • I could never do that. I don't care. I always count my blessings, more than I count my money. I don't work for money, never did. It was the art, it was the job. I loved the work. And I've done well, and I'm thankful for it.
  • It is true that I look artificial, but I believe that I'm totally real. My look is really based on a country girl's idea of glam. I wasn't naturally pretty, so I make the most of anything I've got.
  • Well, you should've seen me this morning before I got ready to see youǃ But I'm serious, though. I'm not, like, a natural beauty. But I can enhance it. Whatever it takes, I do. I try to make the most of everything.
  • I wrote a song years ago called 'In the Good Old Days When Times Were Bad,' and it said, 'No amount of money could buy from me the memories that I have of then. But no amount of money could pay me to go back and live through it again.
  • When I started writing these songs, my mom was real impressed with how I could write, writing these songs at such an early age, And she would say, 'Oh honey, go get that guitar. I want you to sing them.'  And she'd say to people, 'I want you to hear this song this little thing wrote.' And so I thought, ooh, I'm getting a whole lot of attention now! So, I think that kind of encouraged it. But also, I loved the sound of that music. I loved the sound of the instruments. I loved being able to create something, and it gave me a little space, and a little world of my own that I could just live in, and be creative in.
  • I guess I was about ten years old, the first time that my uncle took me to sing in front of an audience. And it was when they kept clappin' and clappin' after I had finished my song, that I thought that, you know, I felt something. I was scared, I was nervous, I'm a country little kid. But when I got that applause and got that feeling, is when I thought this is what I think I'm gonna do.
  • I remember this little redheaded girl with green eyes, prettiest little thing, and I said, 'Well, what's your name?' And she said, 'Jolene.' I said, 'I love that name.' All the way back to the bus I was [singing], 'Jolene, Jolene, Jolene,' so I wouldn't forget the name.
  • It wasn't meant to be. And I don't regret it. I never regretted it. I mean, it was a choice. So, you make your choices, you make your sacrifices, and I never looked back. I knew early on that I was gonna walk that road 'til God told me to stop. And I'm still walking it, and He ain't said nothing to me about quittin' yet!
  • Well, I guess I am. But I don't think of it like they do. I'm just, I'm a feminine girl. I'm a workin' girl. I think we all should be treated with respect. And if we do a good job, we should get paid for it. So, I'm all about that.
  • I remember feeling like all our hard work had paid off: I was going to be able to make a life in this business. I don’t remember making that much money from [“Joshua”] at that time, but I’m sure I spent it on stage clothes or my family or something like that. I remember watching it rise up the charts and thinking, “Golly, that’s such a great feeling!”
  • My guitar and my songwriting: That’s my therapy; that’s my doctors, my nurses, my medicine. I really think my music has saved me — and saved a lot of other people because I’m able to write the feelings of people who are broken and don’t know how to express it. I can do it for them, and it really seems to help. It is wonderful when you’re going through hurt to be able to write about it.
  • When I heard that huge production with Whitney’s voice, my gosh, who could even sing better than that? And David Foster’s arrangement overwhelmed me. I would have never in a million years believed that my little heartfelt song could have turned into one of the biggest love songs of all time. I was never so proud in my life as a songwriter to think that my little song could be that good and that big.
  • I don’t really realize it until it’s already said. I just answer from my heart when somebody asks me a direct question. I love everybody. And, of course, Black lives matter. We all matter. We’re all God’s children. I hope people learn to love one another a little more than they do, and if I can be any help in that respect, then I hope to be.
  • I’ve always been true to myself,” she says. “That was what my mama always used to say: to thine own self be true. I put a lot of stock in that. Everything I do, whether it’s my personality, how I conduct myself and business, or whatever, if I do it my way, according to what I understand and believe, there’s a strength in that. You can think, ‘I can stand by this, I can live by this.
  • I think words and titles just have such connotations, When I think about a ‘feminist’, you think about women that are anti-men, and you think of women that have been so mistreated, they have to make some sort of a statement. I’m all about women, I’m all about empowering women, but I’m all about empowering all people – love and respect and uplifting [them].
  • This is amazing to me how people look to me, that’s a big responsibility. There ain’t nobody that good. I’m not all that. I make a joke – I’m not even all there. I try to just be a decent human being, try to use love as my great tool and weapon. I try to leave my heart, my eyes, my ears open, and my mouth closed, when I know it’s not the right thing to be doing.
  • In January 2025, Dolly shared, "I think I'm a star to everybody but me... I always wanted to be famous, but nobody could have thought of the extent it became.
  • Following the death of her husband in March 2025, Dolly released the song "If You Hadn't Been There," expressing gratitude for his unwavering support throughout their nearly 60-year marriage
  • Due to health challenges, Dolly postponed her December 2025 Las Vegas residency. She humorously referred to it as her "100,000-mile check-up," clarifying it wasn’t related to cosmetic surgery.
    • ((September 29, 2025)

Quotes about Parton

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  • Dolly’s big in Iceland. Her voice is immaculate, really powerful. Her character is so warm and human, and she has a great sense of humor. All my friends love Dolly, and most of them are people who would never listen to country music. It doesn’t happen very often when you get a character that is sort of larger than life. I don’t like rock music, but I like Kurt Cobain. He could be playing any style of music and I would have been interested. You know? And I think Dolly is like that. She is an incredible singer, an incredible songwriter.
  • I met Dolly Parton in Tennessee; her titties were filled with Hennessy. That country music really drove me crazy, but I rode that ass and said, "Yes, Miss Daisy!"
  • There's a lot of difference between songwriting and poetry, and I think that's what gets lost. Most lyrics do not read well. They sing well...I'll tell you who writes well, though, as I'm sure you're aware, and that's Dolly, Dolly Parton.
    • 1987 interview collected in Conversations with Nikki Giovanni edited by Virginia C. Fowler (1992)
  • it takes guts to be a woman under patriarchy. I mean, Dolly Parton is like an image of a super-femme, but she has this certain brassiness, she just has to have total guts to survive around men and to have her image be so female. She's the kind of person that a drag queen would emulate, because she is using that female, or femme facade, which is like Marlene Dietrich or Mae West or Dolly Parton or any of those gutsy women over the years who drag queens have chosen to emulate, especially the ones who do female impersonation. There's the other edge to them besides the femme facade that is totally gutsy and a real survivor of the world
  • She seemed astonishingly unaffected. It was a bizarre contrast. She looks like a totally artificial creation, with the amazing blond wig and the 6-inch skyscraper heels and the bosom that makes her, no doubt, the unchallenged record holder and defending champion at Frederick's of Hollywood. Then she walks up to you and says, "Hi! I'm Dolly Parton!" The introduction is as unnecessary as if, say, John Wayne had walked up and said, "Hi! I'm John Wayne!" What is the proper response? "Yes, of course you are”?
    Dolly Parton spent about half an hour shaking everybody's hand and leaving behind a wake of people telling each other, "Gee, she's really nice," as if, well, as if somehow she shouldn't have been. There is a way in which we behave in public, in situations with a lot of strangers that implies a level of polite, subtle hostility. We are reserved. We check out the room for traps and hazards. We are uncomfortable, confronted with a hundred unfamiliar faces. What Dolly did was to come in with her brash, unaffected personality and sweep away all that paranoia in a rush of good will. It left everybody standing around afterward feeling a little goofy.
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