Shane McAnally quotes:

I always loved Willie Nelson, but I loved the songs that Willie made famous.

Nashville is a boys' club of redneck conservative ideas. But they're ready to embrace gay people. I never felt for one second that someone was judging me. Some people are like, 'Oh, I love gay people' in that 'I have lots of black friends' kind of way. It's awkward, but you have to appreciate that they're trying.

That internal ache is the starting point of country music. If it's a happy song and I can still feel sad in it? That's my favorite.

I wake up every day thinking, 'I just can't do it anymore.' There's nothing left to say, and I'm completely dry. And then I get in the room with somebody and they say the right thing, and I'm on again.

Sometimes you just want to write a party song.

I have a hard time being happy, and I think a lot of creative people suffer with that when life gets real happy.

West Hollywood blew my mind: gay men walking down the street, kissing and holding hands. I'd never imagined there was a place like that.

One of the greatest tools you have as a songwriter is anonymity. If someone knows too much about the songwriter, they don't get to insert their own characters. I don't want the audience thinking about the gay guy who wrote the song.

If the right idea comes up, and it feels true to talk about somebody being in a truck, and that's the only way to tell the story, then I will reluctantly tell the story that way.

I'm a creative person who had a lot of dark time in my life. I can still get to it: I can still go to a relationship or a time when things weren't great. But it's getting further and further from me.

The truth is, I probably would be dead if I had become a star, because at that point I was so closeted and so afraid of people of finding out I was gay. There was no telling what would have happened.

It only took me six months to get a record deal, but it took me 20 years to have a hit.