Top 450 Dolly Parton Quotes (2026 Update)
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401. “I write what I write, say what I say, ’cause I feel what I feel, and if I did it different, it would make me a liar! So I’d rather be an honest person than a good liar.”

— Dolly Parton

402. “I wear make-up, and it gets a little bit thicker every year.”

— Dolly Parton

403. “I’ve often said I don’t lose my temper as much as use it. I don’t do either unless I have to because I love peace and harmony, but when you step in my territory, I will call you on it.”

— Dolly Parton

404. “My mother was always fascinated with the fact that I could rhyme so much stuff.”

— Dolly Parton

405. “I love writing every song I can like a little mini movie. I like to have a character, or some characters, and really paint a picture with the song.”

— Dolly Parton

406. “Don’t ever be late. It’s like proclaiming that your time is more important than someone else’s.”

— Dolly Parton

407. “A gypsy told me I was going to do great things. I was going to make all kinds of money.”

— Dolly Parton

408. “I’m very short, so I just have to watch my weight because I have a big appetite.”

— Dolly Parton

409. “I grew up around lots of men – my father, my brothers, my uncles – so I wasn’t intimidated by them.”

— Dolly Parton

410. “I can be accused of trying to be commercial sometimes.”

— Dolly Parton

411. “I think god gave us talent because he screwed up our hair.”

— Dolly Parton

412. “I’m a singer, a writer and an actress – when I find something that I feel good enough about doing.”

— Dolly Parton

413. “I enjoy the way I look, but it’s a joke.”

— Dolly Parton

414. “There are some loony people in this world!”

— Dolly Parton

415. “I’m always amazed by the people who work on stage who sing night after night, day after day, week in week out.”

— Dolly Parton

416. “My life has been very full.”

— Dolly Parton

417. “My husband and I had to raise five of my younger brothers and sisters. They lived with us. We sent them to school.”

— Dolly Parton

418. “A lot of people think I’m a comedian.”

— Dolly Parton

419. “I’ve been very fortunate.”

— Dolly Parton

420. “It’s great at this stage in my life to still be in the running, that people appreciate you.”

— Dolly Parton

421. “I prefer my music. I’m more of a one-nighter kind of person than to do a squat-down job for three months or whatever.”

— Dolly Parton

422. “You don’t need to buy expensive cosmetics; almost anything will do if you know how to apply it.”

— Dolly Parton

423. “I’m easy to look like, so there are lots and lots of Dolly look-alikes.”

— Dolly Parton

424. “I’m pretty sure in my older years, I’ll be doing old-time flavored folk-mountain music.”

— Dolly Parton

425. “I was very honored to get to be part of ‘American Idol.’”

— Dolly Parton

426. “I sing as an actress. Whatever I’m singing about, I just become the story.”

— Dolly Parton

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

427. “It took me years to eat a lot of shellfish. I was probably 20 years old before I had even seen a shrimp cocktail. I like oysters, but fried.”

— Dolly Parton

428. “I have a tendency to be awfully big-hearted and it’s very hard for me to say no, even when I need to.”

— Dolly Parton

429. “If I’d married someone in show business, there’d be too much competition.”

— Dolly Parton

430. “My best country record only sold 200,000 copies. I didn’t have enough money for the band and the arrangements and the costumes and all. I had to move into wider fields.”

— Dolly Parton

Featured in: Country Quotes

431. “I believe in my cosmetics line. There are plenty of charities for the homeless. Isn’t it time someone helped the homely?”

— Dolly Parton

432. “I don’t have time to stand around and listen to an 11-minute song.”

— Dolly Parton

433. “Sevier County is a great area.”

— Dolly Parton

434. “When I discovered that there was actually a thing called a push-up bra, that, to me, had to be equal of the day Einstein figured out that relativity thing.”

— Dolly Parton

435. “I do write a lot of children’s songs, and I’m going to do a children’s television show, which also means I’ll be doing a lot of albums. So I do hope my future will hold a lot of things for children.”

— Dolly Parton

436. “I can’t keep somebody from being a star, and I can’t make somebody a star, and nobody can.”

— Dolly Parton

437. “I write for myself things that I’ve gone through.”

— Dolly Parton

438. “It would be better to have a new enemy, wouldn’t it, instead of an old one? The demons of the past were the hardest to slay.”

— Dolly Parton

439. “I think of country radio like a great lover: you were nice to me, you gave me a lot of cool stuff, and then you dumped my ass for another woman.”

— Dolly Parton

440. “It’s like a battery that has to have a positive and a negative. One doesn’t work without the other. You’ve gotta have the good and the bad in order to know what’s right, and in order to know what’s real and what ain’t.”

— Dolly Parton

441. “I strengthen the muscles around my heart, but I can’t harden it.”

— Dolly Parton

442. “When a girl didn’t have anyone to stand up for her, that girl had to stand up for her own damn self.”

— Dolly Parton

443. “There’s a lot of rednecks in the country where I grew up.”

— Dolly Parton

Featured in: Country Quotes

444. “I look back on all that now, and I realize this helped to build my character. It helped me build my own strength. So even the bad times were good. There were good times as well as bad times. But that’s how memories are made, and that’s why I’m sitting here today.”

— Dolly Parton

445. “Nothing’s ever easy. If it is, it ain’t worth it.”

— Dolly Parton

446. “She’d kept too many secrets and abandoned too many people, and that wasn’t even the worst of it.”

— Dolly Parton

447. “Fate granted some people their wildest, greatest wishes while leaving the simplest pleas of others unanswered.”

— Dolly Parton

448. “She cared so much about her words, her creative expression, when what mattered to everyone else was the bottom line.”

— Dolly Parton

449. “When a girl didn’t have anyone to stand up for her, that girl had to stand up for her own damn self. She didn’t expect that hunky Ruthanna groupie to understand. “Your shoes look like they could kill a person, Ruthanna,” AnnieLee said, giggling. Ruthanna kicked out a leg to show off a pointy-toed stiletto. “They’re killing me,” she said. Then she brushed a red-gold curl away from her cheek and said, “I like you.”

— Dolly Parton

450. “I’m back where I started, she marveled. But now everything’s different.”

— Dolly Parton