I love to be surrounded by nature.
If someone asked me to do something I didn't want to do or didn't think was right, I wouldn't do it.
I'm a bubbling brew of emotions, but mostly, I'm an optimistic person.
Don't try to be like somebody else. You'll be miserable. You need to be yourself, and don't ever get a big head.
I've always had wanderlust to try and do different things, but I always return to the music of the Carter family.
Sometimes I get emotional when I'm doing 'Lonesome Valley' or 'Wildwood Rose.'
Basically, I grew up watching Carter girls on stage, watching my grandmother, my mom and my aunts perform. They used to say, 'Okay, Carter girls, you're on!'
Working with Mellencamp, I made new fans, people that may have never heard of me. They may have heard I was related to the Carter Family or Johnny Cash somehow, but what they got was pure Carlene.
I can laugh and cry at the drop of a freakin' hat - all at the same time.
Whenever I get to a point I'm so tired that I forgot the verse of a song, I know I'm burnt out.
My Smiths, my Carters, the Cashes - everybody embraced me and held my arms up when I couldn't do it myself.
I'm kind of a perfectionist about my songwriting. If I don't mean it, I don't think it's any good.
I've had a few ditty hits.
I moved back to Tennessee in '86 or '87. That's when I worked with the Carter Family because I really wanted to understand my roots.
Lots of girls marry at 16 in Tennessee.
There was a period where I was a little scared that I'd blown my chance.
I've matured as a writer and human being. I've got some wisdom under my belt.
I do feel I'm responsible to carrying on the music. That's what I was charged with as a kid. When I was a little girl, I was told, 'When we are gone' - when you're a kid, you never think they'll ever be gone - 'you have to keep the music alive, the Carter Family songs, and add your own songs.'
I'm really about my family and really proud of being a Carter.
I was thinking about it: so many of my stories are about my family life, not about being related to a lot of famous people. That's my grandma, that's my mama, my daddy, my aunt, my uncle, my stepdaddy. I'd probably tell them even if they weren't well known.
