Singer/actor Dolly Parton speaks onstage during the 23rd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards show at The Shrine Auditorium on January 29, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. Legendary US singer-songwriter and country music legend Dolly Parton has died at the age of 80, her family announced on August 25, 2026. Robyn Beck, AFP
Country music legend Dolly Parton, who has died at the age of 80, was certainly never at a loss for words -- she estimated that she wrote 3,000 songs over the course of her long career.
She also was quick-witted. Here are just a few quotes from the music icon:
'Backwoods Barbie': Parton on beauty
"You don't have to look like everybody else. You don't have to be a raving beauty to be special and to be beautiful."
"People say how you stay looking so young? I say, well, good lighting, good doctors, and good makeup."
"I was the first woman to burn my bra, it took the fire department four days to put it out."
"I tried every diet in the book. I tried some that weren't in the book. I tried eating the book. It tasted better than most of the diets."
"A rhinestone shines just as good as a diamond."
"It costs a lot of money to look this cheap."
Music
"My songs got me out of the mountains and took me everywhere I've wanted to go."
"I'll always be a country musician because I'm a country girl."
"It was a worldwide thing. It was in a movie; it was No. 1. I thought, 'Wow. I wrote that little song'... That's when I felt my worth as a songwriter."
-- Parton on the first time she heard Whitney Houston's version of "I Will Always Love You," which was a global smash hit from the soundtrack of the 1992 film "The Bodyguard"
Real life
"We never actually starved, but sometimes we never had quite enough to eat."
Parton on her childhood
"My weaknesses have always been food and men -- in that order."
"I always count my blessings more than I count my money. I don't work for money, never did."
"I've dreamed myself into a corner and I still have so many things I want to achieve, so I'm gonna keep on working as long as I can to see everything come to life."
-- Parton to People magazine, four days before her death was announced.
(Sources: Parton's social media accounts, People magazine, Country Living magazine)