August 26, 2026 — 8:30amWhenever Dolly Parton was asked about Whitney Houston’s success with I Will Always Love You - a song Parton had written decades before Houston turned it into a global mega-hit - she would always smile and remark cheekily that as the songwriter, the royalties were hers. “She can have the credit, I’ll just take the cash,” Parton, who has died aged 80, would joke.As a singer, Parton’s talent is almost unparalleled. We will, in the decades to come, talk about her in the same breath as Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and Madonna. She was a global icon: musically, culturally, stylistically … and she had a hell of a way with words to boot. On top of everything else, Dolly Parton was a sharp talker.Dolly Parton always had a quick wit. AP Photo/Jonathan Short“The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain,” she quipped. “If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.”“My songs are like my children; I expect them to support me when I’m old.”“You’d be surprised how much it costs to look this cheap!” The list of quotations goes on.Of her very distinct structure, and noticeable bosom, she once quipped: “I was the first woman to burn my bra—it took the fire department four days to put it out.”But Parton was also a source of great wisdom. “Don’t get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life,” she said. “You’ll never do a whole lot unless you’re brave enough to try.” “Find out who you are. And do it on purpose.”It is perhaps unsurprising that Parton, who was raised in poverty in a remote mountain town, found understanding through words and music. As a child, she had little else. But among the songs of melancholy, and heartbreak and longing, there was always great humour.“I think most country people, and certainly entertainers like myself, I think comedy is part of our being because it’s kind of what helps you through the hard times growing up,” Parton once said. “We made more fun of stuff that you shouldn’t even laugh at, but that was the funniest stuff to us because we’d try to find the humour in it.”Parton was infamously self-deprecating, and the first to make a joke about fashion gaffe, or her famous bust, before somebody else got in before her.“I honestly have designers at some of these awards show pay me not to say who designed my gown,” she said once to talk show host Regis Philbin, as she proudly pointed to a magazine that put her at the top of the “worst dressed” list. “I would say I have walked the red carpet and I have worn it,” she quipped. Zinger. “I bet I’m happier than that guy that wrote that, and I’m glad that he came out of his closet long enough to look in mine,” she added. Double zinger.Dolly Patron at the premier party for the film 9 To 5. Despite copping flak for her fashion choices she always had a snappy comeback.AP Photo/HarmsAnd another, on her use of wigs. How long does it take to do your hair, the interviewer asked. “I wouldn’t know. I’m never there,” Parton shot back. And when she was quizzed about why Dolly the sheep was named Dolly – the scientists had cloned the animal from a breast cell, and named it Dolly as a cheeky joke – Parton said: “There’s no such thing as ba-a-a-a-ad publicity.”One of Parton’s most memorable conversations was an interview with legendary journalist Barbara Walters. And it is worth noting that Walters was, years later, criticised for the tone of her questions, in which she had said to Parton: “You don’t have to look like this ... you’re very beautiful.”Parton replied: “It’s certainly a choice. I don’t like to be like everybody else. I’ve often made this statement that I would never stoop so low as to be fashionable. That’s the easiest thing in the world to do. So I just decided that I would do something that would at least get the attention.“I’m very real where it counts and that’s inside, as far as my outlook on life and the way I care about people and the way I care about myself and the things that I care about,” Parton said. “Showbusiness is a money-making joke and I’ve just always liked telling jokes, you know.“I know you make fun of me, but actually all these years people have felt the joke was on me, but it’s actually been on the public. I know exactly what I’m doing and I can change it at any time. I am sure of myself as a person. I’m sure of my talent. And I’m sure of my love for life. I am secure with myself.”And it is why, perhaps, despite a fearlessness in tackling any topic of conversation, including herself, she so studiously avoided questions about politics. Parton longed to be a unifying presence, and resisted every attempt to nudge her into the great modern political divide.“You’ll find me and my opinions in a lot of my songs. But most of it is based on love, acceptance and lifting people up. My daddy was a Republican, my mama was a Democrat, and I’m a hypocrite!,” she once told an interviewer.And in that sense, she was the wisest - and funniest - of us all.Michael Idato is the culture editor-at-large of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X or email.From our partners