Bob Dylan Quotations

Take care of all your memories. For you cannot relive them.

No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky.

If I wasn't Bob Dylan, I'd probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.

He not busy being born is busy dying.

Colleges are like old-age homes, except for the fact that more people die in colleges.

In ceremonies of the horsemen, even the pawn must hold a grudge.

This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway.

What's money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.

Don't matter how much money you got, there's only two kinds of people: there's saved people and there's lost people.

Basically you have to suppress your own ambitions in order to be who you need to be.

I accept chaos, I'm not sure whether it accepts me.

When you cease to exist, then who will you blame?

I'm speaking for all of us. I'm the spokesman for a generation.

People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, then repent.

I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours.

I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.

I define nothing. Not beauty, not patriotism. I take each thing as it is, without prior rules about what it should be.

I'm just glad to be feeling better. I really thought I'd be seeing Elvis soon.

Well, the future for me is already a thing of the past.

You learn from a conglomeration of the incredible past - whatever experience gotten in any way whatsoever.

All I can do is be me, whoever that is.

I don't think the human mind can comprehend the past and the future. They are both just illusions that can manipulate you into thinking theres some kind of change.

I am against nature. I don't dig nature at all. I think nature is very unnatural. I think the truly natural things are dreams, which nature can't touch with decay.

In the dime stores and bus stations, people talk of situations, read books, repeat quotations, draw conclusions on the wall.

People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around - the music and the ideas.

I have dined with kings, I've been offered wings. And I've never been too impressed.

All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie.

Yesterday's just a memory, tomorrow is never what it's supposed to be.

All this talk about equality. The only thing people really have in common is that they are all going to die.

A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom.

What good are fans? You can't eat applause for breakfast. You can't sleep with it.

I say there're no depressed words just depressed minds.

To live outside the law, you must be honest.

I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I'll die like a poet.

Just because you like my stuff doesn't mean I owe you anything.

Democracy don't rule the world, You'd better get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence, But I guess that's better left unsaid.

A lot of people can't stand touring but to me it's like breathing. I do it because I'm driven to do it.

Being on tour is like being in limbo. It's like going from nowhere to nowhere.

I think a poet is anybody who wouldn't call himself a poet.

A song is anything that can walk by itself.

At times in my life the only place I have been happy is when I am on stage.

I like America, just as everybody else does. I love America, I gotta say that. But America will be judged.

Of all the versions of my recorded songs, the Johnny Rivers one was my favorite. It was obvious we were from the same side of town . . . the same musical family and were cut from the same cloth. I liked his version (of 'Positively 4th Street) better than mine.

Look out, kid, it's sumpin' ya did, God knows when, but you're doin' it again

She opened up a book of poems and handed it to me written by an Italian poet from the 13th century and every one of them words rang true and glowed like burning coal pouring off of every page like it was written in my soul from me to you.

I beat Bob Dylan in a talent contest.

Businessmen they drink my wine, Plowmen dig my earth, But none of them along the line, Know what any of it is worth

He who is not busy being born is busy dying.

He who's not busy being born is busy dying

He never knew my name, He never knew my name. And though I never met him, I knew him just the same, and he was a friend of mine.

Johnny's in the basement, mixin' up the medicine...I'm on the pavement, thinkin' about the government.

Johnny was and is the North Star. You could guide your ship by him.

I think he's one of the greatest songwriters of all time,'' Parton says.

I wish that for just one time / you could stand inside my shoes / and just for that one moment / I could be you. / Yes, I wish that for just one time / You could stand inside my shoes / You'd know what a drag it is / to see you.

It fell from a 10 story building and exploded in front of me.

You know, you're on your brothers coat tails.

To bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind, The answer is blowin' in the wind

Most kids have no faith in record labels anymore anyway,

When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to loose.

Come mothers and fathers. Throughout the land and don't criticize what you can't understand, your sons and your daughters are beyond your command. Your old road is Rapidly again. Please get out of the new one If you can't lend your hand for the times they are a-changin'.

Well, I try my best to be just like I am, But everybody wants you to be just like them, They sing while you slave and I just get bored

Beauty walks a razors edge, someday I'll make it mine.

If you like someone's work, the important thing is to be exposed to everything that person has been exposed to. Anyone who wants to be a songwriter should listen to as much folk music as they can, study the form and structure of stuff that has been around for 100 years.

I wanted to understand things and then be free of them. I needed to learn how to telescope things, ideas. Things were too big to see all at once, like all the books in the library-everything laying around on all the tables. You might be able to put it all into one paragraph or into one verse of a song if you could get it right.

Behind every beautiful thing, there's some kind of pain.

I failed to communicate, that's why I chose to leave

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free, Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands

Opportunities may come along for you to convert something -something that exists into something that didn't yet. That might be the beginning of it.

There's enough songs for people to listen to, if they want to listen to songs. For every man, woman and child on earth, they could be sent, probaby, each of them, a hundred records, and never be repeated. There's enough songs. Unless someone's gonna come along with a pure heart and has something to say. That's a different story.

For them that think death's honesty won't fall upon them naturally life sometimes must get lonely.

... we're living in a Machiavellian world, whether we like it or we don't.

Johnny's in the basement Mixing up the medicine I'm on the pavement Thinking 'bout the government.

There's only one day at a time here, then it's tonight and then tomorrow will be today again.

Because Dickens and Dostoyevsky and Woody Guthrie were telling their stories much better than I ever could, I decided to stick to my own mind.

My big fear was that my guitar would go out of tune.

A lot of people don't have much food on their table. But they got a lot of forks 'n knives. And they got to cut somethin'.

Sometimes the silence can be like thunder.

You're better than no one and no one is better than you.

I've been up the mountain and I had a choice. Should I come down? So I came down. God said, Okay, you've been up on the mountain, now you go down. You're on your own, free. Check in later, but now you're on your own.

your problem is that wanna better word for world

Walkin' through the leaves fallin' from the trees, Feelin' like a stranger nobody sees...

Yes, and only if my own true love was waiting If I could hear his heart softly pounding Yes, and only if he was lying by me Would I lie in my bed once again.

You better start swimming, or you'll sink like a stone. Because the Time's they are a-changing.

Whatever colors you have in your mind, I'll show them to you and you'll see them shine.

Art can lead you to God. I think that's the purpose of everything. If it's not doing that, what's it doing? It's leading you the other way. It's certainly not leading you nowhere.

Well, I don't know, but I've been told the streets in heaven are lined with gold. I ask you how things could get much worse if the Russians happen to get up there first; Wowee! pretty scary!

My best songs were written very quickly. Just about as much time as it takes to write it down is about as long as it takes to write it...In writing songs I've learned as much from Cezanne as I have from Woody Guthrie...It's not me, it's the songs. I'm just the postman, I deliver the songs...I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I'll die like a poet.

Take me disappearing, through the smoke rings of my mind, down the foggy ruins of time...

I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes. You'd know what a drag it is to see you.

May you build a ladder to the stars and climb on every rung. May you stay forever young.

Now, each of us has his own special gift And you know this was meant to be true. And if you don't underestimate me I won't underestimate you.

Black is the Color and none is the number

Oh, time is short and the days are sweet and passion rules the arrow that flies.

Let me feel your love one more time before I abandon it.

Dead man, dead man When will you arise? Cobwebs in your mind Dust upon your eyes

In the valley of the giants where the stars and stripes explode, the peaches they were sweet and the milk and honey flowed.

Sailin' 'round the world in a dirty gondola Oh, to be back in the land of Coca-Cola!

I march in the parade of liberty But as long as I love you I’m not free How long must I suffer such abuse Won’t you let me see you smile one time before I turn you loose?

The purpose of art is to stop time.