Bob Dylan Quotations | Page 2

Despite everybody who has been born and has died, the world has just gone on. I mean, look at Napoleon -but we went right on. Look at Harpo Marx -the world went around, it didn't stop for a second. It's sad but true. John Kennedy, right?

Every brain is civilized, Every nerve is analyzed, Everything is criticized when you are in need.

I've never been able to understand the seriousness of it all, the seriousness of pride. People talk, act, live as if they're never going to die. And what do they leave behind? Nothing. Nothing but a mask.

The government’s not going to create jobs. It doesn’t have to. People have to create jobs...

I'm sittin' on my watch so I can be on time.

And it's a hard, It's a hard, It's a hard, It's a hard, It's a hard rain gonna fall.

Art is the perpetual motion of illusion. The highest purpose of art is to inspire. What else can you do? What else can you do for any one but inspire them?

Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth. None of them along the line know what any of it is worth.

If you can't lend a hand, then get out of the way.

With your silhouette when the sunlight dims Into your eyes where the moonlight swims, And your match-book songs and your gypsy hymns, Who among them would try to impress you? -Bob Dylan, "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” (1966)

People are crazy and times are strange ... I used to care but things have changed

You're going to die. You're going to be dead. It could be 20 years, it could be tomorrow, anytime. So am I. I mean, we're just going to be gone. The world's going to go on without us. All right now. You do your job in the face of that, and how seriously you take yourself you decide for yourself.

Money doesn't talk, it swears.

Nothing can affect my voice, it's so bad.

Doesn't expecting the unexpected make the unexpected expected?

Really the truth is just a plain picture. A plain picture of, let's say, a tramp vomiting in the sewere. You know, and next door to the picture Mr. Rockefeller or Mr. C. W. Jones on the subway going to work. You know, any kind of picture. Just make a collage of pictures.

Aretha with no goals, eternally single & one step soft of heaven/ let it be understood that she owns this melody along with her emotional diplomats & her earth & her musical secrets

Yesterday is just a memory.

People have different emotional levels. Especially when you're young.

Although the masters make the rules for the wise men and the fools, I've got nothing, Ma, to live up to.

...don't criticize what you can't understand, your sons and your daughters are beyond your command.

So I cut off my hair and I rode straight away, to the wild unknown country where I could not go wrong.

Everybody has their own idea of what's a poet. Robert Frost, President Johnson, T.S.Eliot, Rudolf Valentino - they're all poets. I like to think of myself as the one who carries the light bulb.

And I hope that you die And your death'll come soon I will follow your casket In the pale afternoon And I'll watch while you're lowered Down to your deathbed And I'll stand o'er your grave 'Til I'm sure that you're dead

and if anybody asks me is it easy to forget I'll say it is easily done, you just pick anyone, and pretend that you never have met

If you don't believe there's a price for this sweet paradise, just remind me to show you the scars.

How many times must a man look up, before he can see the sky?

And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’ But I’ll know my song well before I start singin

You just don't wake up one day and decide that you need to write songs.

I hate myself for loving you and the weakness that it showed. You were just a painted face on a trip down to suicide road.

He swift don't win the race. It goes to the worthy, who can divide the word of truth.

When you think that you lost everything you find out you can always lose a little more.

Last night I danced with a stranger, but she just reminded me you were the one.

It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry

If there's an original thought out there, I could use one right now.

You've got to lose your passion for dumbness.

I've never written a political song. Songs can't save the world. I've gone through all that.

Down the street the dogs are barking And the day is getting dark. As the night comes in a-falling, The dogs´ll lose their bark And the silent night will shatter From the sounds inside my mind, For I´m one to many mornings And a thousand miles behind. From the crossroads of my doorstep, My eyes they start to fade, As I turn my head back to the room Where my love and I have laid....

You're gonna have to serve somebody.

I'll remember you. When I've forgotten all the rest.You to me were true. You to me were the best.

And there's no one there to dry your tears. I could hold you for a million years. To make you feel my love.

I could stay with you forever and never realize the time.

You can't be happy by doing something groovy.

You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns when they all did tricks for you.

In writing songs, I've learned as much from Cezanne as I have from Woody Guthrie.

Wasn't making any great connection Wasn't falling for any intricate scheme Nothing that would pass inspection Just thinking of a series of dreams

Every day your memory grows dimmer - it doesn't haunt me like it did before.

We're constantly being bombarded by insulting and humiliating music, which people are making for you the way they make those Wonder Bread products. Just as food can be bad for your system, music can be bad for your spiritual and emotional feelings. It might taste good or clever, but in the long run, it's not going to do anything for you.

You swore you'd never compromise With the mystery tramp, but now you realise He's not selling any alibis As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes And say, do you want to make a deal How does it feel

I was born a long way from where I belong and I am on my way home.

...you could listen to Woody Guthrie songs and actually learn how to live ...

There's a wall between you and what you want and you got to leap it.

The land of milk and honey, they say it is the land of money.

Stop all this weeping, swallow your pride/ You will not die, its not poison -Tombstone Blues

My favorite politician was Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, who reminded me of Tom Mix, and there wasn't any way to explain that to anybody.

i been meek, and hard like an oak, i seen pretty people disappear like smoke. friends will arrive, friends will disappear. if you want me, honey baby, i'll be here.

New York was a city where you could be frozen to death in the midst of a busy street and nobody would notice.

Back seat drivers don’t know the feel of the wheel but they sho’ know how to make a fuss" Bob Dylan/Bonnie Raitt, “Let’s Keep It Between Us,” 1982

I'm the oldest son of a crazy man, I'm in a cowboy band.

Don't Ask Me Nothing About Nothing, I Just Might Tell You the Truth

Even if you don't have all the things you want, be grateful for the things you don't have that you don't want (Bob Dylan's dad)

Everything that I'm saying You can say it just as good

God said: "Abraham, kill me a son. Abe said: "Man, you must be putting me on." God said: "No." Abe said: "What" God said: "You can do what you want Abe but the next time you see me coming you'd better run". Abe said: "Where you want this killing done?" God said: "Out on Highway 61.

Look at the sun sinkin' like a ship. Ain't that just like my heart, babe. When you kissed my lips?

I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul...

They're selling postcards of the hanging They're painting the passports brown The beauty parlor is filled with sailors The circus is in town Here comes the blind commissioner They've got him in a trance One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker The other is in his pants And the riot squad they're restless They need somewhere to go As Lady and I look out tonight From Desolation Row.

It's like going out to the desert and screaming and then having little kids throw their sandbox at you. I'm only 24.

Technology to wipe out truth is now available. Not everybody can afford it but it's available. When the cost comes down, look out!

Life is more or less a lie, but then again, that's exactly the way we want it to be.

A poem is a naked person.

Well, it's hard to stumble And land in some muddy lagoon When it's nine below zero And three o'clock in the afternoon.

Well, my daddy, he didn't leave me much, you know he was a very simple man, but what he did tell me was this, he did say, son, he said, he say, you know it's possible to become so defiled in this world that your own father and mother will abandon you and if that happens, God will always believe in your ability to mend your ways.

God bless you all with peace, tranquility and good will.

I was never a topical songwriter.

Money doesn't exist because I don't recognize it.

Draft beer, not people.

The only person you have to think about lying twice to is either yourself or to God. The press isn't either of them. And I just figured they're irrelevant.

When somethin's not right it's wrong.

I'm not a playwright.

I'm not the kind of cat that's going to cut off an ear if I can't do something.

You've got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend. When I was down you just stood there a grinin

The truth was obscure, Too profound and too pure, To live it you had to explode

I love Country Music but what happened to it?

look, you know i don't wanna come on ungrateful, but that warren report, you know as well as me, just didn't make it. You know, like they might as well have asked some banana salesman from des moines, who was up in toronto on the big day, if he saw anyone around looking suspicious/...

I started writing songs after I heard Hank Williams.

..When I first heard Elvis' voice, I knew that I wasn't going to work for anybody ... hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail

I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken, I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children, And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

It's not easy to define poetry.

In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upward mobile and the rest of us are f--ed until we can put our acts together: not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely. We owe that to ourselves and our crippled self-image as something better than a nation of panicked sheep.

A song is like a dream, and you try to make it come true. They're like strange countries that you have to enter.

I like Fidel Castro and his beard.

The times are a-changing and if we don't we will sink like a stone.

I'm more of an adventurous type than a relationship type.

Well, the moral of the story, The moral of this song, Is simply that one should never be Where one does not belong. So when you see your neighbor carryin' somethin', Help him with his load, And don't go mistaking Paradise For that home across the road.

I really didn't consider myself happy or unhappy.

There doesn't seem to be any tomorrow. Every time I wake up, no matter in what position, it's always been today.

You always got to be prepared but you never know for what.

The hollow horn plays wasted words, proves to warn that he not busy being born is busy dying.

I heard the tongues of angels and the tongues of men and it all sounded no different to me.

How many roads must a man walk down, Before you call him a man? How many seas must a white dove sail, Before she sleeps in the sand? Yes, and how many times must the cannon balls fly, Before they're forever banned?