Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
From the moment [Bob] Dylan arrived as a songwriter, he was [so] much better than everybody else around.
I'm not a Democrat; I'm something well to the left of a Democrat, but I'm just realistic about the system.
My spiritual system is 12-step programs. That's the only one I've ever had. I didn't have one before that.
I'm from Texas. I hitchhiked to Tennessee when I was 19 years old, and it is really beautiful in Tennessee.
I don't think I'm a political songwriter as much as I am just a political person. I think it's in my fabric.
I'm a very disciplined person when it comes to my work, but discipline can't save m from being a drug addict.
The stupidest thing that a writer can do is write a memoir I think, unless it's right before you die -- maybe.
I've been on every interstate highway in the lower forty-eight states by now and I never get tired of the view.
I've been on every interstate highway in the lower forty-eight states by now, and I never get tired of the view.
I do not believe Tony Blair was a fundamentally good man who went bad. I believe he was evil in the first place.
Actually, in its purest form, Islam is incredibly tolerant. That makes what's going on in the world really bizarre.
I have a low tolerance for mediocrity in music and life. I'm into pain and joy and the in-between doesn't interest me.
To me, religion is an agreement between a group of people about what God is. Spirituality is a one-on-one relationship.
What saves me from being a drug addict is sort of the opposite. It's me realizing that I don't really control anything.
At home, I'm lucky if I can write three or four hours before the phone starts ringing and the kids want to go to soccer.
Making art in America is sort of a political statement in and of itself. It's not the best environment for that sometimes.
He's the real deal. Eric Taylor was one of my heroes and teachers when I started playing around Houston in the early 1970s.
My politics were really radical when I was younger, and then I moderated like everyone else does when they start having kids.
Sonnets are guys writing in English, imitating an Italian song form. It was a form definitely sung as often as it was recited.
Bob Dylan is one of the very few people in the history of popular music who you can unquestionably apply that word [genius] to.
I don't spend a lot of time feeling sorry for myself, trying to compare how many records I've sold or how much money I've made.
My audience doesn't agree with me on everything, but I love my audience, because they're totally okay with us having a dialogue.
Me, I'm spiritually retarded, I need to be knee deep in water with a fly rod in my hands, that's about as close to God as I get.
All we do as songwriters is rewrite the songs that have impressed us till we find our own voice. It's part of learning the craft.
People can try to make me into anything they want, but I think they're really throwing around language but saying the same thing.
Every leap forward that I make is by reaching back and firmly getting a footing in the past, and pushing forward as hard as I can.
Politics has always been in my music. Anybody who doesn't understand how political "Copperhead Road" is isn't listening very well.
You know I ain't never prayed before 'Cause it always seemed to me That prayin's the same as beggin' Lord, I don't take no charity.
The reason music became so powerful to our generation is that it's art you can consume in your car, and we were driving around a lot.
It amazes me that the most Christian funerals are the most barbaric funeral rites of passage that are celebrated anywhere in the world.
Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world, and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that.
Every country that's ever been the most powerful country in the world ceases to be the most powerful country in the world at some point.
Songwriters are expanding time rather than compressing time. My short stories tend to be old fashioned, with a beginning, middle and end.
I don't believe that songwriting has to be profound, but I truly believe that it's a crime for you to go outta your way for it not to be.
I don't separate writing songs from poetry and short fiction. In the area where I work in my house, there's a word processor and a guitar.
Gregory Corso used to get really pissed when people called Bob Dylan a 'poet.' After writing poetry for a few years, I can understand that.
I love baseball. I'll probably end up one of those old farts who go to spring training in Florida every year and drive from game to game all day.
I mainly read non-fiction, and that's probably because I have a huge amount of insecurity about my lack of education and the things I don't know.
I'm trying to make records where people don't feel cheated. Nashville has been guilty of insulting the Country Music audience for years and years.
America's criminal justice system isn't known for rehabilitation. I'm not sure that, as a society, we are even interested in that concept anymore.
I love 'Harry Potter.' I love those books. That started because I lived with a woman who had kids who were, like, 10 and 7 when they moved in with me.
I make an embarrassing amount of money for a borderline Marxist, just by selling 100,000 records. I don't sell millions of records, and I don't need to.
You can listen to carpenters talk for hours in Ireland. The people have a relationship to words that I don't think you will run into anyplace in the world.
I promise you that I did not become an addict because of anything to do with the behavior of either of my parents. Everybody has to make their own choices.
I think the singer/songwriter genre is going to be like bluegrass and jazz. You can make a living at it, but it's not part of the musical mainstream anymore.
I think the music business is changing. Artists that don't want to tour and just want to collect royalty checks and stay home are not going to be able to do that.
What's important is you wake up in the morning and something doesn't exist, and when you finish you day's work something is in the world that wasn't there before.
Becoming interested in poetics got me interested in theater. Theater is supposed to be poetry, you know, before it's anything else. It just doesn't fly if it isn't musical.
I love theater. I go all the time. It's one of the reasons I moved to New York. But I understand that I have limited range as an actor. I can only play people who talk like me.
I'm constantly warning people that are involved in my life that I can go busk and make a living. I can make my rent in New York City in the subway, I promise, if I'm forced to.