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Bob Dylan
444 quotes
“Anything I can sing, I call a song. Anything I can't sing, I call a poem.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Liner notes, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963)
“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.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Only Human Driftin' And Learnin'" by Sidney Fields, New York Mirror (9 December 1963)
“There's no black and white, left and right to me anymore; there's only up and down and down is very close to the ground. And I'm trying to go up without thinking about anything trivial such as politics. They has got nothing to do with it. I'm thinking about the general people and when they get hurt.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address to the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee (13 December 1963)
“I am a writer an a singer of the words I write I am no speaker nor any politician an my songs speak for me because I write them in the confinement of my own mind an have t cope with no one except my own self.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1963 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter sent to the ECLC after Dylan received the Tom Paine Award at the Bill of Rights dinner on December 13, 1963, as reported in "Mr. Dylan Regrets" by Niall Stokes, Hot Press (11 November 2005)
“do Not create anything, it will be misinterpreted. it will not change. it will follow you the rest of your life.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Advice for Geraldine on Her Miscellaneous" (1964)
“a poem is a naked person . . . some people say that I am a poet”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Liner notes, Bringing It All Back Home (1965)
“He's a pinboy. He also wears suspenders. He's a real person. You know him, but not by that name... I saw him come into the room one night and he looked like a camel. He proceeded to put his eyes in his pocket. I asked this guy who he was and he said, "That's Mr. Jones." Then I asked this cat, "Doesn't he do anything but put his eyes in his pocket?" And he told me, "He puts his nose on the ground." It's all there, it's a true story.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: When asked about the meaning of the song "Ballad of a Thin Man" during a 1965 interview.
“You don't necessarily have to write to be a poet. Some people work in gas stations and they're poets. I don't call myself a poet because I don't like the word. I'm a trapeze artist.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bob Dylan Interview by Nora Ephron & Susan Edmiston (1965)
“I find it easy to write songs. I been writing songs for a long time and the words to the songs aren't written out just for the paper; they're written as you can read it, you dig. If you take whatever there is to the song away—the beat, the melody—I could still recite it. I see nothing wrong with songs you can't do that with either—songs that, if you took the beat and the melody away, they wouldn't stand up because they're not supposed to do that, you know. Songs are songs.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Paul Robbins (March, 1965)
“I accept chaos. I am not sure whether it accepts me. I know there are some people terrified of the bomb, but there are others terrified to be seen carrying a Modern Screen magazine. Experience teaches that silence terrifies the most.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Cosmo Listens to Records" by Nat Hentoff, in Cosmopolitan (November 1965)
“Reporter: How many people who labor in the same musical vineyard in which you toil - how many are protest singers? That is, people who use their music, and use the songs to protest the, uh, social state in which we live today: the matter of war, the matter of crime, or whatever it might be. Bob Dylan: Um...how many? Reporter: Yes. How many? Bob Dylan: Uh, I think there's about, uh...136. Reporter: You say about 136, or you mean exactly 136? Bob Dylan: Uh, it's either 136 or 142.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1965 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Press conference in Los Angeles, California (17 December 1965), as seen and heard in No Direction Home.
“Bob Dylan: I do know what my songs are about. Playboy: And what's that? Bob Dylan: Oh, some are about four minutes; some are about five, and some, believe it or not, are about eleven or twelve.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Playboy Interview (February 1966)
“Colleges are like old-age homes; except for the fact that more people die in colleges.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Playboy Interview (February 1966)
“I don't believe you! You're a liar! ... Play it fucking loud!”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dylan's response to the shout of "Judas" by a heckler, followed by his instructions to his band over the count-in to "Like A Rolling Stone." Heard on The Bootleg Series Vol. 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966
“Keep a good head and always carry a light bulb.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Heard in the D. A. Pennebaker documentary Dont Look Back (1967)
“God, I'm glad I'm not me.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Said when reading a newspaper article about himself in Dont Look Back (1967)
“You have to be let alone to really accomplish anything.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview by Hubert Saal, "Dylan is Back," Newsweek (26 February 1968)
“I used to think that myself and my songs were the same thing. But I don't believe that any more. There's myself and there's my song, which I hope is everybody's song.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1968 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview by Hubert Saal, "Dylan is Back," Newsweek (26 February 1968)
“My songs always sound a lot better in person than they do on the record.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1969 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Rolling Stone Interview: Bob Dylan (29 November 1969)
“Greed and lust I can understand, but I can't understand the values of definition and confinement. Definition destroys. Besides, there's nothing definite in this world.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Neil Hickey TV Guide interview (11 September 1976)
“Ron Rosenbaum: Why are you doing what you're doing? Bob Dylan: [Pause] Because I don't know anything else to do. I'm good at it. Ron Rosenbaum: How would you describe "it"? Bob Dylan: I'm an artist. I try to create art.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1978 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Playboy Interview (1978)
“I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I'll die like a poet.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1978 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Robert Shelton, Melody Maker (29 July 1978)
“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 anyone but inspire them?”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1978 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bob Dylan: The Rolling Stone Interview by Jonathan Cott (26 January 1978)
“I kinda live where I find myself.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Rolling Stone Interview: Bob Dylan (21 June 1984)
“I think women rule the world, and that no man has ever done anything that a woman either hasn't allowed him to do or encouraged him to do.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Rolling Stone interview (21 June 1984)
“I wanted just a song to sing, and there came a certain point where I couldn't sing anything. So I had to write what I wanted to sing 'cos nobody else was writing what I wanted to sing.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1984 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Bert Kleinman (30 July 1984). Cf. C. S. Lewis: "People won't write the books I want, so I have to do it for myself.
“At certain times I read a lot of poetry. My favorite poets are Shelley and Keats. Rimbaud is so identifiable. Lord Byron. I don't know. Lately if I read poems, it's like I can always hear the guitar. Even with Shakespeare's sonnets I can hear a melody because it's all broken up into timed phrases so I hear it. I always keep thinking, 'What kind of song would this be?'”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview with Denise Worrell, "'It's All Right in Front': Dylan on Life and Rock" in Time (25 November 1985)
“Chaos is a friend of mine.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Newsweek (9 December 1985)
“I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1985 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Interview published with the Biograph album set (1985)
“If the songs are dreamed, it's like my voice is coming out of their dream.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Robert Shelton's No Direction Home (1986), p. 281
“I think a poet is anybody who wouldn't call himself a poet. Anybody who could possibly call himself a poet just cannot be a poet.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in Robert Shelton's No Direction Home (1986), p. 353
“When I first heard Elvis's voice I just knew that I wasn't going to work for anybody and nobody was going to be my boss. He is the deity supreme of rock and roll religion as it exists in today's form. Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail. I think for a long time that freedom to me was Elvis singing 'Blue Moon of Kentucky.' I thank God for Elvis.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1986 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Us Weekly (24 August 1987); on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Elvis Presley's death, as reported in Bob Dylan: Performing Artist 1986–1990 and Beyond, Mind out of Time (2009)
“The first two lines, which rhymed 'kiddin' you' and 'didn't you,' just about knocked me out, and later on, when I got to the jugglers and the chrome horse and the princess on the steeple, it all just about got to be too much.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1988 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Discussing the song "Like a Rolling Stone" in Rolling Stone magazine (1988)
“It's not to anybody's best interest to think about how they will be perceived tomorrow. It hurts you in the long run.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bob Dylan: The Song Talk Interview by Paul Zollo (1991)
“My sense of rhyme used to be more involved in my songwriting than it is... Still staying in the unconscious frame of mind, you can pull yourself out and throw up two rhymes first and work it back. You get the rhymes first and work it back and then see if you can make it make sense in another kind of way. You can still stay in the unconscious frame of mind to pull it off, which is the state of mind you have to be in anyway.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1991 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Bob Dylan: The Song Talk Interview by Paul Zollo (1991)
“People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around — the music and the ideas.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1992 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Guardian (13 February 1992)
“That ear - I mean, Jesus, he's got to will that to the Smithsonian.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In reference to Brian Wilson, Newsweek (1997)
“Here's the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don't find it anywhere else.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dylan Revisited, Newsweek (1997)
“I change during the course of a day. I wake and I'm one person, and when I go to sleep I know for certain I'm somebody else. I don't know who I am most of the time. It doesn't even matter to me.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Dylan Revisited, Newsweek (1997)
“I'm inconsistent, even to myself.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in "POP/JAZZ; A Wiser Voice Blowin' In the Autumn Wind" by Jon Pareles, The New York Times (28 September 1997)
“We may not be able to defeat these swine, but we don't have to join them.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Kingdom of Fear (2003) by Hunter S. Thompson
“I had ambitions to set out and find, like an odyssey or going home somewhere... set out to find... this home that I'd left a while back and couldn't remember exactly where it was, but I was on my way there. And encountering what I encountered on the way was how I envisioned it all. I didn't really have any ambition at all. I was born very far from where I'm supposed to be, and so, I'm on my way home, you know?”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No Direction Home (2005)
“I didn't go to classes. I just didn't feel like it.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No Direction Home (2005)
“An artist has gotta be careful never really to arrive at a place where he thinks he's at somewhere. You always have to realize that you're constantly in a state of becoming.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No Direction Home (2005)
“You don't need my autograph. If you needed it, I'd give it to you.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No Direction Home (2005)
“You can't be wise and in love at the same time.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No Direction Home (2005)
“I had no answers to any of those questions any more than any other performer did, really. But, you know, that didn't stop the press or people or whoever they were from asking these questions. They, for some reason the press thought that performers had the answers to all these problems in the society and you know, like what can... What can you say to something like that? I mean, it's just kind of absurd.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No Direction Home (2005)
“I read On the Road in maybe 1959. It changed my life like it changed everyone else's.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the influence of Jack Kerouac on him, as quoted Grasping for the Wind : The Search for Meaning in the 20th Century (2001) by John W. Whitehead
“Someone handed me Mexico City Blues in St. Paul [Minnesota] in 1959 and it blew my mind. It was the first poetry that spoke my own language.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On the influence of Jack Kerouac, as quoted in Jack Kerouac (2007) by Alison Behnke, p. 100
“I think it's the land. The streams, the forests, the vast emptiness. The land created me. I'm wild and lonesome. Even as I travel the cities, I'm more at home in the vacant lots. But I have a love for humankind, a love of truth, and a love of justice. I think I have a dualistic nature. I'm more of an adventurous type than a relationship type.”
Bob Dylan (born 1941) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: London Times interview (2009)