Top 880 Quotes & Sayings by Bob Dylan - Page 10

I have tried my hand at bribery, blackmail, and deceit. And I've served time for everything, cept beggin on the street.

I kissed goodbye the howling beast on the borderline which separated you from me.

She makes love just like a woman.

So happy just to be alive, Underneath the sky of blue, On this new morning, new morning, On this new morning with you.

Some of the old folk singers used to phrase things in an interesting way, and then, I got my style from seeing a lot of outdoor-type poets, who would recite their poetry. When you don't have a guitar, you recite things differently, and there used to be quite a few poets in the jazz clubs, who would recite with a different type of attitude.

There are degrees of happiness. You go from one to the other and then back again. It's hard to be completely happy when those around us are suffering and groaning from hunger.

I like spiritual songs. They struck me as truthful and serious. They brought me down to earth and they lifted me up all in the same moment.

Now the wintertime is coming The windows are filled with frost I went to tell everybody But I could not get across Well, I wanna be your lover, baby I don't wanna be your boss Don't say I never warned you When your train gets lost.

Bob Dylan was again an entirely new person - this time old, craggy, cynical, and world-weary, as in "Not Dark Yet".

I put one on the turntable and when the needle dropped, I was stunned - didn't know whether I was stoned or straight.

May God bless and keep you always, May your wishes all come true, May you always do for others And let others do for you. May you build a ladder to the stars And climb on every rung, May you stay forever young.

I never did use earphones until into the Eighties or Nineties. I don't like to use earphones. I've never heard anybody sing with earphones effectively. They just give you a false sense of security. A lot of us don't need earphones. I don't think Springsteen or Mick do. But other people more or less have given in. But they ought not to. They don't need to. Especially if they have a good band.

Romance never does go out of fashion. It's radical. But it's out of step with the current media culture.

Most songs have bridges in them, to distract listeners from the main verses of a song so they don't get bored. My songs don't have a lot of bridges because lyric poetry never had them.

Once I went into songwriting, I figured I had to - I couldn't be a hellfire rock 'n' roller. But I could write hellfire lyrics.

Old New York City is a friendly old town From Washington Heights to Harlem on down There's a-mighty many people all millin' all around They'll kick you when you're up and knock you when you're down It's hard times in the city Livin' down in New York town

I don't know if I call myself a poet or not. I would like to, but I'm not really qualified to make that decision, because I come in on such a back door, that I don't know what a Robert Frost or a [John] Keats or a T.S. Eliot would really think of my stuff.

I'm gonna spare the defeated. I'm gonna tame the proud.

When I think of mystery, I don't think about myself. I think of the universe, like why does the moon rise when the sun falls? Caterpillars turn into butterflies? I really haven't remained a recluse.

[Bob Dylan] was rarely tender and seldom reached out to anticipate another's needs.

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

Why Nicolas Sarkozy is the head of France, [he is] warm and extremely likeable.

Everything's a business. Love, truth, beauty. Conversation is a business. Spirituality is not a business, so it's going to go against the grain of people who are trying to exploit other people.

Being singer is different than being an actor, where you call up sources from your own experience that you can apply to whatever Shakespeare drama you're in. But an actor is pretending to be somebody, a singer isn't. And that's the difference. Singers today have to sing songs where there's very little emotion involved. That and the fact that they have to sing hit records from years gone by doesn't leave a lot of room for any kind of intelligent creativity.

There were only a few seats left in coach and Bob found himself seated next to a young female fan. 'I can't believe I'm sitting next to Bob Dylan!' she screamed.'Pinch yourself,' said Bob."

People talk about Frank Sinatra all the time - and they should talk about Frank - but he had the greatest arrangers. They worked for him in a different kind of way than they worked for other people. They gave him arrangements that are just sublime on every level. And he, of course, could match that because he had this ability to get inside of the song in a sort of a conversational way. Frank sang to you, not at you, like so many pop singers today. Even singers of standards.

They can't hurt me. Sure, they can crush you and kill you. They can lay you out on 42nd and Broadway and put hoses on you and flush you in the sewers and put you on the subway and carry you out to Coney island and bury you on the Ferris wheel. But I refuse to sit here and worry about dying.

My love ,she speaks like silence, without ideals or violence. She doesn't have to say she's faithful, yet she's true.

Once you think you know the song, then you have go and see how other people have done it.

Oh, God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son" Abe said, "Man, you must be puttin' me on" God said, "No" Abe say, "What?" God say, "You can do what you want, Abe, but The next time you see me comin', you better run" Well, Abe said, "Where d'you want this killin' done?" God said, "Out on Highway 61".

Hold it, Doc, a world war passed through my brain. He said, Nurse, get your pad, this boy's insane.

Bullets can harm you and death can disarm you, but no, you will not be deceived. Stripped of all virtue as you crawl through the dirt, you can give but you cannot receive.

Broken bottles, broken plates, broken switches, broken gates. Broken dishes, broken parts, streets are filled with broken hearts.

One night around that time, at Hammersmith, Bob Dylan was about to go into [his 1963 classic] 'Don't Think Twice, It's Alright.He said, 'Hey, Bucky! Play mandolin on this.' I am not really a mandolin player; I could only play in certain keys. Halfway through, he stops the band, turns to the audience and points to me. He says: 'He isn't playing, he's miming.' And then: 'Should I fire him?' The whole audience yells.

It rubs me the wrong way, a camera... It's a frightening thing...Cameras make ghosts out of people.

In my childhood everything you heard, you could imagine what it looked like. Even singers that I would hear on the radio, I couldn't see what they looked like, so I imagined what they looked like. What they were wearing. What their movements were. Gene Vincent? When I first pictured him, he was a tall, lanky blond-haired guy.

I come from way north. We'd listen to radio shows all the time. I think I was the last generation, or pretty close to the last one, that grew up without TV.

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

I always thought the best kind of sunglasses are the motorcycle helmets with the black plastic masks on them. That way, nobody can recognize the back of your head either.

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

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

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.

People are going to say, ‘Well, it’s not very truthful.’ But a songwriter doesn’t care about what’s truthful. What he cares about is what should’ve happened, what could’ve happened. That’s its own kind of truth. It’s like people who read Shakespeare plays, but they never see a Shakespeare play. I think they just use his name.

Get jailed, jump bail, join the Army if you fail.

My guard stood hard when abstract threats, too noble to neglect, deceived me into thinking, I had something to protect.

Loneliness Got a mind of its own The more people around The more you feel alone

An artist has got to be constantly in a state of becoming.

I'd been going though his trash. He knocked me down. I was glad to see him, even though he was banging my head against the sidewalk. Afterwards these bums come over and say, 'Did he get much money?' I say, 'Money'? That was Bob Dylan.

People do whatever they want to do, y'know.

...how many times must the cannon balls fly Before they're forever banned?

Can you please crawl out your window? Use your arms and your legs, it won't ruin you

Everything in New Orleans is a good idea.

The executioner's face is always well hidden.

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

You travel the world, you go see different things. I like to see Shakespeare plays, so I'll go - I mean, even if it's in a different language. I don't care, I just like Shakespeare, you know. I've seen Othello and Hamlet and Merchant of Venice over the years, and some versions are better than others. Way better. It's like hearing a bad version of a song. But then somewhere else, somebody has a great version.

You got men who can't hold peace and women who can't control their tongues. The rich seduce the poor, and the old seduce the young.

The "joker" here ["All Along the Watchtower" ] is the older [Bob] Dylan himself, whining about exploitation, and the thief's rejoinder re-contextualizes the earlier critique into the religious frames that would become more prominent as time went on.

Maybe someday you will understand, that something for nothing is everybody's plan.

My senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip, my toes to numb to step, wait only for my boot heels to be wandering.

In the fury of the moment/ I can see the Master's hand In every leaf that trembles, in/ every grain of sand.