Top 880 Quotes & Sayings by Bob Dylan - Page 2

I'm not a playwright.

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

It's not easy to define poetry.

I paint mostly from real life. It has to start with that. Real people, real street scenes, behind the curtain scenes, live models, paintings, photographs, staged setups, architecture, grids, graphic design. Whatever it takes to make it work.

Having these colossal accolades and titles, they get in the way.

I'm mortified to be on the stage, but then again, it's the only place where I'm happy.

I felt like I might as well have been living in another part of the solar system.

I can't act!

My range is limited.

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

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

I think I have a dualistic nature.

I'm sick of giving creeps money off my soul.

My songs always sound a lot better in person than they do on the record.

It's hard to speculate what tomorrow may bring.

Some formulas are too complex and I don't want anything to do with them.

I can't see myself singing the same song twice in a row. That's terrible.

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

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

You can't do something forever.

I don't think I've ever been an agnostic. I've always thought there's a superior power, that this is not the real world and that there's a world to come.

What did I owe the rest of the world? Nothing.

I can't stand to see myself on television.

I became interested in folk music because I had to make it somehow.

The songs are my lexicon. I believe the songs.

The people in my songs are all me.

I never saw myself as a folk singer.

My father probably thought the capital of the world was wherever he was at the time. It couldn't possibly be anyplace else. Where he and his wife were in their own home, that, for them, was the capital of the world.

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

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

You call yourself what you want to call yourself.

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

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.

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

A lot of people don't like the road, but it's as natural to me as breathing.

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

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

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

Death to me means nothing as long as I can die fast.

I don't think I'm tangible to myself.

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

Everything passes, Everything changes, Just do what you think you should do.

Don't criticize what you can't understand.

If you need somebody you can trust, trust yourself

Steal a little and they throw you in jail Steal a lot and they make you king.

People have a hard time accepting anything that overwhelms them.

You get older. You start having hopes for other people rather than yourself.

If you want to keep your memories, you first have to live them.

Sometimes you just have to bite your upper lip and put sunglasses on.

May your heart always be joyful. May your song always be sung.

Frank [Sinatra] sang to you, not at you, like so many pop singers today. Even singers of standards. I never wanted to be a singer that sings at somebody. I've always wanted to sing to somebody. I would have gotten that subliminally from Frank many years ago. Hank Williams did that, too. He sang to you.

Happiness is not on my list of priorities. I just deal with day-to-day things. If I'm happy, I'm happy – and if I'm not, I don't know the difference... Knowing that you are the person you were put on this earth to be – that's much more important than just being happy.

I believe that instinct is what makes a genius a genius.

If I lived my life by what others were thinkin', the heart inside me would've died.

We have never arrived. We are in a constant state of becoming.

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

The purpose of art is to stop time.

Sometimes it's not enough to know what things mean, sometimes you have to know what things don't mean.

May you grow up to be righteous, may you grow up to be true. May you always know the truth and see the lights surrounding you. May you always be courageous, stand upright and be strong. May you stay forever young.

Experience teaches us that silence terrifies people the most.