Top 110 Quotes & Sayings by Robbie Robertson

I love the idea of having a kid who says, 'Yeah, of course I knew about Billie Holiday and Johnny Cash when I was nine years old.'

People think I left The Band and spoiled this whole thing, and that's not what happened. Nobody broke up The Band. Nobody ever said, 'That's it, we're done.'

I saw Ray Charles at Massey Hall.

One of the things I feel very strong about is the achievement of the Band really being a complete band.

I play guitar quite a bit, because I'm always in search of something. I don't play to jam, but because I'm fishing. I'm looking for something, that I hope you can never find. If I do find it, I'm afraid I won't have a need to do this any more.

Most of my younger Native American friends are not in any way looking for sympathy, and they're not looking to lay guilt on anybody. They have their dignity, and they do what they do.

At a young age I thought, 'Wow, that fiddle thing, that's pretty cool. That mandolin is great. These drums, I like these drums... ' They were Indian drums. And I was saying, 'But that guitar. That guitar. Girls are going to like that guitar.'

Music should never be harmless.

I haven't been to many music events where somebody was performing and it actually made me cry.

When I was 14 years old, I had the opportunity to meet Buddy Holly. I asked him how he got that big, powerful sound out of his guitar amp. He said, 'I blew a speaker and decided not to get it fixed.'

Boy, do I got some stories to tell.

When you look at that period when Warhol and the Velvets and the Stones were doing things, it was this intersection of art and music. And then it went away.

Everybody grows in their own way.

I don't want to be one of those people saying, 'Remember when things were better?'

One of the greatest live recordings, I think, in the history of the world is Ray Charles in Atlanta... And they didn't even have a big mobile recording thing set up. The word on the street was they only had like two microphones, one for the band and one for him. Perfect recordings. I think it's mono.

When I was younger, I thought I was too young to really be personal. I thought that what I was feeling and thinking might be half-baked.

By the time I was 13, I was the only one in London, Ontario, who knew how to play rock n' roll.

My thirst for knowledge and experience comes from the idea that once you learned something, it was time to learn something else. I missed out on a formal educational process, so I'm making up for that.

I like to work on records when I feel inspired, not because it's expected of me.

The native music of North America, the original-roots music of this country, is also the underworld music of this country.

Cowboys had guitars. And they sang country 'cause they lived in the country.

I could never be a movie star and get up at 7:30 to be at someone else's studio.

I asked Bob Dylan to paint the album cover for 'Music from Big Pink.' He said, 'Yeah, let me see what I can come up with.'

I am fascinated by the places that music comes from, like fife-and-drum blues from southern Mississippi or Cajun music out of Lafayette, Louisiana, shape-note singing, old harp singing from the mountains - I love that stuff. It's like the beginning of rock and roll: something comes down from the hills, and something comes up from the delta.

Bob Dylan is as influential as any artist that there has been.

People go through periods when things are dark and cloudy, and they talk dark and cloudy.

Music isn't necessarily made to last, and there's always been disposable music.

It's easy to be a genius in your twenties. In your forties, it's difficult.

It's a bit of a sore spot, the Thanksgiving in Indian country.

My mother is extraordinary. She understood me and never tried to hold me back.

Do you know what a skin walker is? It's a thing in Indian mythology. There are certain people born with this gift, and they're able to actually get inside you and mess with your feelings and with your mind. And if a skin walker chooses to get a hold of you, there's not much you can do.

There is an extraordinary collaborative spirit when you are learning and growing.

I don't like overt traditionalism.

Think about the number of people who do film music, make records and have a Native American heritage - and I may be the only one on the list.

I've been really fortunate that I've been at a lot of critical crossroads in my musical journey. When I look back, there are some pretty interesting things to look at.

Record making is an extraordinary experience.

We need to have a taste factor in our life. It isn't about what's popular; it's about what's really good.

I think the world of Chuck Berry.

Once you establish a foundation of knowing what the greatest recording artists of all time were... Wouldn't you want your kids to know this stuff?

The Band was rebelling against the rebellion. The rebellion went to a place where it became too obvious, too trendy, like you were just following the pack. So it was our choice to get off the bandwagon - no pun intended - and do things that were in our background and what was the most honest thing to do.

I'm really lucky because I found myself in a position where I can do whatever I want to do. I can make records, produce records, make movies, or I can do nothing. I'm not a slave to the dollar.

I never really had a teenage experience. I went from childhood to maturity, and in some ways, it short-circuited me emotionally.

I admire those old road dogs, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan. That's their life.

I love traditional music. But in any culture around the world, there is the historic and cultural music and everything that's been passed down and passed down, and hopefully you take that, and then you take it, you know, the next distance, and then somebody else takes it the next distance.

If I can play one note and make you cry, then that's better than those fancy dancers playing twenty notes.

I do not have yearnings to get back on a bus. If it means getting on a bus, I don't want to do it.

In a lot of groups, you can change a musician, and it doesn't mean anything.

That whole lifestyle - make a record, do a tour: I know how to do that. It doesn't interest me.

There's a thing that has happened in the U.S. where the spirit has been beaten so badly and so you feel no unity in the voice of the country.

I'm not an activist.

The direction is going the right way for respect for aboriginal people in North America, and all we can do is stand up and say, 'Please do it faster.'

I wanted to develop a guitar style where phrases and lines get there just in the nick of time, like with Curtis Mayfield and Steve Cropper. Subtleties mean so much, and there is a stunning beauty in them.

Sixteen years on the road is long enough. Twenty years is unthinkable.

I remember from my earliest years people speaking, you know, in a certain kind of rhythm and telling stories and sharing experiences in a way that was different in Indian country than it was other places. And I was really struck by this and obviously very affected by it, because it's always come out in my songs.

I feel so lucky to have been in a group where it was a real band. This wasn't a singer and guitar player and some other guys.

You don't stumble upon your heritage. It's there, just waiting to be explored and shared.

The road has taken a lot of the great ones: Hank Williams, Buddy Holly, Otis Redding, Janis, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis.

Some bands today have the experience of really working together and honing their craft. And other bands are very much like, 'I just got a guitar for Christmas, let's start a band.' And you can hear the difference.

I always like to keep one hand in the tepee and the other hand in the synagogue. Wouldn't it be great if there was a combination of the two? You could go to synagogue, and it would be really hot in there.

The Band is probably the ultimate example of people taking all kinds of music, from gospel to blues to mountain music to folk music to on and on and on and on and putting them all in this big pot and mixing up a new gumbo.