Top 56 Quotes & Sayings by Robert Hunter

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American musician Robert Hunter.
Last updated on November 21, 2024.
Robert Hunter

Robert C. Christie Hunter was an American lyricist, singer-songwriter, translator, and poet, best known for his work with the Grateful Dead. Born near San Luis Obispo, California, Hunter spent some time in his childhood in foster homes, as a result of his father's abandoning his family, and took refuge in reading and writing. He attended the University of Connecticut for a year before returning to Palo Alto, where he became friends with Jerry Garcia. Garcia and Hunter began a collaboration that lasted through the remainder of Garcia's life.

When I got out of the hospital, it was one of those classic things - you're looking death in the eye, and it changes you. I thought, I ought to go back on the road.
I'm not good at being lionized, and when I'm in 'Grateful Dead'-type situations, that happens.
Being in a floodplain is like sitting down in a bathtub. — © Robert Hunter
Being in a floodplain is like sitting down in a bathtub.
I feel I've got 10 books in me.
If you can even manage to tell exactly what a song is about, all you do is put that song in a box forever, and it loses its evocative power.
When you get ready to vote, make sure you know what you are doing.
I walk away from writing what I consider to be a good song - with a good character, a good story in it - with all I'm gonna really get out of that song. My greatest pleasure is to create it, not to record it, not to hear anyone else play it, though that can be nice too.
In wickedness of pride is lost the light to understand how little grace is earned and how much given.
At the top of the cycle you write policies for everybody, no matter how bad, and at the bottom you cancel everybody, no matter how good. It's a manic-depressive cycle.
A song doesn't happen as a whole verse; it happens linearly, line by line, almost word by word, phrase by phrase. And if each phrase, each line, has a proper emotional feel and connects to the line before it and the line after it, the song will be doing what it should be doing.
I tend to write things and don't go the next step and try to get it published. I don't want to do book signings and stuff.
I got really, really sick with a spinal infection that put me in a hospital for a couple of months, and it was touch and go. I had my guitar with me, and as soon as I got well enough to play, there was nothing else to do in that hospital. The nurses would come in and request songs.
You who choose to lead must follow. But if you fall, you fall alone. — © Robert Hunter
You who choose to lead must follow. But if you fall, you fall alone.
Everything you cherish Throws you over in the end Thorns will grab your ankles From the gardens that you tend.
But I would rather be with you, somewhere in San Francisco on a back porch in July, just looking up to Heaven, at this crescent in the sky
But never give your love, my friend, Unto a foolish heart
Once in awhile you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look it right
Poised for flight, Wings spread bright, Spring from night into the Sun.
The storyteller makes no choice, soon you will not hear his voice, his job is to shed light, and not to master
There are things you can replace, and others you cannot. The time has come to weigh those things, this space is getting hot.
Inspiration, move me brightly, light the song with sense and color, hold away despair
Walk out of any doorway feel your way, feel your way like the day before Maybe you'll find direction around some corner where it's been waiting to meet you.
The best architects feel it to be their duty to make the path to the hole as free as possible from annoying difficulties for the less skillful golfers, while at the same time presenting to the scratch players a route calling for the best shots at their command.
There is a road, no simple highway, between the dawn and the dark of night, and if you go, no one may follow, that path is for your steps alone.
It's better to wear seaweed socks than stick a melon in your brother's ear.
I don't believe there's any evidence that credit scoring is a risk factor. What is it about someone having a worse credit score that makes them a worse driver? (Insurers) can't answer that.
If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung Would you hear my voice come through the music Would you hold it near as it were your own?
Let my inspiration flow, in token lines suggesting rhythm, that will not forsake me, till my tale is told and done.
Don't waste the breath to save your face, When you have done your best, And even more is asked of you, Let fate decide the rest.
Let there be songs to fill the air.
What do you want me to do, To watch for you, To see you through? A box of rain will ease the pain, and love, will see you through.
Well, the first days are the hardest days, don't you worry anymore. When life looks like Easy Street there is danger at your door.
Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world, but the heart has its beaches, its homeland, and thoughts of its own. Wake now, discover that you are the song that the morning brings, but the heart has its seasons its evenings, and songs of its own
Without love in a dream it will never come true
Ain't no time to hate, barely time to wait
I won't slave for beggar's pay, likewise gold and jewels, but I would slave to learn the way, to sink your ship of fools. — © Robert Hunter
I won't slave for beggar's pay, likewise gold and jewels, but I would slave to learn the way, to sink your ship of fools.
Counting stars by candlelight all are dim but one is bright; the spiral light of Venus rising first and shining best, from the northwest corner of a brand-new crescent moon crickets and cicadas sing a rare and different tune.
When it seems like the night will last forever, And there's nothing left to do but count the years, When the strings of my harp to sever, And stones fall from my eyes instead of tears... I will walk alone by the black muddy river, And dream me a dream of my own, I will walk alone by the black muddy river, And sing me a song of my own.
Sit back picture yourself swooping up a shell of purple with foam crests of crystal drops soft nigh they fall unto the sea of morning creep-very-softly mist...and then sort of cascade tinkley-bell like (must I take you by the hand, every so slowly type) and then conglomerate suddenly into a peal of silver vibrant uncomprehendingly, blood singingly, joyously resoundingbells....By my faith if this be insanity, then for the love of God permit me to remain insane.
Sometimes we live no particular way but our own
One man gathers what another man spills
...if you get confused, just listen to the music play.
Perhaps people don't come into their true maturity until a parent dies.
The sky was yellow and the sun was blue.
Destroy yourself physically and morally and insist that all true brothers do likewise as an expression of unity.
River gonna take me, Sing me sweet and sleepy, Sing me sweet and sleepy all the way back home, It's a far gone lullaby sung many years ago Mama, Mama, many worlds I've come since I first left home
Comes a Time when the blind man takes your hand says DON'T YOU SEE? — © Robert Hunter
Comes a Time when the blind man takes your hand says DON'T YOU SEE?
There are times when you get hit upon, Try hard but you cannot give. Other times you'd gladly part, With what you need to live
When I was just a little young boy, Papa said Son, you'll never get far, I'll tell you the reason if you want to know, 'cause child of mine, there isn't really very far to go.
Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world.
Driving that train, high on cocaine Casey Jones you'd better watch your speed Trouble ahead, trouble behind And you know that notion just crossed my mind
Ain't nobody messin' with you but you
Outside major darkness where the circle is complete there's no fear that lovers born will ever fail to meet
Crippled but free, I was blind all the time I was learning to see.
Everything you gather is just one that you can lose.
Every song falls short of the glory of what a song could be. That's why the urge is there to start again and yet again. Often it's the fault of rhyme. I've discovered a hundred times that there just aren't enough rhymes to say what I wanted to say, so I said something else instead. Sometimes it was a better thing, but the thing I meant to say went unsaid. So there's an opening for another song.
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