A Quote by Bob Dylan

I'm good with songs I haven't written, if I like them. I'm glad I didn't write any of them. I already know how they go, so I have more freedom with them. I understand these songs. I've known them for 40 years, 50 years, maybe longer, and they make a lot of sense. So I'm not coming to them like a stranger.
Most of the people you see me working for me are actually with me. And I'm proud to say that I've known them for 20 years almost. I've written songs with, produced songs with them a lot of times. I don't deviate form my comfort zone. I feel like when God brings people to you, it's good to keep 'em around.
When you hear kids singing your songs it just validates them, they sound like real songs when you hear them back, it's quite refreshing. Like songs that could have been around for a hundred years.
When you write songs, you have to like them yourself first, but then you have to make everyone else like them, because you can force them to play it, but you can't force them to like it.
My feeling is that, and I've been writing about my family over the years, although it might make them feel uncomfortable, people generally like to be written about. If I've written a song about the family, they enjoy being mentioned in the songs. Nobody's confronted me and said 'don't write any songs about me.
So, in some ways, the political songs tend to be a bit more like reportage, whereas the love songs tend to be like novels, you can pick them up off the shelf and go into them any time.
I write songs for myself, songs come out of me, I get enjoyment out of it. Basically, that's it - I get enjoyment out of my songs, I know they're good songs, and know that the people around me who I respect are all getting up on these tunes, and the feedback is really good, so that's it. There are people who will receive them, and don't receive them. Not in a spiritual sense, but in a commercial sense - do these songs treat people, and so far they're working.
The best tunes are songs with a face. You recognize them. You know them. It’s like a person. They have a face that’s outstanding. Other songs don’t have a face. You just hear them, that’s all. The really good ones are few and far between.
trees, unlike so many humans, always improve on acquaintance. No matter how much you like them at the start you are sure to like them much better further on, and best of all when you have known them for years and enjoyed intercourse with them in all seasons.
I went back into the older stories and reworked them, because I became a better writer over the years and could spot flaws. I loved having another chance to make them stronger, and to bring them closer to me, made them less like a greatest hits compilation, and more like something written in the same extended burst.
I start a lot more songs than I finish, because I realize when I get into them, they're no good. I don't throw them away, I just put them away, store them, get them out of sight.
It's perfectly okay if you don't understand every single one of them. For one thing, I make a lot of corny jokes, and you have to be 40 years old to get some of them.
It's perfectly okay if you don't understand every single one of them. For one thing, I make a lot of corny jokes, and you have to be 40 years old to get some of them.
Restaurants are like having children: its fun to make them, maybe, but then you have them for good and bad. You are going to have to raise them and if something goes wrong when they are 30 years old, they will still be your little boy.
Restaurants are like having children: it's fun to make them, maybe, but then you have them for good and bad. You are going to have to raise them and if something goes wrong when they are 30 years old, they will still be your little boy.
I do think I know more about clothes than any 500 designers, because there's nothing like wearing them. You buy them, you study them, and you start to understand how they're crafted.
There can hardly be a stranger commodity in the world than books. Printed by people who don't understand them; sold by people who don't understand them; bound, criticized and read by people who don't understand them; and now even written by people who don't understand them.
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