Quote collection
399 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"A song, you know, you've got a tempo. You know,you've got something that is moving swiftly. You can't stop it, you know? Andit's designed to move swiftly from, you know, mouth to mouth, heart to heart,where a poem really speaks to something that has no time and that is - it's acompletely different perception."
"And this is our time-keeper, with a passion for percussion"
"You've got a deadline. Well, I do, too: death."
"Your body will never be familiar."
"Anyone who's been a heavy drinker and heavy smoker and has the good future to survive that and give it up knows what a very different kind of daily existence one has. I was smoking a couple of packs of cigarettes a day. And I was drinking heavily on tours."
"The fact that my songs take a long time to write is no guarantee of their excellence."
"[I had a sense of interior panic].Always. I didn't really know what to call it for a long time, but I have a friend in Greece who used that word panic a lot, and I found myself resisting it, until I totally accepted that as a precise description of my interior condition. It was mostly panic from one moment to the next. And nothing much else was going on."
"There's always a nice tune [on radio] - helps you get the dishes done . I like to get the news from time to time - not too often. I don't feel deprived."
"I think that any songwriter - and I think that Bob Dylan knows this more than all of us - you don't write the songs anyhow."
"Seriousness is the deepest pleasure we have."
"Israel, and you who call yourself Israel, the Church that calls itself Israel, and the revolt that calls itself Israel, and every nation chosen to be a nation - none of these lands is yours, all of you are thieves of holiness, all of you at war with Mercy."
"It's coming to America first, The cradle of the best and of the worst. It's here they got the range And the machinery for change And it's here they got the spiritual thirst. It's here the family's broken And it's here the lonely say That the heart has got to open In a fundamental way: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A. O mighty Ship of State! To the Shores of Need Past the Reefs of Greed Through the Squalls of Hate Sail on, sail on."
"You can do anything you want to [ in ashram] if you can find the time. It's a very rigorous day. It starts at 2:30 in the morning and often doesn't end until midnight, so if you can actually find a moment to have a drink or a smoke, you're quite welcome to, as long as it doesn't interfere with your capacity to follow the schedule."
"There's a deep tribal aspect to my own nature. So when I'm in contact with those deep resources, of course I feel a very special kind of nourishment."
"Get ready for the future: it is murder."
"It's easy to look down from the summit you've reached, or even the summit I've reached, and talk about the responsibilities of the artist, but most people are just trying to get their foot in the door and make a living."
"God is alive. Magic is afoot. God is alive. Magic is afoot. God is afoot. Magic is alive. Alive is afoot. Magic never died. God never sickened. Many poor men lied. Many sick men lied. Magic never weakened. Magic never hid. Magic always ruled. God is afoot. God was ruler though his funeral lengthened. Though his mourners thickened Magic never fled."
"It is painful to recall a past intensity, to estimate your distance from the Belsen heap, to make your peace with numbers. Just to get up each morning is to make a kind of peace."
"When you call me close to tell me your body is not beautiful I want to summon the eyes and hidden mouths of stone and light and water to testify against you."
"Yes, you who must leave everything that you cannot control, It begins with your family, and soon it comes round to your soul. Well I've been where you're hanging, I think I can see how you're pinned: When you're not feeling holy your loneliness says that you've sinned."