Bob Dylan Quotes

Fox’s Book of Martyrs, The Twelve Caesars, Tacitus lectures and letters to Brutus. Pericles’ Ideal State of Democracy, Thucydides’ The Athenian General

I put one on the turntable and when the needle dropped, I was stunned — didn't know if I was stoned or straight... All these songs together, one after another made my head spin. It made me want to gasp. It was like the land parted.

The actor Tony Curtis once told me that fame is an occupation in itself, that it is a separate thing. And Tony couldn't be more right. The old image slowly faded and in time I found myself no longer under
the canopy of some malignant influence. Eventually different anachronisms were thrust upon me — anachronisms of lesser dilemma — though they might seem bigger. Legend, Icon, Enigma (Buddha in European Clothes was my favorite) — stuff like that, but that was all right. These titles were placid and harmless, threadbare, easy to get around with them. Prophet, Messiah, Savior — those are tough ones.

Hattie Carroll was a maid of the kitchen She was fifty-one years old and gave birth to ten children
Who carried the dishes and took out the garbage And never sat once at the head of the table And didn‘t even talk to the people at the table Who just cleande up all the food from the table And emptied the ashtrays in a whole other level Got killed by a blow, lay slain by a cane That sailed through the air and came down through the room Doomed and determined to destroy all the gentle And she never done nothing to William Zanzinger But you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears Take the rag away from your face Now ain‘t the time for your tears.

Through the mad mystic hammering of the wild ripping hail,
The sky cracked its poems in naked wonder,
That the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze
Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder
Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind,
Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind,
An' the poet and the painter far behind his rightful time
An' we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.

The people in my songs are all me.

I'm inconsistent, even to myself.

The Duke [John Wayne] was a massive figure. He looked like a heavy piece of hauled lumber, and it didn't seem like any man could stand shoulder to shoulder with him.

Come all without, come all within, You'll not see nothing like the mighty Quinn.

You say you love me and you're thinking of me, but you know you might be wrong.

It ain't my cup of meat.

The Osborne Brothers are a high-powered bluegrass group. Maybe the most high.

I'm gonna baptize you in fire so you can sin no more.

But if the arrow is straight
And the point is slick
It can pierce through dust no matter how thick

Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people, they're drinkin', thinkin' that they got it made