Having hits buries a singer in the past. A lot of singers hide in the past because it's safer back there. If you've ever heard today's country music, you'll know what I'm talking about.
Bob DylanIt goes back to the destiny thing.I made a bargain with it, you know, a long time ago. And I'm holding up my end.
Bob DylanLife has its ups and downs, and time has to be your partner. Really, time is your soul mate.
Bob DylanEverything's a business. Love, truth, beauty. Conversation is a business. Spirituality is not a business, so it's going to go against the grain of people who are trying to exploit other people.
Bob DylanIn my childhood everything you heard, you could imagine what it looked like. Even singers that I would hear on the radio, I couldn't see what they looked like, so I imagined what they looked like. What they were wearing. What their movements were. Gene Vincent? When I first pictured him, he was a tall, lanky blond-haired guy.
Bob DylanThey say everything can be replaced, Yet every distance is not near. So I remember every face Of every man who put me here. I see my light come shining From the west unto the east. Any day now, any day now, I shall be released.
Bob DylanI've never written a political song. Songs can't save the world. I've gone through all that.
Bob DylanLove is all there is, it makes the world go around. Love and only love, it can't be denied.
Bob DylanSometimes it's not enough to know what things mean, sometimes you have to know what things don't mean.
Bob DylanYou say you're looking for someone who'll pick you up each time you fall, to gather flowers constantly and to come each time you call, a lover your life and nothing more. But it ain't me, babe.
Bob DylanJesus tapped me on the shoulder and said, Bob, why are you resisting me? I said, I'm not resisting you! He said, You gonna follow me? I said, I've never thought about that before! He said, When you're not following me, you're resisting me.
Bob DylanEvery brain is civilized, Every nerve is analyzed, Everything is criticized when you are in need.
Bob DylanCan't keep track of it no more, son's becoming husbands to their mothers, and old men turning your daughters into whores.
Bob DylanThat's another way of writing a song, of course. Just talking to somebody that ain't there. That's the best way. That's the truest way. Then it just becomes a question of how heroic your speech is. To me, it's something to strive after.
Bob DylanIf I had the stars from the darkest night and the diamonds from the deepest ocean, I'd forsake them all for your sweet kiss, for that's all I'm wishin' to be ownin'.
Bob DylanPeople think that singing and playing is easy. It's not. It's easy to strum along, but if you actually want to really play, where it's important, that's a hard thing and not too many people are good at it.
Bob DylanHeard ten thousand whispering and nobody listening. Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughing. Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter.
Bob DylanI feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet, putting her in a wheel-barrow and wheeling her down the street.
Bob Dylan[Bob] Dylan crashed his motorcycle in 1967, and almost died. A few years ago, he referred to the experience as a "transfiguration."
Bob DylanThere are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke. But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate, so let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late.
Bob DylanSome are masters of illusions, some are ministers of trade, all under the same delusion, all their beds unmade.
Bob Dylan