Bob Dylan wrote in his elliptical memoir, Chronicles: Volume One, he was washed up in the 1980s, no longer a commercial success, and no longer putting out good work.

Everything that I'm saying You can say it just as good

But I would not feel so all alone, everybody must get stoned.

You don't necessarily have to write to be a poet. Some people work in gas stations and they're poets. I don't call myself a poet, because I don't like the word. I'm a trapeze artist.

To live outside the law, you must be honest.

My best songs were written very quickly. Just about as much time as it takes to write it down is about as long as it takes to write it...In writing songs I've learned as much from Cezanne as I have from Woody Guthrie...It's not me, it's the songs. I'm just the postman, I deliver the songs...I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I'll die like a poet.

Once you think you know the song, then you have go and see how other people have done it.