If you need somebody you can trust, trust yourself

You get older. You start having hopes for other people rather than yourself.

My songs were influenced not so much by poetry on the page but by poetry being recited by the poets who recited poems with jazz bands.

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.

i been meek, and hard like an oak, i seen pretty people disappear like smoke. friends will arrive, friends will disappear. if you want me, honey baby, i'll be here.

A brilliant 1989 album, Oh Mercy; some career retrospectives; and two albums of American folk songs, with just Bob Dylan and his guitar and harmonica. All that culminated in the Grammy-winning comeback album, Time Out of Mind (1997). Once again, just as Dylan seemed to be out of it, he was back at the top of his game.

I need all kinds of songs - fast ones, slow ones, minor key, ballads, rumbas - and they all get juggled around during a live show. I've been trying for years to come up with songs that have the feeling of a Shakespearean drama, so I'm always starting with that.