Bruce Springsteen Quotes

Now everyone dreams of a love faithful and true, But you and I know what this world can do. So let's make our steps clear so the other may see. And I'll wait for you...should I fall behind wait for me.

Jack the Rabbit and Weak Knee Willie, you know they're gonna be there. Sloppy Sue and Big Bones Billy, they'll be coming up for air.

Politics and life go hand in hand.

I've had an experience through music that has touched almost every part of me. It educated me in ways that I didn't get educated in school. So we try to lay on a bit of that, through being funny, being serious, playing hard.

You can't shut off the risk and the pain without losing the love that remains.

The first thing that I do when I come out every night is to look at the faces in front of me, very individually.

Well I got this guitar and I learned how to make it talk.

Roy Orbison is singing for the lonely, hey, that's me and I want you only.

Somewhere along the way, the idea, which I think was initially to get some fair transaction between people, went out the window. And what came in was, the most you can get and the least you can give. That's why cars are the way they are nowadays. It's just an erosion of all the things that were true and right about the original idea.

When I first started in rock, I had a big guy's audience for my early records. I had a very straight image, particularly through the mid '80s.

I held four clean aces. I had youth, almost a decade of hard-core bar band experience, a good group of homegrown musicians who were attuned to my performance style and a story to tell.

Think of it this way: performing is like sprinting while screaming for three, four minutes. And then you do it again. And then you do it again. And then you walk a little, shouting the whole time. And so on. Your adrenaline quickly overwhelms your conditioning.

I had no credit cards. I had no checks. I was cash only until I was probably 30 years old.

The future is now. Roll up your sleeves and let your passion flow. The country we carry in our hearts is waiting.

All the music I loved as a child, people thought it was junk. People were unaware of the subtext in so many of those records but if you were a kid you were just completely tuned in, even though you didn't always say - you wouldn't dare say it was beautiful.

The audiences are there as a result of my history with the band but also as a result of my being able to reach people with a tune.

I was the only person I'd ever met who had a record contract. None of the E Street Band, as far as I know, had been on an airplane until Columbia sent us to Los Angeles.

Sometimes, at night you could hear the whole damn city crying.

In America everything's about who's number one today.

After 'Born to Run,' I had a reaction to my good fortune. With success, it felt like a lot of people who'd come before me lost some essential part of themselves. My greatest fear was that success was going to change or diminish that part of myself.

I found the key to the universe in the engine of an old parked car.

If you listen to the great Beatle records, the earliest ones where the lyrics are incredibly simple. Why are they still beautiful? Well, they're beautifully sung, beautifully played, and the mathematics in them is elegant. They retain their elegance.

I looked at myself, and I just said, well, you know, I can sing but I'm not the greatest singer in the world. I can play guitar very well, but I'm not the greatest guitar player in the world... And so I said, well, if I'm going to project an individuality, it's going to have to be in my writing.

You use to drive me wild, but lately you get your kicks from just knocking me down, down, down.

But I think that your entire life is a process of sorting out some of those early messages that you got.

Sky of blackness and sorrow, sky of love, sky of tears. Sky of glory and sadness, sky of mercy, sky of fear.

The things that I loved about Bob's [Dylan] music - and I describe him in the book as the father of my country, which he really is - were things that just didn't fit when I went to do my job. You know, I'd come out of a somewhat different circumstance and shoes - the clothes just didn't fit.

It's always felt natural, because I'm generally very comfortable with people.

You've always got to remember, rock and roll's never been about giving up. For me, for a lot of kids, it was a totally positive force... not optimistic all the time, but positive. It was never--never--a bout surrender.

Getting an audience is hard. Sustaining an audience is hard. It demands a consistency of thought, of purpose, and of action over a long period of time.

I have my ideas, I have my music and I also just enjoy showing off, so that's a big part of it. Also, I like to get up onstage and behave insanely or express myself physically, and the band can get pretty silly.

I was looking for some way to put my music to some service on a nightly basis. You go into a town, you play a little music, you leave something behind. That idea connected us to the local community. It was a very simple idea, but it really resonated with me.

When you get fat and lose your hunger. That is when you know the sellout has happened.

I'm just tired and bored with myself.

The man on the radio says Elvis Presley's died. We drove to Memphis, the sky was hard and black.

Once you get into the book, you've got to constantly find your - the rhythm of your prose. And it ends up being quite a musical experience either way.

And whether you're drawn to gospel music or church music or honky-tonk music, it informs your character and it informs your talent.

From the beginning, I imagined I would have a long work life.

Show a little faith there is magic in the night. You ain't a beauty, but hey you're alright, and that's alright with me.

If you don't connect yourself to your family and to the world in some fashion, through your job or whatever it is you do, you feel like you're disappearing, you feel like you're fading away, you know? I felt like that for a very very long time. Growing up, I felt like that a lot. I was just invisible; an invisible person. I think that feeling, wherever it appears, and I grew up around people who felt that way, it's an enormous source of pain; the struggle to make yourself felt and visible. To have some impact, and to create meaning for yourself, and for the people you come in touch with.

The music is pretty relentless. You've got to find some way of letting the audience breathe for a minute, give them a little bit of air - but not too much. Otherwise it would get real intense. The room would get very tense.

There have been a lotta tough guys. There have been pretenders. And there have been contenders. But there is only one king.

I studied other singers, so I would learn how to phrase, and learn how to breathe. And the main thing was, I learned how to inhabit my song.

Steve Van Zandt, the poor guy, doesn't get to play enough as it is with me hogging a lot of the solos. Steve has always been a fabulous guitarist. Back from the day when we were both teenagers together, he led his band and played lead and was always a hot guitar player.

For me, I was somebody who was a smart young guy who didn't do very well in school. The basic system of education, I didn't fit in; my intelligence was elsewhere.

For me, President Obama is our best choice because he has a vision of the United States as a place where we are all in this together.

I don't know many artists who are not crazy.

All you can do is show people...You tell stories that are true and compelling.