Bruce Springsteen Quotes

You've got to be able to hold a lot of contradictory ideas in your mind without going nuts. I feel like to do my job right, when I walk out on stage I've got to feel like it's the most important thing in the world. Also I've got to feel like, well, it's only rock and roll. Somehow you've got to believe both of those things.

To her Cheshire smile, I'll stand on file, she's all I ever wanted. But you let your blue walls get in the way of these facts.

I didn't know if it would be a success-ful one, or what the stages would be, but I always saw myself as a lifetime musician and songwriter.

It's a sad man my friend who's livin' in his own skin and can't stand the company.

At night I wake up with my sheets soaking wet and a freight train running through the middle of my head.

The only thing I can say about having this type of success is that you can get yourself in trouble because basically the world is set open for you. People will say yes to anything you ask, so it's basically down to you and what you want or need.

Let there be sunshine, let there be rain, let the broken hearted love again.

The first time I heard Bob Dylan, I was in the car with my mother listening to WMCA, and on came that snare shot that sounded like somebody'd kicked open the door to your mind.

The question of whether we were misled into the war in Iraq isn't a liberal or conservative or Republican or Democratic question, it's an American one. Protecting the democracy that we ask our sons and daughters to die for is our responsibility and our trust. Demanding accountability from our leaders is our job as citizens. It's the American way. So may the truth win out.

Mama always told me not to look into the sights of the sun. Oh, but mama, that's where the fun is.

Hey man, did you see that? His body hit the street with such a beautiful thud.

Most of these - most people's stage personas are created out of the flotsam and jetsam of their internal geography.

When I was growing up, there were two things that were unpopular in my house. One was me, and the other was my guitar.

A great rock band searches for the same kind of combustible force that fueled the expansion of the universe after the big bang. You want the earth to shake and spit fire. You want the sky to split apart and for God to pour out.

Settle back is to settle without knowing.

You weren't supposed to hear Elvis Presley. You weren't supposed to hear Jerry Lee Lewis. You weren't supposed to hear Robert Johnson. You weren't supposed to hear Hank Williams. And they told the story of the secret America.

Badlands, you got to live it everyday, let the broken hearts stand as the price you've got to pay.

To say I'll make your dreams come true would be wrong, but maybe, darling, I could help them along.

The past is never the past. It is always present. And you better reckon with it in your life and in your daily experience, or it will get you. It will get you really bad.

You have moments of clarity, things become clear to you that you didn't understand before. But there's never any making ends meet or finding any time of longstanding peace of mind about something.

You can revisit - the wonderful thing about my job is you can revisit your 22-year-old self or your 24-year-old self any particular night you want. The songs pick up some extra resonance, I hope, but they're still - they're there, and I can revisit that period of my life when I choose. So it's quite a nice experience.

Elvis is my religion. But for him, I'd be selling encyclopedias right now.

There's a beauty in work and I love it, all different kinds of work. That's what I consider it. Rock is my job, and that's my work. And I work my ass off, you know.

I told a story with the E Street Band that was bigger and better than I could have done on my own.

You ask for your audience's investment in your music; you're in a relationship with them. And their relationship with the E Street Band is separate from whatever else I might do. I like the idea of us being something that people rely on.

Talk about a dream, try to make it real.

Wendy, let me in, I wanna be your friend. I wanna guard your dreams and visions.

People see you onstage and, yeah, I'd want to be that guy.I want to be that guy myself very often.

I had tried to go to college, and I didn't really fit in. I went to a real narrow-minded school where people gave me a lot of trouble, and I was hounded off the campus - I just looked different and acted different, so I left school.

Don't take yourself too seriously. And take yourself as seriously as death itself.

I think initially, our audiences were filled with young men. You know, our initial audience was a lot of young guys who I think were trying to - who you played a bit of a big brother role for and were trying to sort out a lot of the same things right - soon as "Born To Run" hit, you know? So it was something that I worked pretty hard on.

Got a wife and kid in Baltimore Jack, I went out for a ride and I never went back. Like a river that don't know where it's flowing, I took a wrong turn and I just kept going.

Those wounds stay with you, and you turn them into a language and a purpose.

For the ones who had a notion, a notion deep inside That it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive

For one kiss, darling, I swear everything I would give. Cause you're a walking, talking reason to live.

Out of our way mister, you best keep.

I think if somebody comes up and simply says, your jobs? I'm going to bring them back. You're not comfortable with the browning of America? I'm going to build a wall. ISIS, I'm going to defeat them. Those are very - it's a simple, but it was a compelling message for a lot of people.

Pessimism and optimism are slammed up against each other in my records, the tension between them is where it's all at, it's what lights the fire.

My soul is lost, my friend, tell me how do I begin again? My city's in ruins, my city's in ruins.

Hey, little dolly with the blue jeans on, I want to ramrod with you, honey, 'til half past dawn.

If you see me performing, you're going, that guy is simply the most extroverted guy I've ever seen. But if you've seen me very often on a daily basis and all the while growing up, I was very, very introverted. Very introverted. So I have sort of the extremes of both of those characteristics.

You can't start a fire without a spark

What you were singing about was believable and convincing, that's the key to a great singer.

I come from a boardwalk town where almost everything is tinged with a bit of fraud. So am I.

I never start with a political point of view. I believe that your politics are emotionally and psychologically determined by your early experiences.

If you're up there [on stage] thinking about what you're doing, you're just not there and it's not going to happen.So trying to learn how to overcome those - which is a normal thing to do. You're in front of a lot of people. People are going to get very self-conscious. So you have to learn to sort of overcome that tendency towards self-consciousness and just blow it wide open. And you jump in and join all those people that are out there enjoying what you're doing together.

A great singer has to learn how to inhabit a song.

I think you can't demonize somebody that's on the other side of the political spectrum, or you can't generalize about them.