The Buddha’s dharma didn’t teach peace and relaxation; it taught awakening—often rude awakening.

After an initial solo album in which the young [Bob] Dylan was just finding his voice (i.e., reinventing himself from the middle-class Robert Zimmerman into a pseudo-hobo Woody Guthrie), Dylan put out two acoustic albums that forever changed popular music.

In late [Bob] Dylan, music is the key to immortality, even though the summer days are long gone.

[Bob] Dylan, like Johnny Cash and only a handful of others, simultaneously embodies the American dream and the harsh wake-up call that comes after it.

Folk music had long been political but [Bob] Dylan's poetry took it to a new level.

I suspect many readers might associate [Bob Dylan] with one of the shortest phases of his career, the time from 1963 to '65 when he wrote his most famous "protest songs," like "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin.'"

Probably the high-watermark of [Bob] Dylan's career came after he plugged in his guitar ("Judas!" one fan shouted during a concert) and exploded American poetry, combining Beat aesthetics, psychedelic imagery, collage techniques.