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

"Masters of War" [of Bob Dylan] wasn't peacenik, anti-war stuff. With its minor key and uncompromising final lines ("And I hope that you die/And your death'll come soon/ I will follow your casket/ In the pale afternoon...") this was a previously unknown hybrid of caustic political commentary and punk rock, which itself wouldn't be invented for another decade or so.

[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.

There has been a ton of excellent music in this period (along with a few misses), evoking scenes like a bar-room brawl at a border-town dive, a washed-up singer in a smoky lounge, and the scenes of violence in Bob Dylan latter-day music videos.I think the ethos of this period is best summed up in the 2001 song "Summer Days".

At the last stages of the journey, there’s no journey at all.

I was raised a nice Jewish boy in a Conservative household. Went to Camp Ramah. It's funny actually. I think I enacted my queerness there unconsciously. I was kind of one of the weirdos. I was on staff and definitely interested in alternatives to what that social structure was supposed to be.

[Bob] Dylan's many quotations from classic American roots music (that song is from an album aptly titled Love and Theft) join the aging poet to a tradition that preceded him and hopefully will outlive him as well.