I learned by transcribing songs out of the Library of Congress collection in Washington where I was working. I got a job when I just turned twenty in 1939 and Alan [Lomax] needed some help. I listened to hundreds of records every week.

A song is like a picture of a bird in flight; the bird was moving before the picture was taken, and no doubt continued after.

I always knew that sooner or later there would come somebody like Woody Guthrie who could make a great song every week. Dylan certainly had a social agenda, but he was such a good poet that most of his attempts were head and shoulders above things that I and others were trying to do. ... If I had an address, I'd send him a birthday card saying, 'keep on going.'

And the people in the houses All went to the University And they got put in boxes Little boxes all the same, Little boxes all the same, Little boxes all the same, Little boxes all the same And they all come out all the same.

I came from an intellectual family. Most were doctors, preachers, teachers, businessmen. My grandfather was a small businessman. His father was an abolitionist doctor, and his father was an immigrant from Germany.

I believe that my choosing my present course I do no dishonor to them, or to those who may come after me.

Hope that there are many, many small leaders.