The truth is a rabbit in a bramble patch. All you can do is circle around and say it's somewhere in there.

Some folklorists just collected dead bones from one graveyard, only to bury them in another, their library.

Alan [Lomax] and his father started off changing the definition of folk music from something ancient and anonymous to something very contemporary.

Be wary of great leaders.

You'd be surprised how many stupid mistakes I've made. I make stupid mistakes all the time, and some of them have been very big stupid mistakes.

My dad, the old professor, used to say, 'Never get into an argument about what's folk music and what isn't.'

Any idiot can be complicated. It takes a genius to be simple.