Again, I say I will be glad to tell what songs I have ever sung, because singing is my business.

In a world of private property, if something isn't owned by somebody, it's going to be misused by somebody else.

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.

After visits to several Communist countries (USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Slovenia, East Germany, Vietnam, China, Cuba), I feel strongly that most "revolutionary" types around the world don't realize the importance of freedom of the press and the air, a right to peaceably assemble and discuss anything, including the dangers of such discussions.

When I got out of school, I spent two years just hitchhiking around. Every time I met some old farmer who could play banjo, I got him to teach me a lick or two. Little by little, I put it together.

Every time I'm in the woods, i feel like I'm in church.

Anybody who wants to learn everything is pretty stupid. You learn what you can.