I came along and was a teenager in the Depression, and nobody had jobs. So I went out hitchhiking, when I met a man named Woody Guthrie. He was the single biggest part of my education.

Now somebody will ask me, Pete, how can you prove these songs really make a difference? And I have to confess I can't prove a darn thing, except that the people in power must think they do something, because they keep the songs off the air.

Food is one of the great organizing tools.

One of the things I'm most proud of about my country is the fact that we did lick McCarthyism back in the fifties.

I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing good that doesn't have bad consequences and nothing bad that doesn't have good consequences.

I love my country very dearly, and I greatly resent the implication that some of the places I have sung and some of the people that I have known, and some of my opinions, whether they are religious or philosophical, or I might be a vegetarian, make me any less of an American.

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