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Bob Dylan Quotes
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Robert Dylan is an American singer, songwriter, musician, painter, and writer. He has been influential in popular music and culture for more than five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when he became a reluctant "voice of a generation" with songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'", which became anthems for the Civil Rights Movement and anti-war movement. Leaving behind his initial base in the American folk music revival, his six-minute single "Like a Rolling Stone", recorded in 1965, enlarged the range of popular music.

Dylan's lyrics incorporate a wide range of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences. They defied existing pop music conventions and appealed to the burgeoning counterculture. Initially inspired by the performances of Little Richard and the songwriting of Woody Guthrie, Robert Johnson, and Hank Williams, Dylan has amplified and personalized musical genres. His recording career, spanning more than 50 years, has explored the traditions in American song—from folk, blues, and country to gospel, rock and roll, and rockabilly to English, Scottish, and Irish folk music, embracing even jazz and the Great American Songbook. Dylan performs with guitar, keyboards, and harmonica. Backed by a changing lineup of musicians, he has toured steadily since the late 1980s on what has been dubbed the Never Ending Tour. His accomplishments as a recording artist and performer have been central to his career, but his songwriting is considered his greatest contribution. Since 1994, Dylan has also published seven books of drawings and paintings, and his work has been exhibited in major art galleries.

As a musician, Dylan has sold more than 100 million records, making him one of the best-selling artists of all time. He has also received numerous awards including eleven Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and an Academy Award. Dylan has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Minnesota Music Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, and Songwriters Hall of Fame. The Pulitzer Prize jury in 2008 awarded him a special citation for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power." In May 2012, Dylan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama. In 2016, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition".

✵ 24. May 1941   •   Other names بوب ديلون
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Bob Dylan: 523   quotes 50   likes

Bob Dylan Quotes

“I had been in a motorcycle accident and I'd been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race. Having children changed my life and segregated me from just about everybody and everything that was going on. Outside of my family, nothing held any real interest for me and I was seeing everything through different glasses.”

Bob Dylan

Source: Chronicles: Vol. One (2004), p. 114

Life , Children , Truth , Family

“It ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
If you don't know by now”

Bob Dylan

Compare: "It ain't no use to sit and sigh now, darlin." Paul Clayton, Who's Gonna Buy You Ribbons (When I'm Gone).
Song lyrics, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

“I was just too stubborn to ever be governed by enforced insanity.”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Biograph (1985), Up to Me (recorded 1974)

“Take your clothes, put 'em in a sack. You goin' down the road, baby, and you cant come back. Someday baby, you ain't gonna worry po' me any more.”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Modern Times (2006), Someday Baby

Baby , Clothes

“I used to think that myself and my songs were the same thing. But I don't believe that any more. There's myself and there's my song, which I hope is everybody's song.”

Bob Dylan

Interview by Hubert Saal, "Dylan is Back," Newsweek (26 February 1968)

Hope , Thinking

“They say in your father's house there's many mansions; each one of 'em got a fireproof floor.”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Infidels (1983), Sweetheart Like You

Housing

“Even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

“He’s sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Blonde on Blonde (1966), Visions of Johanna

“They tell you "Time is money," as if your life was worth its weight in gold.”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Slow Train Coming (1979), When You Gonna Wake Up

Life , Money , Time

“I've always been the kind of person who doesn't like to trespass, but sometimes you just find yourself over the line.”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Knocked Out Loaded (1986), Brownsville Girl (with Sam Shepard)

Personality

“I've been deceived by the clown inside of me. I thought that he was righteous but he's vain.”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Biograph (1985), Abandoned Love (recorded 1975)

“I'm gonna baptize you in fire so you can sin no more.”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Love and Theft (2001), Bye and Bye

“Get jailed, jump bail
Join the army, if you fail”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Subterranean Homesick Blues

“The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind.”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), Blowin' in the Wind

“I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it.”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall

Baby

“The road out would be treacherous, and I didn’t know where it would lead but I followed it anyway. It was a strange world ahead that would unfold, a thunderhead of a world with jagged lightning edges. Many got it wrong and never did get it right. I went straight into it. It was wide open. One thing for sure, not only was it not run by God, but it wasn’t run by the devil either.”

Bob Dylan

Source: Chronicles: Vol. One (2004), p. 293

God , World

“Don't wanna judge nobody — don't wanna be judged.”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Slow Train Coming (1979), Do Right to Me Baby

“She is good to me
There's nothing she doesn't see
She knows where I’d like to be
But it doesn’t matter…
I want you”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Blonde on Blonde (1966), I Want You

“Money doesn't talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

Money

“Yes, and how many years can a mountain exist before it is washed to the sea?”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), Blowin' in the Wind

Mountain , Sea

“Ring them bells Sweet Martha
For the poor man's son
Ring them bells so the world will know
That God is one
Oh the shepherd is asleep
Where the willows weep
And the mountains are filled with lost sheep.”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Oh Mercy (1989), Ring Them Bells

God , World , Mountain

“So if you're travelin' in the north country fair,
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline,
Remember me to one who lives there.
She once was a true love of mine.”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), Girl from the North Country

Love , Country

“Of war and peace the truth just twist, its curfew gull it glides.”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Gates of Eden

War , Truth , Peace

“They're selling postcards of the hanging”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Highway 61 Revisited (1965), Desolation Row

“I couldn’t see what you could show me
Your scarf had kept your mouth well hid”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Blonde on Blonde (1966), One Of Us Must Know (Sooner Or Later)

“You got innocent men in jail, your insane asylums are filled.”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Slow Train Coming (1979), When You Gonna Wake Up

Men

“It's not aimed at anyone, it's just escapin' on the run”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Mr. Tambourine Man

“Up on Housing Project Hill, it's either fortune or fame. You must pick one or the other, though neither of them are to be what they claim.”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Highway 61 Revisited (1965), Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues

Housing

“What was the future? The future was a solid wall, not promising, not threatening—all bunk. No guarantees of anything, not even the guarantee that life isn't one big joke.”

Bob Dylan

Source: Chronicles: Vol. One (2004), p. 49

Life , Future

“Gonna forget about myself for a while, gonna go out and see what others need.”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Modern Times (2006), Thunder on the Mountain

Forgetting

“Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Highway 61 Revisited (1965), Desolation Row

“All and all can only fall with a crushing but meaningless blow.”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Gates of Eden

“Backstage the girls were playin' five-card stud by the stairs,
Lily had two queens, she was hopin' for a third to match her pair.
Outside the streets were fillin' up, the window was open wide,
A gentle breeze was blowin', you could feel it from inside.
Lily called another bet and drew up the Jack of Hearts.”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Blood on the Tracks (1975), Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts

Feeling , Girl , Heart

“At certain times I read a lot of poetry. My favorite poets are Shelley and Keats. Rimbaud is so identifiable. Lord Byron. I don't know. Lately if I read poems, it's like I can always hear the guitar. Even with Shakespeare's sonnets I can hear a melody because it's all broken up into timed phrases so I hear it. I always keep thinking, 'What kind of song would this be?”

Bob Dylan

Interview with Denise Worrell, "'It's All Right in Front': Dylan on Life and Rock" in Time Magazine (25 November 1985)

Thinking , Time , Reading

“Because Dickens and Dostoyevsky and Woody Guthrie were telling their stories much better than I ever could, I decided to stick to my own mind.”

Bob Dylan

"Only Human Driftin' And Learnin'" http://www.interferenza.com/bcs/interw/63-aug.htm by Sidney Fields, New York Mirror (9 December 1963)

“I sucked the milk out of a thousand cows.”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Modern Times (2006), Thunder on the Mountain

“I ain't looking for you to feel like me, see like me, or be like me.”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964), All I Really Want To Do

Feeling

“Do you ever wonder just what God requires? You think he's just an errand boy to satisfy your wandering desires.”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Slow Train Coming (1979), When You Gonna Wake Up

God , Boy , Thinking

“I had no answers to any of those questions any more than any other performer did, really. But, you know, that didn't stop the press or people or whoever they were from asking these questions. They, for some reason the press thought that performers had the answers to all these problems in the society and you know, like what can… What can you say to something like that? I mean, it's just kind of absurd.”

Bob Dylan

No Direction Home (2005)

People , Question , Problem

“The Titanic sails at dawn”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Highway 61 Revisited (1965), Desolation Row

“Nothing is revealed”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, John Wesley Harding (1967), The Ballad Of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest

“Tangled up in blue…”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Blood on the Tracks (1975), Tangled Up In Blue

“Well, if you, my love, must think that-a-way,
I'm sure your mind is roamin.”

Bob Dylan

I'm sure your heart is not with me,
But with the country to where you're goin'.
Song lyrics, The Times They Are A-Changin (1964), Boots of Spanish Leather

Way , Love , Thinking , Making love

“You never ask questions When God's on your side”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, The Times They Are A-Changin (1964), With God On Our Side

God , Question

“Gonna get me an army, some tough sons o' bitches
I recruit my army from the orphanages.”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Modern Times (2006), Thunder on the Mountain

Bitch

“Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who that it's naming.’
For the loser now will be later to win”

Bob Dylan

Source: Song lyrics, The Times They Are A-Changin' (1964), The Times They Are A-Changin

Chance

“Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown.
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin.'”

Bob Dylan

Source: Song lyrics, The Times They Are A-Changin' (1964), The Times They Are A-Changin

Time , People , Water

“And it's all over now, Baby Blue.”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

Baby

“Forget the dead you've left, they will not follow you...”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

Dead , Forgetting

“Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you.”

Bob Dylan

Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), It's All Over Now, Baby Blue