Bob Dylan: Likeness

Bob Dylan is American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist. Explore interesting quotes on likeness.

Bob Dylan: 1046 quotes51 likes

“I once held her in my arms,
She said she would always stay,
But I was cruel, I treated her like a fool,
I threw it all away.”

Song lyrics, Nashville Skyline (1969), I Threw It All Away

“There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all.”

Song lyrics, Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Love Minus Zero/No Limit

“All that foreign oil controlling American soil. Look around you, it's just bound to make you embarrassed: sheiks walking around like kings, wearing fancy jewels and nose rings, deciding America's future from Amsterdam and to Paris.”

Song lyrics, Slow Train Coming (1979), Slow Train

“Well, God is in His heaven
And we all want what's his
But power and greed and corruptible seed
Seem to be all that there is
I'm gazing out the window
Of the St. James Hotel
And I know no one can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell”

Song lyrics, The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961-1991 (1991), Blind Willie McTell (recorded 1983)

“He's a pinboy. He also wears suspenders. He's a real person. You know him, but not by that name… I saw him come into the room one night and he looked like a camel. He proceeded to put his eyes in his pocket. I asked this guy who he was and he said, "That's Mr. Jones." Then I asked this cat, "Doesn't he do anything but put his eyes in his pocket?" And he told me, "He puts his nose on the ground."”

It's all there, it's a true story.
When asked about the meaning of the song "Ballad of a Thin Man" during a 1965 interview.

“Like Shakespeare, I too am often occupied with the pursuit of my creative endeavors and dealing with all aspects of life's mundane matters. "Who are the best musicians for these songs?" "Am I recording in the right studio?" "Is this song in the right key?" Some things never change, even in 400 years. Not once have I ever had the time to ask myself, "Are my songs literature?" So, I do thank the Swedish Academy, both for taking the time to consider that very question, and, ultimately, for providing such a wonderful answer.”

Nobel Banquet Speech

“You've been with the professors and they've all liked your looks. With great lawyers you've discussed lepers and crooks.”

Song lyrics, Highway 61 Revisited (1965), Ballad of a Thin Man

“Colleges are like old-age homes; except for the fact that more people die in colleges.”

Playboy Interview (February 1966)

“The one was Texas medicine. the other was just railroad gin. And, like a fool, I mixed them and it strangled up my mind and now people just get uglier and I have no sense of time.”

Song lyrics, Blonde on Blonde (1966), Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again

“When I first heard Elvis's voice I just knew that I wasn't going to work for anybody and nobody was going to be my boss. He is the deity supreme of rock and roll religion as it exists in today's form. Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail. I think for a long time that freedom to me was Elvis singing 'Blue Moon of Kentucky.”

I thank God for Elvis.
US magazine (24 August 1987); on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Elvis Presley's death, as reported in Bob Dylan: Performing Artist 1986–1990 and Beyond, Mind out of Time (2009)

“A woman like you should be at home. That's where you belong, taking care of somebody nice who don't know how to do you wrong.”

Song lyrics, Infidels (1983), Sweetheart Like You

“I like to do just like the rest,
I like my sugar sweet, but guarding fumes and making haste,
it ain't my cup of meat.”

Song lyrics, Self Portrait (1970), Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)

“I had to say something to strike him very weird so I yelled out "I like Fidel Castro and his beard."”

Song lyrics, Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964), Motorpsycho Nightmare

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

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

“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”

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

“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?”

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

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

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

“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.”

No Direction Home (2005)

“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.'”

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