Bob Dylan: Quotes about thinking

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

Bob Dylan: 1046 quotes51 likes

“Do you take me for such a fool to think I'd make contact with one that tries to hide what he don't know to begin with.”

Song lyrics, Highway 61 Revisited (1965), Positively 4th Street

“I think a poet is anybody who wouldn't call himself a poet.”

Quoted in Robert Shelton's No Direction Home https://books.google.com/books?id=-IefAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22I+think+a+poet+is+anybody+who+wouldn%27t+call+himself+a+poet.%22&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22I+think+a+poet+is+anybody+who+wouldn%27t+call+himself+a+poet.+Anybody+who+could+possibly+call+himself+a+poet+just+cannot+be+a+poet.%22 (1986), p. 353 <br class="br">Context: I think a poet is anybody who wouldn't call himself a poet. Anybody who could possibly call himself a poet just cannot be a poet.

“With your sheets like metal and your belt like lace,
And your deck of cards missing the jack and the ace,
And your basement clothes and your hollow face,
Who among them can think he could outguess you?”

Song lyrics, Blonde on Blonde (1966), Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands

“I think women rule the world, and that no man has ever done anything that a woman either hasn't allowed him to do or encouraged him to do.”

Rolling Stone interview (21 June 1984)

“Gonna change my way of thinking, make my self a different set of rules. Gonna put my good foot forward and stop being influenced by fools.”

“Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul”

Source: The Bob Dylan Scrapbook: 1956-1966

“I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.”

Interview published with the Biograph album set (1985)

“I'm against nature. I don't dig nature at all. I think nature is very unnatural. I think the truly natural things are dreams, which nature can't touch with decay.”

“Thinking of a series of dreams
Where the time and the tempo fly
And there's no exit in any direction
'Cept the one that you can't see with your eyes”

“I think the truly natural things are dreams, which nature can't touch with decay.”

“Some times I think this whole world
Is one big prison yeard
Some of us are prisoners
The rest of us are guards”

“Everything passes,
Everything changes,
Just do what you think you should do.”

“If I wasn't Bob Dylan, I'd probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.”

“When you think that you lost everything you find out you can always lose a little more.”

“But I can’t think for you
You’ll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side”

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

“All is gone, all is gone, admit it, take flight.
I gagged twice, doubled, tears blinding my sight.
My mind it was mangled, I ran into the night
Leaving all of love's ashes behind me.
The wind knocks my window, the room it is wet.
The words to say I'm sorry, I haven't found yet.
I think of her often and hope whoever she's met
Will be fully aware of how precious she is.
Ah, my friends from the prison, they ask unto me,
"How good, how good does it feel to be free?"”

And I answer them most mysteriously,
"Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?"
Song lyrics, Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964), Ballad In Plain D

“And I'll tell it and speak it and think it and breathe it.”

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

“Everything passes
Everything changes
Just do what you think you should do
And someday maybe
Who knows, baby
I'll come and be cryin' to you”

Song lyrics, Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964), To Ramona

“I began to think about William Shakespeare, the great literary figure. I would reckon he thought of himself as a dramatist. The thought that he was writing literature couldn't have entered his head. His words were written for the stage. Meant to be spoken not read. When he was writing Hamlet, I'm sure he was thinking about a lot of different things: "Who're the right actors for these roles?" "How should this be staged?" "Do I really want to set this in Denmark?" His creative vision and ambitions were no doubt at the forefront of his mind, but there were also more mundane matters to consider and deal with. "Is the financing in place?" "Are there enough good seats for my patrons?" "Where am I going to get a human skull?"”

I would bet that the farthest thing from Shakespeare's mind was the question "Is this literature?"
Nobel Banquet Speech

“If someone had ever told me that I had the slightest chance of winning the Nobel Prize, I would have to think that I'd have about the same odds as standing on the moon.”

Nobel Banquet Speech