
(Ain't That) Good News
Song lyrics, Ain't That Good News (1964)
The Language of the Night (1979)
Context: I have never found anywhere, in the domain of art, that you don't have to walk to. (There is quite an array of jets, buses and hacks which you can ride to Success; but that is a different destination.) It is a pretty wild country. There are, of course, roads. Great artists make the roads; good teachers and good companions can point them out. But there ain't no free rides, baby. No hitchhiking. And if you want to strike out in any new direction — you go alone. With a machete in your hand and the fear of God in your heart.
(Ain't That) Good News
Song lyrics, Ain't That Good News (1964)
“Good artists copy; great artists steal.”
This is a favorite phrase of Jobs, but he is (mis)quoting Pablo Picasso. "Lesser artists borrow; great artists steal" is similarly attributed to Igor Stravinsky, but both sayings may well originate in T. S. Eliot's dictum http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Sacred_Wood/Philip_Massinger: "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn."
Misattributed
“Good artists copy, great artists steal.”
Compare: "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal." T. S. Eliot, in Philip Massinger, in The Sacred Wood (1920)
Disputed
“It ain't the roads we take; it's what's inside of us that makes us turn out the way we do.”
"The Roads We Take"
Whirligigs (1910)
"The Road to Hell (Part 2)"
Song lyrics, The Road to Hell (1989)
“Out here you better have a gun, and a gun in the wagon ain't good for nothin'.”
Source: The Quick and the Dead (1973), Ch. 5; the statement here wrongly attributed by a character in the story to a Quaker, who are generally pacifists, is actually one usually attributed to the Puritan, Oliver Cromwell.
Context: Out here you better have a gun, and a gun in the wagon ain't good for nothin'. I believe what the old Quaker said,"Trust in the Lord, but keep your powder dry."
Song lyrics, Modern Times (2006), Someday Baby