F. F. Bruce Quotes

You can't kill your way to security and you can't lead by scaring people.

The first time I heard Bob Dylan, I was in the car with my mother listening to WMCA, and on came that snare shot that sounded like somebody'd kicked open the door to your mind.

Ought to be easy, ought to be simple enough: Man meets woman, and they fall in love, But the house is haunted and the ride gets rough. You got to learn to live with what you can't rise above.

Here everybody has a neighbor Everybody has a friend Everybody has a reason to begin again.

Settle back is to settle without knowing.

You can beat the drum so hard that people stop listening. I wanted to use my voice wisely and not expend it wastefully.

Outside the street's on fire in a real death waltz between what's flesh and what's fantasy.

Tonight I'm stepping lightly and I'm feeling no pain.

Unions have been the only powerful and effective voice working people have ever had in the history of this country.

You have moments of clarity, things become clear to you that you didn't understand before. But there's never any making ends meet or finding any time of longstanding peace of mind about something.

My dad had a very difficult life, a hard struggle all the time at work. I've always felt like I'm seeking his revenge.

I never start with a political point of view. I believe that your politics are emotionally and psychologically determined by your early experiences.

They put a rifle in my hand, sent me off to a foreign land to go and kill the Yellow man.

I was unrecognizable to myself; I saw my reflection in a window; I didn't know my own face.

When I was young I was very shy and that was my personality. I was a pretty sensitive kid and quite neurotic, filled with a lot of anxiety.

Sky of blackness and sorrow, sky of love, sky of tears. Sky of glory and sadness, sky of mercy, sky of fear.

When you get fat and lose your hunger. That is when you know the sellout has happened.

The Clash were a major influence on my own music. They were the best rock 'n' roll band. Thanks, Joe.

I was in my late 20s, in the process of shaping my musical outlook and what I wanted it to be about, when I first encountered Woody Guthrie.

Roy Orbison is singing for the lonely, hey, that's me and I want you only.

So I bought a forty-four magnum, it was solid steel cast, and in the blessed name of Elvis, well I just let it blast 'til my TV lay in pieces.

An unfulfilled life makes a hard man.

We said we'd walk together baby come what may.That come the twilight should we lose our way.If as we're walkin a hand should slip free,I'll wait for you And should I fall behind,Wait for me.

It's hard to be a saint in the city.

Let there be sunshine, let there be rain, let the broken hearted love again.

You need two things to remain very, very present. You need to continue to write well and engage yourself in the issues of the day. And you have to continue to make good, relevant records.

I'm used to writing something, it becomes a record, it comes out. Then I go perform and I play it and I get this immediate feedback from the audience. So that's been the pattern of my life.

I guess my view of America is of a real bighearted country, real compassionate.

I think you can't demonize somebody that's on the other side of the political spectrum, or you can't generalize about them.

Our American government has strayed too far from American values. It is time to move forward. The country we carry in our hearts is waiting.

The songs themselves do broaden out as time passes and take on subtly different meanings, take on more meaning, I find.

Let's raise our glass and let the hammer fly, yeah, this is the long good-bye.

Use it, Rosie, that's what it's there for.

Most artists I know consider themselves to be phonies, along with the feeling that there's something that you're doing is essential, essential to communicate, and deeply, deeply real.

There's people that get a chance to do the kind of work that changes the world, and make things really different. And there's the kind that just keeps the world from falling apart.

It doesn't matter what happened last night or the night - or tomorrow night. It's all about what you're doing with this audience right now.

But the star thing I can live with. The music I can't live without. And that's how it lays out for me, you know. I got as big an ego and enjoy the attention.

Elvis is my religion. But for him, I'd be selling encyclopedias right now.

Your skin upon my skin, in the beating of our hearts, may the living let us in, before the dead tear us apart.

I've always loved the fact that Bob's [Dylan] been able to sustain his mystery over 50 or 60 years.

My soul is lost, my friend, tell me how do I begin again? My city's in ruins, my city's in ruins.

All you can do is show people...You tell stories that are true and compelling.

I told a story with the E Street Band that was bigger and better than I could have done on my own.

I heard a political message in rock music. A liberation message. A message of freedom. I heard it in Elvis' voice.

I don't write demographically. I don't write a song to reach these people or those people.

If you're good, you're always looking over your shoulder.

Anyone who's grown up or lived on the Jersey Shore knows the place is unique.

From the beginning, I imagined I would have a long work life.

Deindustrialization that I have written about for 40 years left a good part of the American public behind.

I grew up with a very big extended family, with a lot of aunts. We had about five or six houses on one street.