I never find myself even catching lyrics until something in the sound has taken me captive. Thinking about anything else is just the pleasurable byproduct of wow.

Words that in their everyday surrealism have no parallel in contemporary writing... Music that mines the deep veins of fatalism in the Appalachian voice

We make the oldest stories new when we succeed, and we are trapped by the old stories when we fail

Patriotism in America, as I understand it, is a matter of suffering, when the country fails to live up to its promises, or actively betrays them.

I want another idea, another project, but you can't make them up. They show up.

No failure in America, whether of love or money, is ever simple; it is always a kind of betrayal, of a mass of shadowy, shared hopes.

Every youth movement presents itself as a loan to the future, and tries to call in its lien in advance, but when there is no future all loans are canceled.

It may be that the most interesting American struggle is the struggle to set oneself free from the limits one is born to, and then to learn something of the value of those limits

It is a sure sign that a culture has reached a dead end when it is no longer intrigued by its myths.

Elvis' early music has drama because as he sang he was escaping limits.

If Bob Dylan really is an historian in and of himself in his work, in his performances, he is also an historian with a unique sense of humor. There's always been a bit of a stand-up comic in him.

Men are often mislead by their fellow-men.

The yardstick that we frequently use to determine if something can be restored is based on the handful of inches that we bring to the process, when God shows up with an infinite amount of miles.

Who but the Christian, among the religions of the world and throughout time, worships a God who loves him so much that he died an agonizing and wretched death to pay for his sins?

It is difficult to believe in the dreadful but quiet war lurking just below the serene facade of nature.

It’s okay to glance at the light of another. But when you stare too long, it will blind you from seeing your own.

The most incredible thing is that you can know everything you wish to know with your eyes closed.

It makes me crazy to think that somebody might attack my city or any other city.

Life's greatest comfort is being able to look over your shoulder and see people worse off, waiting in line behind you.

I like to be daring and I like to be different. You think anyone out here looks like me? It's pretty different, right?

There's an awful lot of blood around that water is thicker than.