Bob Dylan
Nobel laureate, transformed popular song into literature
Most quoted
"Sometimes you say things in songs even if there's a small chance of them being true. And sometimes you say things that have nothing to do with the truth of what you want to say and sometimes you say things that everyone knows to be true."
— from Interview
"Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call. Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall. For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled. The battle outside ragin' will soon shake your windows and rattle your walls."
— from Song (The Times They Are a-Changin'), 1963
"Some people feel that if you just want to be a rock 'n' roll singer or something, then you should go for it. But I think that if you're not, then you should be honest about it."
— from Interview, 1965
All quotes by Bob Dylan (310)
Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen and keep your eyes wide, the chance won't come again.
For the times they are a-changin'.
You've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely, but you know you only used to get juiced in it.
How does it feel, how does it feel to be without a home, like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone?
You used to laugh about everybody that was hanging out. Now you don't talk so loud, now you don't seem so proud.
Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.
I was born a long way from where I was supposed to be, and I am going in the right direction.
Don't think twice, it's all right.
The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face.
I'm just a voice speaking for a generation.
I'm not gonna sing any songs that are gonna make you feel good.
I've never been able to sing, and I'm not going to start now.
There's no success like failure and failure's no success at all.
You can't be true to anybody, you can't be true to yourself, if you're not true to God.
It's not dark yet, but it's getting there.
I was in the wrong place at the right time.
I just write songs. I don't know what they mean.
The only thing I can do is be me, whoever that is.
I don't think I'm a spokesman for anything.
You can never be wise and be in love at the same time.
Contemporaries of Bob Dylan
Other Musics born within 50 years of Bob Dylan (1941).