Bob Dylan Quotes

334 Sourced Quotes

You got a lot of nerve To say you are my friend When I was down You just stood there grinning.

Bob Dylan
Last night I danced with a stranger, but she just reminded me you were the one.

Bob Dylan
I find it easy to write songs. I been writing songs for a long time and the words to the songs aren't written out just for the paper; they're written as you can read it, you dig. If you take whatever there is to the song away—the beat, the melody—I could still recite it. I see nothing wrong with songs you can't do that with either—songs that, if you took the beat and the melody away, they wouldn't stand up because they're not supposed to do that, you know. Songs are songs.

Bob Dylan
If you like someone's work, the important thing is to be exposed to everything that person has been exposed to. Anyone who wants to be a songwriter should listen to as much folk music as they can, study the form and structure of stuff that has been around for 100 years.

Bob Dylan
There are a lot of places I like, but I like New Orleans better.

Bob Dylan
I have dined with kings, I've been offered wings. And I've never been too impressed.

Bob Dylan
If you told the truth, that was all well and good and if you told the un-truth, well, that's still well and good. Folk songs had taught me that.

Bob Dylan
Life is more or less a lie, but then again, that's exactly the way we want it to be.

Bob Dylan
You been down to the bottom with a bad man, babe But you're back were you belong

Bob Dylan
You're gonna have to serve somebody; well, it may be the devil, or it may be the Lord, but you're gonna have to serve somebody...

Bob Dylan
They're selling postcards of the hanging They're painting the passports brown The beauty parlor is filled with sailors The circus is in town Here comes the blind commissioner They've got him in a trance One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker The other is in his pants And the riot squad they're restless They need somewhere to go As Lady and I look out tonight From Desolation Row.

Bob Dylan
You call yourself what you want to call yourself. This is the land of the free

Bob Dylan
All right, I'll take a chance. I will fall in love with you. If i'm a fool you can have the night, you can have the morning too. Can you cook and sew. make flowers grow. Do you understand my pain? Are you willing to risk it all or is your love in vain?

Bob Dylan
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

Bob Dylan
A song is anything that can walk by itself.

Bob Dylan
Crimson flames tied through my ears rolling high and mighty traps, pounced with fire on flaming roads using ideas as my maps.

Bob Dylan
To preach of peace and brotherhood, oh what might be the cost? A man he did it long ago, and they hung him on a cross.

Bob Dylan
The ghosts race towards the light, you can almost hear the heavy breathing spirits, all determined to get somewhere. New Orleans, unlike a lot of places you go back to and that don't have the magic anymore, still has got it. Night can swallow you up, yet none of it touches you. You can't see it, but you know it's here. Somebody's always sinking.

Bob Dylan
I gaze into the doorway of temptation's angry flame And every time I pass that way I always hear my name

Bob Dylan
I was just too stubborn to ever be governed by enforced insanity.

Bob Dylan
Socialism, hypnotism, patriotism, materialism, fools making laws for the breaking of jaws.

Bob Dylan
Done so many evil things in the name of love, it's a crying shame. I never did see no fire that could put out a flame.

Bob Dylan
Now, each of us has his own special gift And you know this was meant to be true. And if you don't underestimate me I won't underestimate you.

Bob Dylan
And for each unharmful gentle soul misplaced inside a jail...

Bob Dylan
You'll find out when you reach the top, you're on the bottom.

Bob Dylan
Every cause that ever I fought, I fought it full without regret or shame.

Bob Dylan
They asked me for some collateral and I pulled down my pants.

Bob Dylan
The tree of life is growing where the spirit never dies, and the bright light of salvation shines in dark and empty skies.

Bob Dylan
Each one of them suffering from the failures of their day, with strings of guilt they tried hard to guide us.

Bob Dylan
Shakespeare, he's in the alley with his pointed shoes and his bells, speaking to some French girl who says she knows me well.

Bob Dylan