Woody Guthrie Quotes

28 Sourced Quotes

Well, it's always we ramble, that river and I, All along your green valley I'll work till I die, My land I'll defend with my life, if it be, 'Cause my pastures of plenty must always be free.

Woody Guthrie
I have decided long ago that my songs and ballads would not get the hugs and kisses of the capitalistic experts.

Woody Guthrie
There's several ways of saying what's on your mind. And in states and counties where it ain't too healthy to talk too loud, speak your mind, or even vote like you want to, folks have found other ways of getting the word around. One of the mainest ways is by singing.

Woody Guthrie
Now as I look around, it's mighty plain to see,
This world is such a great and a funny place to be.
Oh, the gamblin' man is rich, an' the workin' man is poor,
And I ain't got no home in this world anymore.

Woody Guthrie
I would like to see every single soldier on every single side, just take off your helmet, unbuckle your kit, lay down your rifle, and set down at the side of some shady lane, and say, nope, I aint a gonna kill nobody. Plenty of rich folks wants to fight. Give them the guns.

Woody Guthrie
Some will rob you with a six-gun And some with a fountain pen.

Woody Guthrie
I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly or too this or too that.

Woody Guthrie
This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ours, cause we don't give a darn. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do.

Woody Guthrie
I'd better quit my talking, 'cause I told you all I know,
But please remember, pardner, wherever you may go,
The people are building a peaceful world, and when the job is done
That'll be the biggest thing that man has ever done.

Woody Guthrie
As I go walking this ribbon of highway
I see above me the endless skyway
And all around me the wind keeps saying:
This land is made for you and me.

Woody Guthrie
I ain't a communist necessarily, but I been in the red all my life.

Woody Guthrie
Ever'body might be just one big soul,
Well it looks that a-way to me.
Everywhere that you look, in the day or night,
That's where I'm a-gonna be, Ma,
That's where I'm a-gonna be. Wherever little children are hungry and cry,
Wherever people ain't free.
Wherever men are fightin' for their rights,
That's where I'm a-gonna be, Ma.
That's where I'm a-gonna be.

Woody Guthrie
I'm just a lonesome traveler, The Great Historical Bum.
Highly educated from history I have come.
I built the Rock of Ages, 'twas in the Year of One
And that was about the biggest thing that man had ever done.
I worked in the Garden of Eden, that was the year of two,
Joined the apple pickers union, I always paid my due;
I'm the man that signed the contract to raise the rising sun,
And that was about the biggest thing that man had ever done

Woody Guthrie
California is a garden of Eden A paradise to live in or see But believe it or not You won't find it so hot If you ain't got the do-re-mi

Woody Guthrie
Life has got a habit of not standing hitched. You got to ride it like you find it. You got to change with it. If a day goes by that don't change some of your old notions for new ones, that is just about like trying to milk a dead cow.

Woody Guthrie
Let me be known as just the man that told you something you already knew.

Woody Guthrie
This land is your land, this land is my land,
From California to the New York Island.
From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.

Woody Guthrie
I worked in your orchards of peaches and prunes
I slept on the ground in the light of the moon
On the edge of the city you'll see us and then
We come with the dust and we go with the wind

Woody Guthrie
My eyes has been my camera taking pictures of the world and my songs has been my messages that I tried to scatter across the back sides and along the steps of the fire escapes and on the window sills and through the dark halls...

Woody Guthrie
The world is filled with people who are no longer needed. And who try to make slaves of all of us. And they have their music and we have ours. Theirs, the wasted songs of a superstitious nightmare. And without their music and ideological miscarriages to compare our songs of freedom to, we'd not have any opposite to compare music with — and like the drifting wind, hitting against no obstacle, we'd never know its speed, its power....

Woody Guthrie
I'm gonna tell you fascists
You may be surprised
The people in this world
Are getting organized
You're bound to lose
You fascists bound to lose Race hatred cannot stop us
This one thing we know
Your poll tax and Jim Crow
And greed has got to go
You're bound to lose
You fascists bound to lose.

Woody Guthrie
Pampa was a Texas boom town and wilder than a woodchuck.

Woody Guthrie
The note of hope is the only note that can help us or save us from falling to the bottom of the heap of evolution, because, largely, about all a human being is, anyway, is just a hoping machine, a working machine, and any song that says, the pleasures I have seen in all of my trouble, are the things I never can get — don't worry — the human race will sing this way as long as there is a human to race.
The human race is a pretty old place.

Woody Guthrie
Nobody living can ever stop me
As I go walking my freedom highway
Nobody living can make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.

Woody Guthrie
Life's pretty tough... you're lucky if you live through it.

Woody Guthrie
One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple
By the Relief Office I saw my people —
As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if
God blessed America for me.

Woody Guthrie
One day we'll all find out that all of our songs was just little notes in a great big song!

Woody Guthrie
I better quit my talking now; I told you all I know,
But please remember, pardner, wherever you may go,
I'm older than your old folks, and I'm younger than the young,
And I'm about the biggest thing that man has ever done.

Woody Guthrie