The harmonica is the world's best-selling musical instrument. You're welcome.
The highlight of my career? That's easy, Elvis recording one of my songs.
I don't think the human mind can comprehend the past and the future. They are both just illusions that can manipulate you into thinking there's some kind of change.
You want to know about creativity? Just go out and buy that book Imagine by Jonah Lehrer. It's only $29.00 in hardcover.
I'll be selling tickets for my next tour exclusively through Jonah Lehrer. Make sure to pay cash.
I'm a good friend of Jonah Lehrer's. You should go on a date with him.
Just a reminder, if you tell anyone about what happened with Jonah last night, I'll destroy all of my writing and never play music again.
With great lawyers you have discussed lepers and crooks, you've been through all of F. Scott Fitzgerald's books.
You never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns when they all did tricks for you.
For them that must obey authority That they do not respect in any degree Who despise their jobs, their destinies Speak jealously of them that are free.
You were born with a snake in both of your fists while a hurricane was blowing.
I hurt easy, I just don't show it. You can hurt someone and not even know it.
I'm mortified to be on the stage, but then again, it's the only place where I'm happy.
How many roads must a developer walk down, before they accept the amenities package?
New York was a city where you could be frozen to death in the midst of a busy street and nobody would notice.
I ain't looking to compete with you, beat, or cheat, or mistreat you, simplify you, classify you, deny, defy, or crucify you. All I really want to do is, baby, be friends with you.
You need something to open up a new door, to show you something you seen before but overlooked a hundred times or more.
Passion is a young man's game. Young people can be passionate. Older people gotta be more wise.
Longer Version:
Passion is a young man's game. Young people can be passionate. Older people gotta be more wise. I mean, you're around awhile, you leave certain things to the young. Don't try to act like you're young. You could really hurt yourself.
Well, it's hard to stumble And land in some muddy lagoon When it's nine below zero And three o'clock in the afternoon.
Johnny's in the basement Mixing up the medicine I'm on the pavement Thinking 'bout the government.
I'm ready to go anywhere, I'm ready for to fade, into my own parade, cast your dancing spell my way.
In another lifetime she must have owned the world, or been faithfully wed to some righteous king who wrote psalms beside moonlit streams.
They said, congratulations you got what it takes. They sent him back to the rat race without any brakes.
Broken bottles, broken plates, broken switches, broken gates. Broken dishes, broken parts, streets are filled with broken hearts.
When Johnson started singing, he seemed like a guy who could have sprung from the head of Zeus in full armor.
Everybody knows by now that there's a gazillion books on me either out or coming out in the near future. So I'm encouraging anybody who's ever met me, heard me or even seen me, to get in on the action and scribble their own book. You never know, somebody might have a great book in them.
I am hanging in the balance of a perfect finished plan, like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.
Remember when you're out there trying to heal the sick, that you must always first forgive them.
Life has its ups and downs, and time has to be your partner. Really, time is your soul mate.
The real power is in the hands of small groups of people and I don't think they have titles.
I gotta friend who spends his life, stabbing my picture with a bowie knife. Dreams of strangling me with a scarf, when my name comes up he pretends to barf.
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.
I put one on the turntable and when the needle dropped, I was stunned -- didn't know whether I was stoned or straight.
You don't necessarily have to write to be a poet. Some people work in gas stations and they're poets. I don't call myself a poet, because I don't like the word. I'm a trapeze artist.
Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from Don't even hear a murmur of a prayer It's not dark yet, but it's getting there.
Everybody has their own idea of what's a poet. Robert Frost, President Johnson, T.S.Eliot, Rudolf Valentino -- they're all poets. I like to think of myself as the one who carries the light bulb.
Heard ten thousand whispering and nobody listening. Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughing. Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter.
Look, when I started out, mainstream culture was Sinatra, Perry Como, Andy Williams, Sound of Music. There was no fitting into it then and of course, there's no fitting into it now.
Take me disappearing, through the smoke rings of my mind, down the foggy ruins of time.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free, Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands.
Witchcraft scum exploiting the dumb turning children into punks and slaves.
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken,
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children,
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.
Subterranean Homesick Blues of Bob Dylan captures, in word-salad format, life in an encroaching police state.
Like a Rolling Stone of Bob Dylan is a kiss-off song like none before or since.
Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land where justice is a game.
As long as you give my friend Jonah Lehrer a free pizza, I'll write a song about your restaurant.
I am mortified to be on the stage, but then again, it's the only place where I'm happy.
I make my stand and remain as I am, and bid farewell and not give a damn.
Since my feet are now fast and point away from the past, I'll bid farewell and be down the line.
If you don't believe there's a price for this sweet paradise, just remind me to show you the scars.
Now all the criminals in their suits and ties are free to drink martinis and watch the sunrise.
The tree of life is growing where the spirit never dies, and the bright light of salvation shines in dark and empty skies.
Well the book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the law of the jungle and the sea are your only teachers.
My songs are personal music, they're not communal. I wouldn't want people singing along with me. It would sound funny. I'm not playing campfire meetings. I don't remember anyone singing along with Elvis, Carl Perkins or Little Richard.
They say everything can be replaced, Yet every distance is not near. So I remember every face Of every man who put me here. I see my light come shining From the west unto the east. Any day now, any day now, I shall be released.
Now the wintertime is coming The windows are filled with frost I went to tell everybody But I could not get across Well, I wanna be your lover, baby I don't wanna be your boss Don't say I never warned you When your train gets lost.
In the valley of the giants where the stars and stripes explode, the peaches they were sweet and the milk and honey flowed.
Walkin' through the leaves fallin' from the trees, Feelin' like a stranger nobody sees.
Stay free of petty jealousies, live by no man's code, and hold your judgment for yourself, lest you wind up on this road.
Stop all this weeping, swallow your pride You will not die, its not poison -Tombstone Blues.
I wanna say hello to all the ex-hippies tonight. I've never been a hippie myself but I'm an honorary hippie.
She took off her wheel, took off her bell, took off her wig, said, how do I smell? I hot footed it barenaked out the window.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The new order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.
Don't criticize what you can't understand.
Longer Version:
Don't criticize what you can't understand, your sons and your daughters are beyond your command.
People disagreeing everywhere you look makes you wanna stop and read a book.
When you feel in your gut what you are and then dynamically pursue it -- don't back down and don't give up -- then you're going to mystify a lot of folks.
And songs, to me, were more important than just light entertainment. They were my preceptor and guide into some altered consciousness of reality, some different republic, some liberated republic.
What was the future? The future was a solid wall, not promising, not threatening -- all bunk. No guarantees of anything, not even the guarantee that life isn't one big joke.