Bob Dylan Thinking Quotations

If I wasn't Bob Dylan, I'd probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.

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 theres some kind of change.

I think a poet is anybody who wouldn't call himself a poet.

Once you think you know the song, then you have go and see how other people have done it.

People think that singing and playing is easy. It's not. It's easy to strum along, but if you actually want to really play, where it's important, that's a hard thing and not too many people are good at it.

I never did use earphones until into the Eighties or Nineties. I don't like to use earphones. I've never heard anybody sing with earphones effectively. They just give you a false sense of security. A lot of us don't need earphones. I don't think Springsteen or Mick do. But other people more or less have given in. But they ought not to. They don't need to. Especially if they have a good band.

I think of rock 'n' roll as a combination of country blues and swing band music, not Chicago blues, and modern pop.

I come from way north. We'd listen to radio shows all the time. I think I was the last generation, or pretty close to the last one, that grew up without TV.

There's a lot of false prophets around and that's the trouble. People say they think they know what's right and other people get people to follow them because they have a certain type of charisma, and there's always people willing to take over. People want a leader. And there will be more and more of them.

I used to think it's better if you just live and die and no one knows who you are.

I don't know if I call myself a poet or not. I would like to, but I'm not really qualified to make that decision, because I come in on such a back door, that I don't know what a Robert Frost or a [John] Keats or a T.S. Eliot would really think of my stuff.

Trying to create a next world war, he found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor, he said I never engaged in this kind of thing before, but yes I think it can be very easily done.

I ain't saying you treated me unkind you could've done better, but I don't mind. You just kinda wasted my precious time. But don't think twice, it's alright.

People are going to say, ‘Well, it’s not very truthful.’ But a songwriter doesn’t care about what’s truthful. What he cares about is what should’ve happened, what could’ve happened. That’s its own kind of truth. It’s like people who read Shakespeare plays, but they never see a Shakespeare play. I think they just use his name.

I was headed for the fantastic lights. No doubt about it. Could it be that I was being deceived? Not likely. I don't think I had enough imagination to be deceived; had no false hope, either. I'd come from a long ways off and had started from a long ways down. But now destiny was about to manifest itself. I felt like it was looking right at me and nobody else.

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

There's no black and white, left and right to me anymore; there's only up and down and down is very close to the ground. And I'm trying to go up without thinking about anything trivial such as politics. They have got nothing to do with it. I'm thinking about the general people and when they get hurt.

So, I don't know. I think so. It's all in the heart, whatever keeps you that way. Keeps you forever young. Forever young doesn't necessarily mean that you don't grow old, but you just have some contact with what put you where you are. You know, keep some type of contact. Anyway...

The only person you have to think about lying twice to is either yourself or to God. The press isn't either of them. And I just figured they're irrelevant.

Wasn't making any great connection Wasn't falling for any intricate scheme Nothing that would pass inspection Just thinking of a series of dreams

When you think that you lost everything you find out you can always lose a little more.

And I’ll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it Then I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin’ But I’ll know my song well before I start singin

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.

Johnny's in the basement Mixing up the medicine I'm on the pavement Thinking 'bout the government.

I don't think I'm tangible to myself.

I don't think I've ever been an agnostic. I've always thought there's a superior power, that this is not the real world and that there's a world to come.

Love is all there is, it makes the world go 'round Love and only love, it can't be denied No matter what you think about it You just won't be able to do without it Take a tip from one who's tried

Advertising signs: they con you into thinking you're the one That can do what's never been done That can win what's never been won Meantime life outside goes on all around you

Don't think twice, it's alright.

I wouldn't even think of playing music if I was born in these times. I wouldn't even listen to the radio.

The real power is in the hands of small groups of people and I don't think they have titles.

I think I have a dualistic nature.

I never read Freud. I've never been attracted to anything he has said, and I think he's started a lot of nonsense with psychiatry and that business. I don't think psychiatry can help or has helped anybody. I think it's a big fraud (pun not intended) on the public.

I'm a liberal to a degree, I want everybody to be free. But if you think that I'll let Barry Goldwater move in next door.

Let me ask you one question Is your money that good Will it buy you forgiveness Do you think that it could I think you will find When your death takes its toll All the money you made Will never buy back your soul

I don't think there's enough guns.

Rod's a great singer. He's got a great voice, but there's no point to put a 30-piece orchestra behind him. I'm not going to knock anybody's right to make a living but you can always tell if somebody's heart and soul is into something, and I didn't think Rod was into it in that way.

Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people, they're drinking, thinking that they got it made. Exchanging all kinds of precious gifts and things, but you'd better lift your diamond ring, you'd better pawn it, babe.

Gonna change my way of thinking, make my self a different set of rules. Gonna put my good foot forward and stop being influenced by fools.

My guard stood hard when abstract threats, too noble to neglect, deceived me into thinking, I had something to protect.

The corporations have taken over. Even in the recording studio. Actually, the corporate companies have taken over American life most everywhere. Go coast to coast and you will see people wearing the same clothes, thinking the same thoughts, eating the same food. Everything is processed.

One night around that time, at Hammersmith, Bob Dylan was about to go into [his 1963 classic] 'Don't Think Twice, It's Alright.He said, 'Hey, Bucky! Play mandolin on this.' I am not really a mandolin player; I could only play in certain keys. Halfway through, he stops the band, turns to the audience and points to me. He says: 'He isn't playing, he's miming.' And then: 'Should I fire him?' The whole audience yells.

... When it came time to hire a guitar player ... I didn't even have to think about it ... Mike Bloomfield was the best guitar player I'd ever heard...

Some times I think this whole world Is one big prison yeard Some of us are prisoners The rest of us are guards

I think women rule the world and that no man has ever done anything that a woman either hasn't allowed him to do or encouraged him to do.

An artist has got to be careful never really to arrive at a place where he thinks he's AT somewhere. You always have to realize that you're constantly in a state of becoming. And, as long as you can stay in that realm you'll sort of be alright.

Everything passes, Everything changes, Just do what you think you should do.

I've been sitting down studying the Art of Love. I think it will fit me like a glove.

People think they know me from my songs. But my repertoire of songs is so wide-ranging that you'd have to be a madman to figure out the characteristics of the person who wrote all those songs.

Half of the people can be part right all of the time, Some of the people can be all right part of the time. I think Abraham Lincoln said that. 'I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours,' I said that.