Bruce Cockburn Quotations

A sane person doesn't think war is a good idea. I'm not a pacifist. I feel that there are situations where fighting is inescapable, but we don't go looking for those things.

I wear my shadows where they're harder to see, but they follow me everywhere. I guess that should tell me I'm traveling toward light.

There are some decision-makers in the world whose version of sanity is a little different from what I consider the right one.

I'm not a pacifist. I feel that there are situations where fighting is inescapable, but we don't go looking for those things.

It's a phobia I have. I never assume I'm going to be able to write another album after I finish one.

I'd always loved poetry and I'd always loved writing music and composing music, but I hadn't thought of putting the two together until around that time.

I remember when the idea of living to be 40 seemed absurd.

If I try to understand what it means to be a Christian, I look at the two instructions that were given in the Bible that are paramount, and those are to love God with all your heart and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. That's it.

I woke up one morning with this song in my head, and the opening line of the song is, 'My name was Richard Nixon, only now I'm a girl.

The trouble with normal is it always gets worse.

A sane person doesn't think war is a good idea.

I did a lot of writing for a lot of different kinds of bands that I was in and out of during those five years and that left me with a little body of songs that I liked better when I played alone, so I ended up going out solo and very soon made my first album.

It sounds strange to say it, but you can be in a war zone and have a lot of fun. Even though war is essentially pain on all sides, human beings have the capacity to enjoy themselves. The soldiers are mostly young people, full of enthusiasm and energy, and that's an exciting thing for an old guy like me.

All I ever thought was, 'I'm going to do this as long as I can, and if I can't get paid at it, I'll be a bum doing it.' And so, here I am.

'Each One Lost' I wrote the day after I got home. My week in Afghanistan was a very short trip, but it was a powerful experience.

'Gifts' was just a short little one-verse song that I used to close shows in the '60s.

I can't imagine my life any other way than it's been.

If you don't keep learning and growing, you're going to stagnate.

Since the early '80s, I've found myself in war zones in various parts of the world.

The second half of the '60s really was a kind of learning period, in terms of writing, for me.

There was a lot more music than the size of the place would indicate.

I like to think that if it hadn't gone as well as it has, if I wasn't able to make a living off of playing music, I would still be playing the music. But, of course, I wouldn't likely have had the opportunity to travel, and a lot of the places have inspired songs.

I wanted to play rock and roll when I started playing. Nobody at that time ever thought about songwriting. You sang songs, that's all. You sang other people's songs. That's all there were.

We're confronted with great darkness as a species right now as spiritual creatures on this planet. I don't think it's hopeless, and I don't want 'You've Never Seen Everything' to make people feel hopeless. But I think we've got to call a spade a spade.

All these years of thinking, ending up like this: In front of all this beauty, understanding nothing.

Beautiful rocks - beautiful grass Beautiful soil where they both combine Beautiful river - covering sky Never thought of possession, but all this was mine.

Everybody wants to see justice done, to somebody else.

The invitation for artists to compete to see who can be the most charitable is a wonderful thing.

Little round planet in a big universe, sometimes it looks blessed, sometimes it looks cursed. Depends what you look at obviously, but even more it depends on the way that you see.

Sun's up, uh huh, looks okay - the world survives into another day, and I'm thinking about eternity. Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me.

Lord, spit on our eyes that we may see, how to wake up from this tragedy.

In between effect and cause and just beyond the range of normal sight, this glittering joker was dancing in the dragon's jaws.

Love the Lord and in him love me too. And in him, go your own way and I'll be right here with you.

I watch the confusion of friends all numb with love moving like stray dogs to the anthem of night long conversations of pulsing rhythms and random voltage voices in spite of themselves graceful as these raindrops creeping spermlike across the car window.

And I'm wondering where the lions are.

Gotta kick at the darkness til it bleeds daylight.

Wave the flag, wave the Bible, wave your sex or your business degree, whatever you want, just don't wave that thing at me.

Like a stone on the surface of a still river Driving the ripples on forever Redemption rips through the surface of time In the cry of a tiny babe.

Though chains be of gold, they are chains all the same.

My models for graceful aging are guys like John Lee Hooker and Mississippi John Hurt, who never stopped working till they dropped, as I fully expect to be doing, and just getting better as musicians and as human beings.

The trouble with normal is it only gets worse.

Water of life is gonna flow again/changed from the blood of heroes and knaves/Word mercy's gonna have a new meaning/ when we are judged by the children of our slaves.

Sometimes the best map will not guide you, you can't see what's round the bend. Sometimes the road leads through dark places, sometimes the darkness is your friend

One day you're waiting for the sky to fall, The next you're dazzled by the beauty of it all.

Male female slave or free; peaceful or disorderly; maybe you and he will not agree; but you need him to show you new ways to see.

There's roads, and there's roads, And they call. Can't you hear it? Roads of the earth And roads of the spirit The best roads of all Are the ones that aren't certain. One of those is where you'll find me 'Til they drop the big curtain.

Some people never see the light Till it shines thru bullet holes.

When you know even for a moment That it's your time Then you can walk with the power Of a thousand generations

But nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight / Got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight.

I think if I really put my mind to it I probably did think I would be, but under what conditions, ... I expect to be doing this until I drop or become incapacitated. I don't make any more defined plans than that.

We had close to 30 pieces to choose from and it was more a desire to make an album that made a cohesive whole, ... Most of the time when we put on records it's because we want that mood whatever it is. So, if you have an album that is widely varied in mood it might get played less than one that fits somebody's particular mood... at least that's how my choices usually work.