Robert Hunter Quotations

I got really, really sick with a spinal infection that put me in a hospital for a couple of months, and it was touch and go. I had my guitar with me, and as soon as I got well enough to play, there was nothing else to do in that hospital. The nurses would come in and request songs.

If you can even manage to tell exactly what a song is about, all you do is put that song in a box forever, and it loses its evocative power.

You who choose to lead must follow. But if you fall, you fall alone.

In wickedness of pride is lost the light to understand how little grace is earned and how much given.

A song doesn't happen as a whole verse; it happens linearly, line by line, almost word by word, phrase by phrase. And if each phrase, each line, has a proper emotional feel and connects to the line before it and the line after it, the song will be doing what it should be doing.

When I got out of the hospital, it was one of those classic things - you're looking death in the eye, and it changes you. I thought, I ought to go back on the road.

When you get ready to vote, make sure you know what you are doing.

I tend to write things and don't go the next step and try to get it published. I don't want to do book signings and stuff.

I'm not good at being lionized, and when I'm in 'Grateful Dead'-type situations, that happens.

I walk away from writing what I consider to be a good song - with a good character, a good story in it - with all I'm gonna really get out of that song. My greatest pleasure is to create it, not to record it, not to hear anyone else play it, though that can be nice too.

At the top of the cycle you write policies for everybody, no matter how bad, and at the bottom you cancel everybody, no matter how good. It's a manic-depressive cycle.

Being in a floodplain is like sitting down in a bathtub.

I feel I've got 10 books in me.

She's got to get a fair count. Until she's gotten a fair count, she won't know whether she's won or lost.

Frail! I like that word. Yes, that describes it well.

...HushThe moon is three days dark. Nothing more will fly tonight. Good Teqiula. Bad salt.

I think they looked very hard at it. And I think the Supreme Court will look hard at it.

rock 'n' roll, jazz and traditional folk culture.

We can share what we got of yours'Cause we done shared all of mine

Even if it didn't get reported, why in the world would you want double insurance?

The suddenness of the change made us think they were pressured by the industry to make this change.

Sometimes, when I start feeling less than humble, I look at Joyce again and he puts me right in my place.

This could be the cultural linchpin of downtown Palmetto.

It's a lovely book. I thumb through it and find it actually of interest. . . . I had no idea that all of these things he found had affected my songs.

I wanted to peak in the Tour de Suisse, ... It looks like it's happened.

They know. They just don't want to tell you.

And nobody ever picked up on it, and, of course, they wouldn't, So maybe these books do serve some purpose.

The CFA's complaint ratio went up. We concluded the service got worse and prices went up.

But never give your love, my friend, Unto a foolish heart

Driving that train, high on cocaine Casey Jones you'd better watch your speed Trouble ahead, trouble behind And you know that notion just crossed my mind

The best architects feel it to be their duty to make the path to the hole as free as possible from annoying difficulties for the less skillful golfers, while at the same time presenting to the scratch players a route calling for the best shots at their command.

What do you want me to do, To watch for you, To see you through? A box of rain will ease the pain, and love, will see you through.

When it seems like the night will last forever, And there's nothing left to do but count the years, When the strings of my harp to sever, And stones fall from my eyes instead of tears... I will walk alone by the black muddy river, And dream me a dream of my own, I will walk alone by the black muddy river, And sing me a song of my own.

Well, the first days are the hardest days, don't you worry anymore. When life looks like Easy Street there is danger at your door.

I won't slave for beggar's pay, likewise gold and jewels, but I would slave to learn the way, to sink your ship of fools.

Destroy yourself physically and morally and insist that all true brothers do likewise as an expression of unity.

Without love in a dream it will never come true

Let there be songs to fill the air.

Everything you gather is just one that you can lose.

Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world, but the heart has its beaches, its homeland, and thoughts of its own. Wake now, discover that you are the song that the morning brings, but the heart has its seasons its evenings, and songs of its own

Walk out of any doorway feel your way, feel your way like the day before Maybe you'll find direction around some corner where it's been waiting to meet you.

There are things you can replace, and others you cannot. The time has come to weigh those things, this space is getting hot.

Ain't no time to hate, barely time to wait

Sit back picture yourself swooping up a shell of purple with foam crests of crystal drops soft nigh they fall unto the sea of morning creep-very-softly mist...and then sort of cascade tinkley-bell like (must I take you by the hand, every so slowly type) and then conglomerate suddenly into a peal of silver vibrant uncomprehendingly, blood singingly, joyously resoundingbells....By my faith if this be insanity, then for the love of God permit me to remain insane.

I don't believe there's any evidence that credit scoring is a risk factor. What is it about someone having a worse credit score that makes them a worse driver? (Insurers) can't answer that.

Counting stars by candlelight all are dim but one is bright; the spiral light of Venus rising first and shining best, from the northwest corner of a brand-new crescent moon crickets and cicadas sing a rare and different tune.

River gonna take me, Sing me sweet and sleepy, Sing me sweet and sleepy all the way back home, It's a far gone lullaby sung many years ago Mama, Mama, many worlds I've come since I first left home

Outside major darkness where the circle is complete there's no fear that lovers born will ever fail to meet

Let my inspiration flow, in token lines suggesting rhythm, that will not forsake me, till my tale is told and done

Ain't nobody messin' with you but you

The storyteller makes no choice, soon you will not hear his voice, his job is to shed light, and not to master

Sometimes we live no particular way but our own

When I was just a little young boy, Papa said Son, you'll never get far, I'll tell you the reason if you want to know, 'cause child of mine, there isn't really very far to go.

It's better to wear seaweed socks than stick a melon in your brother's ear.

The sky was yellow and the sun was blue...

Everything you cherish Throws you over in the end Thorns will grab your ankles From the gardens that you tend.

Comes a Time when the blind man takes your hand says DON'T YOU SEE?

There are times when you get hit upon, Try hard but you cannot give. Other times you'd gladly part, With what you need to live

...if you get confused, just listen to the music play.

But I would rather be with you, somewhere in San Francisco on a back porch in July, just looking up to Heaven, at this crescent in the sky

Inspiration, move me brightly, light the song with sense and color, hold away despair

Every song falls short of the glory of what a song could be. That's why the urge is there to start again and yet again. Often it's the fault of rhyme. I've discovered a hundred times that there just aren't enough rhymes to say what I wanted to say, so I said something else instead. Sometimes it was a better thing, but the thing I meant to say went unsaid. So there's an opening for another song.

Crippled but free, I was blind all the time I was learning to see.

Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world.

Poised for flight, Wings spread bright, Spring from night into the Sun.

If my words did glow with the gold of sunshine And my tunes were played on the harp unstrung Would you hear my voice come through the music Would you hold it near as it were your own?

There is a road, no simple highway, between the dawn and the dark of night, and if you go, no one may follow, that path is for your steps alone.

Don't waste the breath to save your face, When you have done your best, And even more is asked of you, Let fate decide the rest.

Once in awhile you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look it right

One man gathers what another man spills