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This is the first post with Bob Dylan quotes from the 60’s. The post will be updated many times in the future. There will also, off course, follow posts with quotes from the 70’s, 80’s etc…

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UPDATE – other posts:

• Bob Dylan quotes from 1970 – 1974
• Great Bob Dylan Quotes 1975 – 1979

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These quotes are collected from song lyrics & interviews. It’s not only “great” quotes we’ve collected, but also important quotes & funny quotes.

Quotes collected from song lyrics are tried to be kept brief….  it would often be tempting to quote whole songs. Also we’ll try to limit ourselves to max 3 quotes from the same song.

Some songs are sorted under the year they were released (on record), other’s are sorted under the year they were obviously written/recorded.

Please comment/send us input, but we don’t like quotes without a source…

1961

• New York Times said it was the coldest winter in seventeen years
  I didn’t feel so cold then
  ~Talkin’ New York
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• Hey, hey, Woody Guthrie, I wrote you a song
  ’Bout a funny ol’ world that’s a-comin’ along
  Seems sick an’ it’s hungry, it’s tired an’ it’s torn
  It looks like it’s a-dyin’ an’ it’s hardly been born
  ~Song to Woody
  ———————————————
• Yeah, well, I was with a carnival when I was about thirteen and I used to travel with a carnival – all kinds of shows.
  [Where] All around the Midwest. Uh, Gallup, New Mexico, then to Texas, and then… Lived in Gallup, New Mexico and…
  ~to Billy James, October 1961
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• I traveled with the carnival when I was about thirteen years old.
  All the way up to I was nineteen. Every year, off and on, I joined different carnivals.
  ~Oscar Brand Radio Show, 29 October 1961 (aired November 4)

1962

• How many roads must a man walk down
  Before you call him a man?
  ~Blowin’ In The Wind
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• Well, I wus sittin’ home alone an’ started to sweat
  Figured they wus in my T.V. set
  Peeked behind the picture frame
  Got a shock from my feet, hittin’ right up in the brain
  Them Reds caused it!
  I know they did . . . them hard-core ones
  ~Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues
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• There’s beauty in the silver, singin’ river
  There’s beauty in the sunrise in the sky
  But none of these and nothing else can touch the beauty
  That I remember in my true love’s eyes
  ~Tomorrow is A Long Time

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• Yeah, but I really don’t think to myself as, a you know, a folk singer
  ~to Cynthia Gooding, WBAI FM Radio, 11 March 1962
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• [about – “Ballad of Emmett Till”] I stole the melody from Len Chandler. An’ he’s a funny guy. He’s a, he’s a folk singer guy. He uses a lot of funny chords you know when he plays and he’s always getting to, want me, to use some of these chords, you know, trying to teach me new chords all the time. Well, he played me this one. Said don’t those chords sound nice? An’ I said they sure do, an’ so I stole it, stole the whole thing.
  ~to Cynthia Gooding, WBAI FM Radio, 11 March 1962
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• [on songwriting] The song was there before me, before I came along. I just sorta came down and I sorta took it down with a pencil that it was all there before I came around. That’s how I feel about it.
  ~to Pete Seeger, Broadside Show, WBAI-FM Radio, May 1962
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• Maybe I was happy when I was little or I was unhappy, a million other kids were the same way. What difference does it make?
  ~Edwin Miller, September 1962
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• I just played guitar and harmonica.. and sang those songs and that was it. He [John Hammond] asked me if I wanted to sing any of them over again but I said no. I can’t see myself singing the same song twice in a row. That’s terrible.
  ~Edwin Miller, September 1962

1963

• “I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours”
  ~Talkin’ World War III Blues
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• Well, if you’re travelin’ in the north country fair
  Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline
  Remember me to one who lives there
  She once was a true love of mine
  ~Girl From The North Country
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• And I hope that you die
  And your death’ll come soon
  I will follow your casket
  In the pale afternoon
  And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
  Down to your deathbed
  And I’ll stand o’er your grave
  ’Til I’m sure that you’re dead
  ~Masters of War –
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• Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
  Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
  I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
  I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways
  I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
  I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
  I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
  And it’s a hard, and it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
  And it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall
  ~A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
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• Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears
  Bury the rag deep in your face
  For now’s the time for your tears
  ~The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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• Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
  For the times they are a-changin’
  ~The Times They Are A-Changin’
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• Come mothers and fathers
  Throughout the land
  And don’t criticize
  What you can’t understand
  ~The Times They Are A-Changin’
  

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• Anything I can sing, I call a song. Anything I can’t sing, I call a poem. Anything I can’t sing or anything that’s too long to be a poem, I call a novel.
  ~Nat Hentoff quoting Dylan, jacket notes Freewheeling Dylan
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• It’s not atomic rain, it’s just a hard rain, it’s not atomic rain, no. It’s not the fall-out rain….. I just mean some sort of end that’s just gotta happen, y’know.
  ~Studs Terkel Interview, 26 April 1963
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• “Because Dickens and Dostoyevsky and Woody Guthrie were telling their stories much better than I ever could, I decided to stick to my own mind.”
  ~Sidney Fields Interview, Aug 1963

1964

• Ramona
  Come closer
  Shut softly your watery eyes
  ~To Ramona
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• Go ’way from my window
  Leave at your own chosen speed
  I’m not the one you want, babe
  I’m not the one you need
  ~It Ain’t Me Babe
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• Ah, but I was so much older then
  I’m younger than that now
  ~My Back Pages
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• Flashing for the warriors whose strength is not to fight
  Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
  An’ for each an’ ev’ry underdog soldier in the night
  An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
  ~Chimes of Freedom

• “It’s hard being free in a song – getting it all in. Songs are so confining. Woody Guthrie told me once that songs don’t have to do anything like that. But it’s not true. A song has to have some kind of form to fit into the music. You can bend the words and the meter, but it still has to fit somehow. I’ve been getting freer in the songs I write, but I still feel confined. That’s why I write a lot of poetry – if that’s the word. Poetry can make it’s own form.”
  ~Nat Hentoff Interview, June 1964

1965

• That he not busy being born is busy dying
  ~It’s Alright, Ma (I’m only bleeding)
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• But even the president of the United States
  Sometimes must have to stand naked
  ~It’s Alright, Ma (I’m only bleeding)
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• While money doesn’t talk, it swears
  ~It’s Alright, Ma (I’m only bleeding)
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• Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you
  Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you
  ~It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
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• Strike another match, go start anew
  And it’s all over now, Baby Blue
  ~It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
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• You don’t need a weatherman
  To know which way the wind blows
  ~Subterranean Homesick Blues
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• You used to laugh about
  Everybody that was hangin’ out
  Now you don’t talk so loud
  Now you don’t seem so proud
  About having to be scrounging for your next meal
  ~Like A Rolling Stone
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• How does it feel
  How does it feel
  To be without a home
  Like a complete unknown
  Like a rolling stone?
  ~Like A Rolling Stone
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• You used to ride on the chrome horse with your diplomat
  Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
  Ain’t it hard when you discover that
  He really wasn’t where it’s at
  After he took from you everything he could steal
  ~Like A Rolling Stone
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• Because something is happening here
  But you don’t know what it is
  Do you, Mister Jones?
  ~Ballad of A Thin Man
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• You’ve been with the professors
  And they’ve all liked your looks
  With great lawyers you have
  Discussed lepers and crooks
  You’ve been through all of
  F. Scott Fitzgerald’s books
  You’re very well read
  It’s well known
  ~Ballad of A Thin Man
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• I started out on burgundy
  But soon hit the harder stuff
  Everybody said they’d stand behind me
  When the game got rough
  But the joke was on me
  There was nobody even there to call my bluff
  I’m going back to New York City
  I do believe I’ve had enough
  ~Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues

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• “A song is anything that can walk by itself, I am called a songwriter. A poem is a naked person, some people say that I am a poet”.
  ~Jacket notes Subterranean Homesick Blues
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• All I can do is be me – whoever that is
  ~to Paul J Robbins, 22 March 1965
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• I left where I’m from because there’s nothing there. I come from Minnesota, there was nothing there. I’m not going to fake it and say I went out to see the world.
  ~to Paul J Robbins, 26 March 1965
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• Keep a good head and always carry a light bulb
  ~Press Conference, London 26 April 1965
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• The big difference is that the songs I was writing last year, songs like Ballad in Plain D, they were what I call one-dimensional songs, but my new songs I’m trying to make more three-dimensional, you know, there’s more symbolism, they’re written on more than one level.
  ~Jenny De Yong And Peter Roche Interview, 30 April 1965
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• That’s because they ask the wrong questions, like, ‘What did you have for breakfast’, ‘What’s your favourite colour’, stuff like that. Newspaper reporters, man, they’re just hung-up writers, frustrated novelists, they don’t hurt me none by putting fancy labels on me. They got all these preconceived ideas about me, so I just play up to them.
  ~Jenny De Yong And Peter Roche Interview, 30 April 1965
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• Chaos is a friend of mine. It’s like I accept him, does he accept me?
  ~Nora Ephron & Susan Edmiston Interview, Late summer 1965
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• [about – The Times They Are A-Changin’] I can’t really say that adults don’t understand young people anymore than you can say big fishes don’t understand little fishes. I didn’t mean it as a statement, truth, or anything like that. It’s a feeling – you know – just a feeling.
  ~Mary Merrifield Interview, Nov 1965
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• Oh, I think of myself more as a song and dance man, y’know
  ~Press Conference, San Francisco 3 December 1965
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• Yeah, that was at Newport. Well, I did this very crazy thing. So, you know, I didn’t really know what was going to happen, but they certainly booed, I’ll tell you that.
  ~Press Conference, San Francisco 3 December 1965
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1966

• Lights flicker from the opposite loft
  In this room the heat pipes just cough
  The country music station plays soft
  But there’s nothing, really nothing to turn off
  Just Louise and her lover so entwined
  And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind
  ~Visions of Johanna
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• But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
  You can tell by the way she smiles
  ~Visions of Johanna
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• The ghost of ’lectricity howls in the bones of her face
  Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place
  ~Visions of Johanna
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• Grandpa died last week
  And now he’s buried in the rocks
  But everybody still talks about
  How badly they were shocked
  But me, I expected it to happen
  I knew he’d lost control
  When he built a fire on Main Street
  And shot it full of holes
  Oh, Mama, can this really be the end
  To be stuck inside of Mobile
  With the Memphis blues again
  ~Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again
• But to live outside the law, you must be honest
  ~Absolutely Sweet Mary
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• With your mercury mouth in the missionary times
  And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes
  And your silver cross, and your voice like chimes
  Oh, who among them do they think could bury you?
  ~Sad-Eyed Lady of The Lowlands

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• I found myself writing this song, this story, this long piece of vomit about twenty pages long, and out of it I took Like A Rolling Stone and made it as a single. And I’d never written anything like that before and it suddenly came to me that that was what I should do, you know. I mean, nobody had ever done that before.
  ~Martin Bronstein Interview, 20 Feb 1966
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• It’s very tiring having other people tell you how much they dig you if you yourself don’t dig you. It’s also very deadly entertainment-wise.
  ~Nat Hentoff (The Playboy) Interview, March 1966
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• There were a lot of people there who were very pleased that I got booed. I saw them afterward. I do resent somewhat, though, that everybody that booed said they did it because they were old fans.
  ~Nat Hentoff (The Playboy) Interview, March 1966
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• I wouldn’t advise anybody to use drugs – certainly not the hard drugs. Drugs are medicine. But opium and hash and pot – now, those things aren’t drugs. They just bend your mind a little. I think everybody’s mind should be bent once in a while.
  ~Nat Hentoff (The Playboy) Interview, March 1966
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• I mean everybody has done it, you know, ‘cos all you heard was rock n’ roll and country and western and rhythm and blues music. Now, now at a certain time it’s just the whole field got taken over into, into, into some milk, you know – into Frankie Avalon, Fabian and, you know, this kind of thing. …. Now it’s different again, because of the English thing. The English thing… what the English thing did was, they just proved that you could make money,
  you now, at playing, you know, the same old kind of music that you used to play, and that’s the truth. You know that’s not a lie. It’s not a come-on or anything. But, uh, you know the English people can’t play rock n’ roll music.
  ~Klas Burling Interview, 28 April 1966

1967

• “There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief
  “There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief
  Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth
  None of them along the line know what any of it is worth”
  ~All Along The Watchtower
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• Well, that mockingbird’s gonna sail away
  We’re gonna forget it
  That big, fat moon is gonna shine like a spoon
  But we’re gonna let it
  You won’t regret it
  ~I’ll Be You’re Baby Tonight

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• “What I’ve been doin’ mostly is seein’ only a few close friends, readin’ little ‘bout the outside world. Porin’ over books by people you never heard of. Thinkin’ about where I’m goin’ and why am I runnin’ and am I mixed up too much and what am I knowin’ and what am I givin’ and what am I takin’. And mainly what I’ve been doin’ is workin’ on gettin’ better and makin’ better music, which is what my life is all about.”
  ~Michael Iachetta Interview, 7 May 1967

1968

• [on songwriting] Well once you set it up in your mind, you don’t have to think about it any more. If it wants to come, it will come.
  ~To John Cohen, June/July 1968

1969

• Once I had mountains in the palm of my hand
  And rivers that ran through ev’ry day
  I must have been mad
  I never knew what I had
  Until I threw it all away
  ~I Threw It All Away
  

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• You know… That’s really the way to do a recording – in a peaceful, relaxed setting – in somebody’s basement. With the windows open… And a dog lying on the floor.
  ~The Rolling Stone Interview, 29 Nov 1969
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• The first time I went into the studio I had, I think, four songs. I pulled that instrumental one out… I needed some songs with an instrumental… Then Johnny [Cash] came in and did a song with me. Then I wrote one in the motel… Then pretty soon the whole album started fillin’ in together and we had an album. I mean, we didn’t go down with that in mind.
  ~The Rolling Stone Interview, 29 Nov 1969
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• Alldylan @ facebook
• Bob Dylan quotes from 1970 – 1974
• –
• Bob Dylan: Live 1961- 1969 (video & audio)
• Bob Dylan concert videos/audios from 1990 – 1995 @ alldylan.com
• Bob Dylan: Concerts & Videos from 1996 – 1999 @ Alldylan.com
• Bob Dylan: 10 concert videos you MUST see from the 90’s
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-Egil