Tell the truth. Sing with passion. Work with laughter. Love with heart. 'Cause that's all that matters in the end.
I grew up in a time when people believed in duty, honor and country. My grandfathers were both officers. My father was a General in the Air Force. My brother and I were both in the Army. I've always felt a kinship with soldiers; I think it's possible to support the warrior and be against the war.
To do the things that I did, I'm amazed that I had the audacity - like resigning from the Army and becoming a janitor and a songwriter.
There was time in the first half of the '80s when what I was saying on the stage was controversial. A lot of things I was talking about - Nicaragua and American foreign policy.
I was in Nicaragua with the Sandinistas. I've argued for Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal, the United Farm Workers. I've been a radical for a long time. I guess it's too bad. I'd be more marketable as a right-wing redneck. But I got into this to tell the truth as I saw it.
I grew up listening to Hank Williams and Johnny Cash, so arriving in Nashville in the '60s was really exciting for me.
I've come to appreciate how special a song is compared to other art forms, because you can carry it around in your head and your heart, and it remains part of you. It just comes as natural as a bird to me, always did. It's the way singer-songwriters make sense of our lives.
'Heaven's Gate' was based on a true story about the cattle people: the people who had the money turned on the settlers who were in the area. And it was mainly a defense of their behavior. And the cattlemen's association had just about declared war on these people who were poaching cattle, and because they were mainly immigrants.
Everything that I write is sort of autobiographical, and I don't know that I'm getting better, but I'm certainly running out of time.
'Sunday Morning Coming Down' is probably the most directly autobiographical thing I'd written. In those days, I was living in a slum tenement that was torn down afterwards, but it was $25 a month in a condemned building, and 'Sunday Morning Coming Down' was more or less looking around me and writing about what I was doing.
Bobby Bare is one of the greatest people in country music.
I got scars on my face that tell some kind of story. I'm looking in the mirror, and I got one scar that's really two scars - half from a baseball bat and half from playing football in college. I'll tell you, though, after a while, your face gets so wrinkled up you can hardly see them.
Being in love with a lot of people is incompatible with a stable family life.
I am grateful every morning I wake up. I've a big family full of kids, who laugh all the time and love each other.
Dylan's relationship with Johnny Cash was the biggest influence on Nashville in my lifetime - they opened up country music.
Johnny Cash's legacy, I think if it was one word, it would be 'integrity.' He was the original wild man and grew from that guy that was doing all the crazy things that you read that rock n' rollers do to being someone who was like the father of our country, you know. He was a guest at the White House. He was Billy Graham's friend.
I've tried to be more self-sufficient as I've gotten older. I'd like to not worry about whether they're going to sell my next album or book. Hell, William Blake wasn't even published in his lifetime.
I watched Dylan record 'Blonde On Blonde' in my first week at work at CBS. It was just incredible.
That's who I wanted to be like was Bob Dylan.
I thought he was the greatest thing. Bob Dylan.
