Musician

Basically, I think you need two things to get by in this world: a sense of humor and the ability to laugh when your ego is destroyed.

I think of my parents as a single unit, and it's interesting because they shared so much, and they were totally opposite. My mother, a Martha Graham dancer, had a classical background; my father had a back-porch background.

There's only one God. Call him whatever you want.

With the advent of radio and recording, music became an industry rather than just a tradition.

There are people all over the world who are willing to exploit others. You can't just point the finger at America.

Thank God that the people that run this world are not smart enough to keep running it forever. You know, everybody gets a handle on it for a little while.

Folk music is music that everyday people can play, and it inspired a lot of people to make their own music. That trailed into making your own pop music, and that's why garage bands started springing up everywhere.

I don't want a pickle, just want to ride on my motorsickle.

You can't have a light without a dark to stick it in.

I'm not just a singer-songwriter doing songs in the key of me.

People were talking about songs of the common man in order to make the common man. With Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly, they were so common it was just uncommon.

Along with a sense of humor, my songs have to be sincere, and they have to be sung from a position of inner conviction.

Music is a nice friend to have around, whether it is just for yourself or for other people. If you can enjoy it, being professional is almost secondary.

But think of the last guy. For one minute, think of the last guy. Nobody's got it worse than that guy. Nobody in the whole world.

My dad's songs were really written to make certain people feel as though they had some kind of value. Because they were told from where they work and from the countries they had immigrated from that they did not.

The death of what's dead is the birth of what's living.

I thought I would be governor of Massachusetts. I stood on a pile of my old albums and said, 'I'm the only one with a record to stand on.'

Building walls isn't going to work in the long run. Some people are happy with the wall in Israel, but somebody will get a weapon someday and knock it over or something. Walls aren't the answer between countries, though.

If you do anything for 40 years, you can do it comfortably. And it will always be good. But unless you're willing to risk it being bad, it can never be great.

We live in an increasingly sophisticated world that makes it difficult to make simple comments on stuff. There are too many people on both sides of the border who are taking advantage of circumstances and the situation.