Looking for the best and inspirational Bob Dylan quotes?
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter born in Minnesota in 1941. He emerged from the folk revival that began in the early 1960s and established himself as one of the most influential singer-songwriters of all time. His songs are widely recognized for their haunting melody, poetic lyrics, and unique voice.
Dylan’s songwriting ability has garnered him 11 Grammy Awards among countless other awards and honors. His work has been covered by artists from Joan Baez to Johnny Cash to Celine Dion, and he is regarded as one of America’s greatest musicians by Rolling Stone Magazine.
Analyzing his life story and career is complicated because there have been so many different versions of it spread across various media outlets. He has released over 30 studio albums, written several books, and won various awards throughout his career.
His quotes will help you develop your thinking by putting your thoughts into words and making them sound inspiring.
Top 79 Inspiring Bob Dylan Quotes
“Every pleasure’s got an edge of pain, pay your ticket and don’t complain”
“Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin’ to be so quiet?”
“You need something to open up a new door, to show you something you seen before but overlooked a hundred times or more”
“To live outside the law you must be honest.”
“It was gravity which pulled us down and destiny which broke us apart.”
“When you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose.”
“What was the future? The future was a solid wall, not promising, not threatening – all bunk. No guarantees of anything, not even the guarantee that life isn’t one big joke.”
“Money doesn’t talk, it swears.”
“If you need somebody you can trust, trust yourself.”
“You learn from a conglomeration of the incredible past — whatever experience gotten in any way whatsoever.”
“Behind every beautiful thing, there’s some kind of pain.”
“Don’t criticize what you can’t understand.”
“Every pleasure’s got an edge of pain, pay your ticket and don’t complain.”
“Life has its ups and downs, and time has to be your partner. Really, time is your soul mate.”
“Passion rules the arrow that flies.”
“Thinking of a series of dreams Where the time and the tempo fly And there’s no exit in any direction ‘Cept the one that you can’t see with your eyes.”
“Some people seem to fade away but then when they are truly gone, it’s like they didn’t fade away at all.”
“People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, then repent.”
“Everything passes. Everything changes. Just do what you think you should do.”
“I failed to communicate, that’s why I chose to leave”
“I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours.”
“Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.”
“Don’t matter how much money you got, there’s only two kinds of people: there’s saved people and there’s lost people.”
“Experience teaches us that silence terrifies people the most.”
“What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.
“You were my first love and you will be my last.”
“There’s only one day at a time here, then it’s tonight and then tomorrow will be today again.”
“All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie.”
“Whatever colors you have in your mind, I’ll show them to you and you’ll see them shine.”
“A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.”
“You have to work out where your place is. And who you are. But we’re all spirit. That’s all we are, we’re just walking dressed up in a suit of skin, and we’re going to leave that behind.”
“You can never be wise and be in love at the same time.”
“Gonna change my way of thinking, make myself a different set of rules. Gonna put my good foot forward and stop being influenced by fools.”
“The only thing I knew how to do was to keep on keeping on.”
“All I can be is me – whoever that is.”
“When you feel in your gut what you are and then dynamically pursue it – don’t back down and don’t give up – then you’re going to mystify a lot of folks.”
“You better start swimming, or you’ll sink like a stone. Because the Time’s they are a-changing.”
“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
“Passion is a young man’s game. Young people can be passionate. Older people gotta be more wise.”
“If ever asked to look at yourself, don’t.”
“Act the way you’d like to be and soon you’ll be the way you’d like to act.”
“Act the way you’d like to be and soon you’ll be the way you’d like to act.”
“Even if you don’t have all the things you want, be grateful for the things you don’t have that you don’t want.”
“There is nothing so stable as change.”
“It’s not important what other people call you. If you yourself know you’re a fake, that’s tougher to live with.”
“Your problem is that you want to better word for world.”
“Pain brings out the best in people, doesn’t it?”
“People have a hard time accepting anything that overwhelms them.”
“You’re gonna have to serve somebody; well, it may be the devil, or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody…”
“You can always come back, but you can’t come back all the way.”
“When You Cease To Exist, Then Who Will You Blame?”
“There’s a wall between you and what you want and you got to leap it.”
“Sometimes it’s not enough to know what things mean, sometimes you have to know what things don’t mean.”
“If you try to be anyone but yourself, you will fail; if you are not true to your own heart, you will fail. Then again, there’s no success like failure”
“When you feel in your gut what you are and then dynamically pursue it – don’t back down and don’t give up – then you’re going to mystify a lot of folks.”
“Life is more or less a lie, but then again, that’s exactly the way we want it to be.”
“A lot of people say there is no happiness in this life and certainly there’s no permanent happiness. But self-sufficiency creates happiness.”
“Whatever you do. You ought to be the best at it – highly skilled. It’s about confidence, not arrogance. You have to know that you’re the best whether anybody else tells you or not. And that you’ll be around, in one way or another, longer than anybody else. Somewhere inside of you, you have to believe that.”
“Sometimes it’s not enough to know what things mean, sometimes you have to know what things don’t mean.”
“When you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to loose.”
“No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky.”
“your problem is that wanna better word for world”
“What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.”
“And I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinking.”
“There is no equality. The only thing people all have in common is that they are all going to die.”
“I define nothing. Not beauty, not patriotism. I take each thing as it is, without prior rules about what it should be.”
“You don’t necessarily have to write to be a poet. Some people work in gas stations and they’re poets. I don’t call myself a poet, because I don’t like the word. I’m a trapeze artist.”
“I accept chaos, I’m not sure whether it accepts me.”
“It frightens me, the awful truth, of how sweet life can be…”
“People need to be encouraged, not stepped on and put in a straitjacket!”
“You call yourself what you want to call yourself. This is the land of the free.”
“We don’t see the people that vice destroys. We just see the glamour of it – everywhere we look, from billboard signs to movies, to newspapers, to magazines. We see the destruction of human life.”
“The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense.”
“Take care of all your memories. For you cannot relive them.”
“The future for me is already a thing of the past –”
“I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.”
“Everything passes, Everything changes, Just do what you think you should do.”
“If you want to keep your memories, you first have to live them.”
“Life is more or less a lie, but then again, that’s exactly the way we want it to be.”
