Bob Dylan Writing Quotations

Once I went into songwriting, I figured I had to - I couldn't be a hellfire rock 'n' roller. But I could write hellfire lyrics.

I don't usually purge myself by writing anything about any type of quote, so-called, relationships.

The best songs are the songs you write that you don't know anything about. They're an escape.

I'm good with songs I haven't written, if I like them. I'm glad I didn't write any of them. I already know how they go, so I have more freedom with them. I understand these songs. I've known them for 40 years, 50 years, maybe longer, and they make a lot of sense. So I'm not coming to them like a stranger.

I'm used to writing songs and songs-I can fill em up with symbolism and metaphors. When you write a book (Chronicles, Vol. 1), you gotta tell the truth, and it can't be misinterpreted.

I don't write the songs; I just write 'em down.

I just wanted a song to sing, and there came a point where I couldn't sing anything...nobo dy else was writing what I wanted to sing. I couldn't find it anywhere. If I could I probably would never have started writing.

If you don't have to write songs, why write them? I've got enough where I don't really feel the urge to write anything additional.

I started writing songs after I heard Hank Williams.

In writing songs, I've learned as much from Cezanne as I have from Woody Guthrie.

You just don't wake up one day and decide that you need to write songs.

My best songs were written very quickly. Just about as much time as it takes to write it down is about as long as it takes to write it...In writing songs I've learned as much from Cezanne as I have from Woody Guthrie...It's not me, it's the songs. I'm just the postman, I deliver the songs...I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I'll die like a poet.

There's enough songs for people to listen to, if they want to listen to songs. For every man, woman and child on earth, they could be sent, probaby, each of them, a hundred records, and never be repeated. There's enough songs. Unless someone's gonna come along with a pure heart and has something to say. That's a different story.

That's another way of writing a song, of course. Just talking to somebody that ain't there. That's the best way. That's the truest way. Then it just becomes a question of how heroic your speech is. To me, it's something to strive after.

It is the first line that gives the inspiration and then it's like riding a bull. Either you just stick with it, or you don't.

Just a reminder, if you tell anyone about what happened with Jonah last night, I'll destroy all of my writing and never play music again.

If I could have any job in the world, I'd start out by writing a blog on Wired.com.

As long as you give my friend Jonah Lehrer a free pizza, I'll write a song about your restaurant.

You don't write a song to sit there on a page. You write it to sing it.

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.

In the meantime [1965-67], [Bob] Dylan was again writing some of the best love songs in the genre, like "Visions of Johanna," "Just Like a Woman," and "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands."