Bruce Springsteen Quotations | Page 2

I hadn't performed by myself in a while. It feels very natural to me, and I assume people come for the very same reasons as they do when I'm with the band: to be moved, for something to happen to them.

I was always concerned with writing to my age at a particular moment. That was the way I would keep faith with the audience that supported me as I went along.

I was looking for some way to put my music to some service on a nightly basis. You go into a town, you play a little music, you leave something behind. That idea connected us to the local community. It was a very simple idea, but it really resonated with me.

I'm a synthesist. I'm always making music. And I make a lot of different kinds of music all the time. Some of it gets finished and some of it doesn't.

Your spoken voice is a part of it - not a big part of it, but it's something. It puts people at ease, and once again kind of reaches out and makes a bridge for what's otherwise difficult music.

'Darkness on the Edge of Town' came out of a huge body of work that had tons of very happy songs.

I still like to go to record stores, I like to just wander around and I'll buy whatever catches my attention.

Sometimes I do an automatic songs, songs that you don't really think about, or work on. You just look back and it sorta surprises you.

I couldn't worry about whether I`m gonna make it onstage or not. You can't. You just gotta do it. And if you do, you do, and if you don't, you don't, and then something else happens. That's the point of the live performance.

I don't want to make a record like in the '50s or the '60s or the '70s. I want to make a record like today, that`s right now.

I can get onstage and cut that off and be superinstinctive. To be a good live performer, you have to be instinctive. It's like, to walk in the jungle, or to do anything where there's a certain tightrope wire aspect you need to be instinctive. And you have to be comfortable at it also.

I'm the kind of person, I think a lot about everything. Nothin' I can do about it. It's like, I'm a thinkin' fool. That's a big part of me.

I held four clean aces. I had youth, almost a decade of hard-core bar band experience, a good group of homegrown musicians who were attuned to my performance style and a story to tell.

I come from a boardwalk town where almost everything is tinged with a bit of fraud. So am I.

I never knew anybody who was unhappy with their job and was happy with their life. It's your sense of purpose. Now, some people can find it elsewhere. Some people can work a job and find it some place else.

I never start with a political point of view. I believe that your politics are emotionally and psychologically determined by your early experiences.

You have moments of clarity, things become clear to you that you didn't understand before. But there's never any making ends meet or finding any time of longstanding peace of mind about something.

Mama always told me not to look into the sights of the sun. Oh, but mama, that's where the fun is.

Somehow all you ever need's never really quite enough.

Somewhere along the way, the idea, which I think was initially to get some fair transaction between people, went out the window. And what came in was, the most you can get and the least you can give. That's why cars are the way they are nowadays. It's just an erosion of all the things that were true and right about the original idea.

I believe when your children are born that you are reborn in some fashion.

You weren't supposed to hear Elvis Presley. You weren't supposed to hear Jerry Lee Lewis. You weren't supposed to hear Robert Johnson. You weren't supposed to hear Hank Williams. And they told the story of the secret America.

I heard a political message in rock music. A liberation message. A message of freedom. I heard it in Elvis' voice.

I've found that giving 100% to your job isn't the same as giving 100% of your life to your job. Very often when I thought I was giving 100% of my life to my job, I was simply obsessing over something.

There's people that get a chance to do the kind of work that changes the world, and make things really different. And there's the kind that just keeps the world from falling apart.

There's a beauty in work and I love it, all different kinds of work. That's what I consider it. Rock is my job, and that's my work. And I work my ass off, you know.

I always look terrible before the show. That's when I feel worst. And after the show it's like a million bucks. Simple as that. You feel a little tired but you never feel better. Nothing makes me feel as good as those hours between when you walk offstage, until I go to bed. That's the hours that I live for.

My dad had a very difficult life, a hard struggle all the time at work. I've always felt like I'm seeking his revenge.

I tend to be pessimistic. I want to believe in hope.

Music doesn't tell you where to go. It says, go find your own place. That's what it told me.

We live in a post-authentic world, and today authenticity is a house of mirrors. It's all just what you're bringing when the lights go down. It's your teachers, your influences, and your personal history. At the end of the day, it's the power and purpose of your music that still matters.

Those wounds stay with you, and you turn them into a language and a purpose.

Settle back is to settle without knowing.

A dream of life comes to me, like a catfish dancing on the end of the line.

I told a story with the E Street Band that was bigger and better than I could have done on my own.

I think life goes through a cycle of losing and refinding yourself all the time. Everyone has disappointments all the time, some of them pretty small, some of them pretty big.

When you have three teenagers, it gives a whole new meaning to "homeland security."

To her Cheshire smile, I'll stand on file, she's all I ever wanted. But you let your blue walls get in the way of these facts.

Fame, on its best day, is kind of like a friendly wave from a stranger by the side of the road. And when it's not so good, it's like a long walk home, all alone, with nobody in when you get there.

You can beat the drum so hard that people stop listening. I wanted to use my voice wisely and not expend it wastefully.

The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive.

The artists we love, they put their fingerprint on your imagination, and on your heart and your soul.

The criminal ineptitude makes you furious.

Well now everything dies baby that's a fact But maybe everything that dies someday comes back.

I want a thousand guitars . . .

I walked a thousand miles just to slip this skin.

Let there be sunshine, let there be rain, let the broken hearted love again.

Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty. And meet me tonight in Atlantic City

I always write with an audience in mind. If I feel that [connection] coming back at me then I feel like I'm doing my job. That's why people come to my music - for some emotional experience or a perspective, either on their own lives, or on the world that they're living in.

I would rather feel the hurt inside, yes I would darling, than know the emptiness that your heart must hide.

I'm laughing at you, you're laughing at me.

To say I'll make your dreams come true would be wrong, but maybe, darling, I could help them along.

I guess there's just a meanness in this world

You can beat on your chest, hell, any monkey can.

I cut my bow from the wood of this tree of evil. Of this tree of good, I want a kiss from your lips.

Wendy, let me in, I wanna be your friend. I wanna guard your dreams and visions.

There's a girl across the bar, I get the message she's sending. Mmm, she ain't looking too married, and me, well, I'm pretending.

Sky of blackness and sorrow, sky of love, sky of tears. Sky of glory and sadness, sky of mercy, sky of fear.

I got a house full of Rembrandts and priceless art, and all the little girls they wanna tear me apart.

I took a month long vacation in the stratosphere, and you know it's very hard to hold your breath.

Hey, little dolly with the blue jeans on, I want to ramrod with you, honey, 'til half past dawn.

Baby, this town rips the bones from our back it's a death trap, it's a suicide rap. We got to get out while we're young.

When I die throw my body in the back and drive me to the junk yard in my Cadillac.

Your skin upon my skin, in the beating of our hearts, may the living let us in, before the dead tear us apart.

Nothing matters in the whole wide world when you're in love with a Jersey girl.

So I bought a forty-four magnum, it was solid steel cast, and in the blessed name of Elvis, well I just let it blast 'til my TV lay in pieces.

Out of our way mister, you best keep.

My heart's dark, but it's rising. I'm pulling all the faith I can see.

Hey man, did you see that? His body hit the street with such a beautiful thud.

Let's raise our glass and let the hammer fly, yeah, this is the long good-bye.

They put a rifle in my hand, sent me off to a foreign land to go and kill the Yellow man.

Me and crazy Janey were making love in the dirt singing our birthday songs.

Go-kart Mozart was checking out the weather chart to see if it was safe outside.

You get used to anything, sooner or later it just becomes your life.

You can hide beneath the covers and study your pain, make crosses from your lovers, throw roses in the rain. Waste your summer praying in vain, for a savior to rise from these streets.

I met a girl and we ran away, I swore I'd make her happy every day. And how I made her cry, two faces have I.

So tell me what I see when I look in your eyes, is that you baby or just a brilliant disguise?

You use to drive me wild, but lately you get your kicks from just knocking me down, down, down.

Badlands, you got to live it everyday, let the broken hearts stand as the price you've got to pay.

I got Mary pregnant and man that's all she wrote. And for my 19th birthday, I got a union card and a factory coat.

I'm just tired and bored with myself.

My soul is lost, my friend, tell me how do I begin again? My city's in ruins, my city's in ruins.

Outside the street's on fire in a real death waltz between what's flesh and what's fantasy.

Sometimes, at night you could hear the whole damn city crying.

Got a wife and kid in Baltimore Jack, I went out for a ride and I never went back. Like a river that don't know where it's flowing, I took a wrong turn and I just kept going.

I'm ready to grow young again

Tonight this fool's halfway to heaven and just a mile outta hell And I feel like I'm comin' home.

Now those memories come back to haunt me they haunt me like a curse.

Everybody's got a hungry heart.

You've always got to remember, rock and roll's never been about giving up. For me, for a lot of kids, it was a totally positive force... not optimistic all the time, but positive. It was never--never--a bout surrender.

Tonight I'm stepping lightly and I'm feeling no pain.

I believe the war on poverty is a more American idea than the war on the war on poverty. I believe that most people feel like that. And I believe that it ain't over till it's over.

Well now I'm no hero, that's understood. All the redemption I can offer girl, is beneath this dirty hood. With a chance to make it good somehow, hey what else can we do now? Except roll down the window, and let the wind blow back your hair. Well the night's busting open, these two lanes will take us anywhere. We got one last chance to make it real.

An audience is not brought to you or given to you; it's something that you fight for.

It's time to impeach the president and get a man in there to get us out of this mess.

We said we'd walk together baby come what may.That come the twilight should we lose our way.If as we're walkin a hand should slip free,I'll wait for you And should I fall behind,Wait for me.

the poets down here don't write nothin' at all, they just stand back and let it all be...

strenght-faith-hope-love

cause down the shore everything's all right

Mister, I ain't a boy, no I'm a man, and i believe in a promised land.