Arlo Guthrie Quotes

#1. Everywhere I go, I see all kinds of people at my shows - conservatives, liberals, new-agers, teen-agers, old pensioners. And for those people to have something in common is real interesting to me.

Arlo Guthrie

#2. 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.

Arlo Guthrie

#3. 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.

Arlo Guthrie

#4. My only description for me is that there's no throwaway people. That's the creed that I live by. It doesn't matter if I'm singing or not. That's the kind of person that my father and mother wanted me to be. The end obligation is to make people feel good about who they are.

Arlo Guthrie

#5. 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.

Arlo Guthrie

#6. 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.

Arlo Guthrie

#7. Yes, I was born in Coney Island. The Holy Land.

Arlo Guthrie

#8. 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.

Arlo Guthrie

#9. Everyone has troubles. Finding yourself in the same boat with everyone else is the first sign of spirituality.

Arlo Guthrie

#10. You teach kids how to succeed when they successfully foil the educational system.

Arlo Guthrie

#11. I don't do anything on stage that allows me to become a trained seal, where you're just doing the same thing over and over.

Arlo Guthrie

#12. I froze in time! And I thought My God ... I'm free!

Arlo Guthrie

#13. I've been singing this song now for twenty five minutes. I could sing it for another twenty five minutes. I'm not proud ... or tired.

Arlo Guthrie

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

Arlo Guthrie

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

Arlo Guthrie

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

Arlo Guthrie

#17. Be serious. Folk songs are serious. That's what Pete Seeger told me. Arlo, I only wanna tell you one thing. Folk songs are serious. And I said Right.

Arlo Guthrie

#18. Coming into Los Angeles, bringing in a couple of keys. Don't touch my bags, if you please Mr. Customs man.

Arlo Guthrie

#19. I'd rather have friends who care than friends who agree with me.

Arlo Guthrie

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

Arlo Guthrie

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

Arlo Guthrie

#22. Any big organization can be subverted by governments or multinational special interests. They have the resources to cast doubt and fear over any group they feel threatened by.

Arlo Guthrie

#23. You don't need spirituality to discover the troubles that come your way. But, it's good to know that troubles are not unique to you alone.

Arlo Guthrie

#24. Greed and globalization aren't just America's fault.

Arlo Guthrie

#25. The New York State Freeway's closed, man. Far out!

Arlo Guthrie

#26. You get people talking about being worried about their art, and dances ... their culture being wiped out or taken over, and yet these same people are taking advantage of their people to use them as cheap labour.

Arlo Guthrie

#27. It's about the time I was riding my Motorcycle, going down a mountain road at 150 miles an hour, playing my guitar.

Arlo Guthrie

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

Arlo Guthrie

#29. We would turn everything into songs in those days.

Arlo Guthrie

#30. 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.

Arlo Guthrie

#31. We had a great time on the bench talking about crime, mother-stabbin', father raping, all kinds of groovy things.

Arlo Guthrie

#32. Ostrich is a very lean meat. Bison is a very lean meat. Chicken is a very lean meat. Notice something about my favorite meats?

Arlo Guthrie

#33. 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.

Arlo Guthrie

#34. At the same time the folk boom was happening, the civil rights movement was happening, the anti-war movement was happening, the ban the bomb movement was happening, the environmental movement was happening. There was suddenly a generation ready to change the course of history.

Arlo Guthrie

#35. 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.

Arlo Guthrie

#36. If readers understand that they do not understand what they are reading then they must possess an understanding which is superior to the meaning which caused that misunderstanding.

Arlo Guthrie

#37. 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.

Arlo Guthrie

#38. 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.

Arlo Guthrie

#39. 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.

Arlo Guthrie

#40. Probably my two biggest musical influences were the Everly Brothers and the Beatles, in chronological order. Both of them have had a very simple-sounding musical style that's actually quite complex as far as popular songs are concerned.

Arlo Guthrie

#41. No Judgment = No Expectations: That's my motto.

Arlo Guthrie

#42. Only the words of love kept alive are worthy of not being wasted.

Arlo Guthrie

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

Arlo Guthrie

#44. I've written quite a variety of songs, everything from kids songs to political satire, and my dad covered a fairly large range, also.

Arlo Guthrie

#45. I left the entertainment industry part of my life behind in 1983, when we decided not to work with major record companies anymore.

Arlo Guthrie

#46. Being famous is not the same as being important. A lot of important people aren't famous, and a lot of famous people aren't important.

Arlo Guthrie

#47. If you want to end war and stuff, you gotta sing loud.

Arlo Guthrie

#48. I don't want a pickle, I just want ride on my motorcikle. I don't want to die, I just want a ride on my motorcy ... cle.

Arlo Guthrie

#49. What's in that pipe that he's smoking?

Arlo Guthrie

#50. Songwriting is like fishing in a stream; you put in your line and hope to catch something. And I don't think anyone downstream from Bob Dylan ever caught anything.

Arlo Guthrie

#51. Everyone has a responsibility to not only tolerate another person's point of view, but also to accept it eagerly as a challenge to your own understanding. And express those challenges in terms of serving other people.

Arlo Guthrie

#52. Songs are like fish. You just gotta have your line in the water. And it's a bad idea to fish downstream from Bob Dylan.

Arlo Guthrie

#53. Santa Claus wears a Red Suit, he must be a communist. And a beard and long hair, must be a pacifist. What's in that pipe that he's smoking?

Arlo Guthrie

#54. My mother had introduced me to a lot of my father's friends because she believed that I would get to know the guy my dad was better through his friends than just in the hospital visits.

Arlo Guthrie

#55. We went back, afterward, after the show was over that night, I took my kids backstage and said, You know what? I know my dad's songs ...

Arlo Guthrie

#56. I don't write as many songs as I used to. But, I find myself writing for social media more - times have changed. And I love photography, so a lot of my creative energy gets caught up that way.

Arlo Guthrie

#57. 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.'

Arlo Guthrie