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. Left wing, chicken wing, it don't make no difference to me.

Woody Guthrie

#3. It is not with a rush and a spring that we are to reach Christ's character, and attain to perfect saintship; but step by step, foot by foot, hand over hand, we are slowly and often painfully to mount the ladder that rests on earth, and rises to heaven.

Thomas Guthrie

#4. If you want to learn something, just steal it.

Woody Guthrie

#5. Renaissance cowboy/raconteur Pop Wagner ... deadpan funny ... his presence is like meeting Woody Guthrie and Will Rogers riding a single, many colored horse. Pop is a kind of 'textile genius' who is able to spin, at once, both yarn and rope.

Ron Miles

#6. I went to a performance of 'The Crucible' at the Guthrie when I was a sophomore in high school, and I knew right away that that's what I wanted to do.

John Hawkes

#7. My father was a painter. There was a lot of singing. We hung around with a lot of folk musicians. My family knew a lot of great folk musicians of the time, like Woody Guthrie, Paul Robeson, Leadbelly. They were all people we knew.

Alan Arkin

#8. Like most kids, I grew up singing 'This Land Is Your Land' in grammar school, but with the most radical verses neatly removed. This was before I knew it was a Woody Guthrie song.

Steve Earle

#9. This machine kills fascists.

Woody Guthrie

#10. Sailors didn't train for hurricanes, because they weren't supposed to be in hurricanes.

Julian Guthrie

#11. I never have any clothes to go out in, because I always just buy for work. I don't know why. Habit.

Savannah Guthrie

#12. 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

#13. What I'm doing is basically the same as Bob Dylan did with folk songs and Woody Guthrie songs, the same as folk music's always done. I'm not going to sing about ploughing, but I'll write a song that sounds like it should be about ploughing.

Justin Townes Earle

#14. If we fix it so's you can't make money on war, we'll all forget what we're killing folks for.

Woody Guthrie

#15. In a phone interview in 1994, Celia Powell stressed two sentiments: music was her father's life; it was the driving force of his existence, in her opinion. And she thought the music industry had very much taken advantage of him.121

Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr.

#16. 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

#17. Even with politics, stuff comes around again. Woody Guthrie would recognize America today.

Billy Bragg

#18. Let me ask you. If someone called you and offered you a ride in the Indianapolis 500 and you were a male race car driver, would you turn the ride down?

Janet Guthrie

#19. 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

#20. Religion is the mortar that binds society together; the granite pedestal of liberty; the strong backbone of the social system.

Thomas Guthrie

#21. Nouns and verbs are the guts of the language. Beware of covering up with adjectives and adverbs.

A.B. Guthrie Jr.

#22. That your own interpretation of a work of art is flagrantly subjective seems to be regarded as an arrogant attitude. But the truer view is that the interpretative artist can only make his own comment upon the work.

Tyrone Guthrie

#23. I played around our yard some and talked to the fence posts, sung songs and made the weeds sing ... - WOODY GUTHRIE

Richard Louv

#24. A sunny temper [an attitude of gratitude for what blessings and mercies there are] gilds the edges of life's blackest cloud.

Thomas Guthrie

#25. The Christian is like the ripening corn; the riper he grows the more lowly he bends his head.

Alfred Bertram Guthrie

#26. 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

#27. If you play more than two chords, you're showing off.

Woody Guthrie

#28. 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

#29. Good enough is never good enough.

Alfred Bertram Guthrie

#30. Anyone who uses more than two chords is just showing off.

Woody Guthrie

#31. If you steal from one person is Theft, and if you steal from Lots of people is Research

Guthrie Govan

#32. The best way to get to know any bunch of people is to go and listen to their music.

Woody Guthrie

#33. Celtic music is part of the language in Scotland and Ireland, where every kid and grandparent knows those songs, music by the likes of Woody Guthrie and Hank Snow is getting entrenched here. They are part of our cultural language. It's part of a living treasure. It doesn't just belong to a museum.

Rosanne Cash

#34. I'm trying to set out the passion and complexity of this sport. Many people think it's a dumb activity: stand on the gas and turn left. In fact, it's probably one of the most complex sports in existence.

Janet Guthrie

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

Arlo Guthrie

#36. The more the diamond is cut the brighter it sparkles; and in what seems hard dealing, there God has no end in view but to perfect His people.

Thomas Guthrie

#37. 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

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

Arlo Guthrie

#39. I fell in love with folk music at Surprise Lake Camp. It was the songs of Woody Guthrie and the Weavers.

Neil Diamond

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

Arlo Guthrie

#41. Perserverance: Outlasting the most rash, pessimistic, cowardly naysayers; those first in line to deny us the dreams never tried. Ourselves.

R.S. Guthrie

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

Bob Dylan

#43. You could listen to Woody Guthrie songs and actually learn how to live ...

Bob Dylan

#44. 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

#45. But I also think that once you've found stuff that works, stop reading forums, stop reading reviews and just get out there and play.

Guthrie Govan

#46. The most profound, life-altering gift you can offer the Indie writer you love is to TELL as MANY avid readers as you are able.

R.S. Guthrie

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

Arlo Guthrie

#48. 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

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

Arlo Guthrie

#50. 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

#51. Though I acted in hundreds of productions, appeared at the Guthrie Theatre and on Broadway in Amadeus, I discovered in my thirties that I didn't really like stage acting. The presence of the audience, the eight shows a week and the possibility of a long run were all unnatural to me.

Fred Melamed

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

Arlo Guthrie

#53. 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

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

Arlo Guthrie

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

Arlo Guthrie

#56. It's round the world I've traveled; it's round the world I've roamed; but I've yet to see an outlaw drive a family from its home

Woody Guthrie

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

Arlo Guthrie

#58. If Woody Guthrie set the bar for American songwriters, Bob Dylan jumped right over it. No one I know will ever come close to possessing the beauty of melody and the use of language that Dylan shares with us, with ease.

John Mellencamp

#59. You drive the car, you don't carry it.

Janet Guthrie

#60. Left wing, right wing, chicken wing.

Woody Guthrie

#61. Nobody living can ever stop me. As I go walking my freedom highway. Nobody living can make me turn back. This land was made for you and me.

Woody Guthrie

#62. All about a human being is, it's a great big hoping machine.

Woody Guthrie

#63. Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple.

Woody Guthrie

#64. I don't think I have any right to say I belong to that [Woody Guthrie/Bob Dylan tradition]. I think that's something that eventually maybe you get inducted into. I'm just experimenting.

Justin Townes Earle

#65. Now as through this world I ramble, I see lots of funny men, Some rob you with a six gun, And some with a fountain pen.

Woody Guthrie

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

Arlo Guthrie

#67. This land is made for you and me.

Woody Guthrie

#68. 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

#69. I have all kinds of lovely ideas for games and the like." She glanced at Guthrie. "None require swordplay."
Guthrie shook his head. "Where's the fun in that?

Terry Spear

#70. 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

#71. The mental powers acquire their full robustness when the cheek loses its ruddy hue, and the limbs their elastic step; and pale thought sits on manly brows, and the watchman, as he walks his rounds, sees the student's lamp burning far into the silent night.

Thomas Guthrie

#72. Speed is a byproduct of good, slow practice.

Guthrie Govan

#73. The work that is done in love loses half its tedium and difficulty.

Thomas Guthrie

#74. A lot of my training is in classical theatre; I've done a lot of classical plays in New York and also at the Guthrie and here and there across the country.

Laila Robins

#75. I ain't a Communist necessarily, but I have been in the red all my life.

Woody Guthrie

#76. Irish fathers still have certain responsibilities, and by the time my two daughters turned seven, they could swim, ride a bike, sing at least one part of a Woody Guthrie song, and recite all of W. B. Yeats's 'The Song of Wandering Aengus.'

Adrian McKinty

#77. There is very little in civilized life that demands everything you got intellectually, physically, and emotionally. Driving is living. It's aggressive instead of passive living.

Janet Guthrie

#78. As in nature, as in art, so in grace; it is rough treatment that gives souls, as well as stones, their luster.

Thomas Guthrie

#79. Recession, terrorism, debts, political turmoil, disease, famine, mortality... screw it, I'm putting googly eyes on things.

Charles R.L. Guthrie

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

Arlo Guthrie

#81. If you are inclined to leave your character solitary for any considerable length of time, better question yourself. Fiction is association, not withdrawal.

Alfred Bertram Guthrie

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

Arlo Guthrie

#83. Racing is a passion ... at this level, a source of immense gratification. So the rest is no problem.

Janet Guthrie

#84. Racing is a matter of spirit not strength.

Janet Guthrie

#85. The spirit of Woody Guthrie lives in the heart of
Chris Chandler.

Peter Yarrow

#86. 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

#87. You'll find God in the church of your choice, you'll find Woody Guthrie in the Brooklyn State Hospital.

Bob Dylan

#88. One of the things I love about New York is that it's one of the only places where you could have an entire restaurant dedicated to macaroni and cheese.

Savannah Guthrie

#89. 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

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

Arlo Guthrie

#91. I love a good man outside the law, just as much as I hate a bad man inside the law.

Woody Guthrie

#92. The Bible, which ranges over a period of four thousand years, records but one instance of a death-bed conversion (the thief on the cross) - one that none may despair, and but one that none may presume.

Thomas Guthrie

#93. Because Dickens and Dostoyevsky and Woody Guthrie were telling their stories much better than I ever could, I decided to stick to my own mind.

Bob Dylan

#94. The wheel may be turning, but the hamster is DEAD!

Georgina Guthrie

#95. Work can only be universal if it is rooted in a part of its creator which is most privately and particularly himself.

Tyrone Guthrie

#96. Life has a habit of not staying hitched. You got to ride it like you find it.

Woody Guthrie

#97. Fiction is love and hate and agreement and conflict and common adventure, not lonely musings on have-beens and might-have-beens.

Alfred Bertram Guthrie

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

Arlo Guthrie

#99. Woody Guthrie was what folks who don't believe in anything would call an anomaly.

Steve Earle

#100. Scatter money in a crowd, how they scramble for it; offer bread to the starving, how greedily they seize it; throw a rope to the drowning, how he eagerly grasps it! With like eagerness and earnestness may the Spirit of God help you to lay hold on Christ.

Thomas Guthrie