According to my definition of God, I’m not an atheist. Because I think God is everything. Whenever I open my eyes, I’m looking at God. Whenever I’m listening to something, I’m listening to God.
I love my country very dearly, and I greatly resent the implication that some of the places that I have sung and some of the people that I have known, and some of my opinions, whether they are religious or philosophical, make me less of an American.
If there’s something wrong, speak up!
All the arts, music, the visual arts, acting and dancing arts, cooking arts, and I believe sports, will save the human race because they can leap over barriers, religions, leap over barriers of race, politics.
The American Indians were Communists. They were. Every anthropologist will tell you they were Communists. No rich, no poor. If somebody needed something the community chipped in.
People are combining traditions like never before and finding somehow a fundamental unity for this human race of ours. I think working with each other as Jeff Haynes has done here-we may be surprised to find what deeper unity all human beings have.
The first country conquered by any dictator is his own country.
The real meaning of courage was the personal sacrifice of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King.
Some of my ancestors were religious dissenters who came to America over three hundred years ago. Others were abolitionists in New England in the eighteen forties and fifties.
I keep reminding people that an editorial in rhyme is not a song. A good song makes you laugh, it makes you cry, it makes you think.
Most conservatives just want to turn back the clock to a time before the income tax – 100 years or so. I would like to turn the clock back thousands of years to a time when people lived in small communities and took care of each other.
I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing good that doesn’t have bad consequences and nothing bad that doesn’t have good consequences.
But if two and two and fifty make a million,...
We all go to different churches or no churches, we have different favorite foods, different ways of making love, different ways of doing all sorts of things, but there we’re all singing together. Gives you hope.
I’ve found that festivals are a relatively painless way to meet people and make a few points that need making, without having to hit them over the head with too many speeches.
To everything there is a season.
Do-so is more important than say-so.
Sometimes you find an old tune so good you can use it several times for different purposes.
My dad, the old professor, used to say, ‘Never get into an argument about what’s folk music and what isn’t.’
If you love this land of the free, bring them home, bring them home, Bring them back from overseas.