Now that my kids are out of the house, I'm finally able to get to the classics I never read: Emily Bronte, Dylan Thomas, Joseph Heller's 'Catch-22.' It's endless. They're all in this gigantic pile next to my bed.
Celebrated in the Bob Dylan ballad 'Joey,' Crazy Joe Gallo was a charismatic beatnik gangster whose forays into Greenwich Village in the 1960s inspired his bloody revolution against the Mafia.
I really have been trying to get in movies with smaller parts, just to get myself in there and get more practice, and not have to take the big lead. In 'Dylan Dog' I was one of the co-stars, and I had a pretty good part in that movie.
Growing up, I was a little hippie kid. I went to some good concerts... Amnesty International with Bob Dylan and Tracy Chapman... The best concert I ever went to was this one at the Cow Palace my freshman year in college on New Year's Eve. It was Pearl Jam opening for Nirvana opening for Red Hot Chili Peppers.
I only read the very best music books. Donald Fagan's memoir 'Eminent Hipsters' is great. Bob Dylan's memoir 'Chronicles' and Patty Smith's 'Just Kids' are both incredible.
In the '60s, I used to love rock magazines; I'd cut out pictures of Bob Dylan and John Lennon.
I don't know which way I'm going. My next CD might be country, might be Dylan, might be Mick Jagger. I don't know. I love a challenge.
I've always looked at famous actors and hope that once they get a part that they have success in, they would reprise it every few years in the way a pop singer will reprise their hits. Like Bob Dylan singing 'Blowin' in the Wind' until he's fed up with it, finding different ways of doing it.
I do all the classics, like Dylan, Kristofferson, Jimmy Reed, Mexican mariachi songs, some jazz songs from the '30s. Cole Porter's 'Begin the Beguine,' that's one of my favorites.
I've been interested in writing and storytelling since I learned to read, but it wasn't until I read Dylan Thomas, when I was 14, that I became interested in language itself, and saw it as more than a transparent medium for a story.
When I was playing with Bob Dylan in, like, 1966, I was, like, 20 years old.
I think that Bob Dylan knows this more than all of us: you don't write the songs anyhow. So if you're lucky, you can keep the vehicle healthy and responsive over the years. If you're lucky, your own intentions have very little to do with this.
I'll never be Bob Dylan. He's the master.
The people that impress me are Bob Dylan. The ones who keep working, year in and year out, and keep coming up with stuff.
Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. They're my biggest heroes. I love everything about Leonard Cohen: his lyrics and his voice. He seems like a really clever man, and Bob Dylan does as well. He's just really cool.
The thing about a music career is that it ain't over until the fat lady sings. Look at all the times people threw in the towel on Dylan - or Neil Young. Remember when Young was doing things in the '80s like 'Trans' and the rockabilly album and being completely lambasted by critics who now think he is wonderful again?
I don't care if it's a Cole Porter song, or George Gershwin, or Lennon/McCartney, or Elton John, or you know, whoever, Bob Dylan. Great songs are great songs, and they stand the test of time, and they can be interpreted and recorded with many points of view, but yet still retain the essence of what makes them good songs.
It's even easier to write about the past now that I'm happy and have better stuff to write about. That's why someone like Bob Dylan can make so many records over so long a time; it's not like he's been sad all this time. He's really successful!
I taught myself to play the guitar by listening to Paul Simon records, working it out note by note. He is an incredibly intelligent musician. He's not someone who has a natural outpouring of melody like McCartney or Dylan, who are just terribly prolific with musical ideas.
I think everyone mentions Bob Dylan, but he's someone I just admire so much as a songwriter. I think people write songs, and then there's Bob Dylan songs. He's one step ahead of just everybody else.
Bob Dylan is someone that - I don't care how long into the future it is - somebody will still play Bob Dylan. He will always survive.
Bob Dylan is my idol. Everybody has that person growing up that made them see things a little differently than they did before, Dylan is that guy for me. My dad gave me the 'Blonde on Blonde' album on cassette tape when I was seven or eight. It took me a while to get into Dylan's vibe, but once I did, I never looked back.
I'm like, 'Would you be the person in the room that would boo when Dylan went electric? I know I wouldn't. Or are you the person that left The Beatles after 'She Loves You,' or 'Drive My Car?' You weren't on board for 'Revolution 9' or 'Day In The Life,' were you?'
The heroes of our youth grow old - 'the boys of summer in their ruin', in Dylan Thomas's verse - yet we seem the same.