Quotes from Bruce Springsteen

The Clash were a major influence on my own music. They were the best rock 'n' roll band. Thanks, Joe.

History was a subject that bored me in middle and high school, but I devoured it now. It seemed to hold some of the essential pieces to the identity questions I was asking. How could I know who I was if I didn't have a clue as to where I'd personally and collectively come from? What does it mean to be an American is all caught up in what did it mean to be one. Only some combination of those answers could lead you to what it might mean to be an American.

Most of my writing is emotionally autobiographical. You've got to pull up the things that mean something to you in order for them to mean anything to your audience. That's how they know you're not kidding.

These were the kids destined to live the hardworking lives of their parents and take up their fathers' trades, the future farmers, homemakers and baby makers, if they could scoot through these few years of wild pounding hormones without getting hurt or hurting someone else. If they could keep out of jail for this short stretch, most would go on to be the spine of American society - fixing the cars, working the factories, growing the food and fighting the wars.

Sherrif when the man pulls that switch, Sir And snaps my poor head back, You make sure my pretty baby Is sittin' right there on my lap.

However, as I grew older, there were certain things about the way I thought, reacted, behaved. I came to ruefully and bemusedly understand that once you're a Catholic, you're always a Catholic. So I stopped kidding myself. I don't often participate in my religion but I know somewhere... deep inside... I'm still on the team.

If people are sick and hurting and lost, I guess it falls on everybody to address those problems in some fashion. Because injustice, and the price of that injustice, falls on everyone's heads.

A moment comes when you cash in whatever credibility a guy can have who plays and sings rock songs for a living, and you put your chips where you think they might do some good.

The Super Bowl helped me sell a few new records and probably put a few extra fannies in the seats that tour. But what it was really about was this: I felt my band remained one of the mightiest in the land and I wanted you to know it. We

Here we live in the shadow of the steeple, where the holy rubber meets the road, all crookedly blessed in God's mercy, in the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, race-riot-creating, oddball-hating, soul-shaking, love-and-fear-making, heartbreaking town of Freehold, New Jersey. Let the service begin.

It didn't take me long to figure it out: I didn't want to meet the Beatles. I wanted to BE the Beatles.

Meet me in a land of hopes and dreams.

I wanted to be a voice that reflected experience and the world I lived in. So I knew in 1972 that to do this I would need to write very well and more individually than I had ever written before.

She got down but she never got tight She's gonna make it through the night.

Like a Rolling Stone" gave me the faith that a true, unaltered, uncompromised vision could be broadcast to millions, changing minds, enlivening spirits, bringing red blood to the anemic American pop landscape and delivering a warning, a challenge that could become an essential part of the American conversation. This was music that could both stir the heart of your fellow countrymen and awaken the mind of a shy, lost fifteen-year-old in a small New Jersey town.

Meaningless distraction drains you of the energy you should be placing into more serious things or using to simply enjoy the rewards of your labor.

It's hard to imagine that Clarence was once a normal person, a college student, football player and bespectacled counselor at the Jamesburg State Home for Boys. He had a face that would look at home at any point in history. It was the face of an exotic emperor, an island king, a heavyweight boxer, a shaman, a chain-gang convict, a fifties bluesman and a deep soul survivor. It held one million secrets and none at all.

But if you have the talent, then will, ambition and the determination to expose yourself to new thoughts, counterargument, new influences, will strengthen and fortify your work, driving you closer to home.

In all psychological wars, it's never over,, there's just this day, this time, and a hesitant belief in your ability to change. It is not an arena where the unsure should go looking for absolutes and there are no permanent victories. It is about a living change, filled with the insecurities , the chaos, of our own personalities, and is always one step up, two steps back.

Children bring with them grace, patience, transcendence, second chances, rebirth and a reawakening of the love that's in your heart and present in your home. They are God giving you another shot.

All you need to do, is risk being your true self.

The older you get, the more it means.

The beat of her heart, the slow burning away...of the bitter fires of the devil's arcade.

We are one sour breath of night and day, then dirt and stars, but we're holding the new morning.