Quotes from Arlo Guthrie

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

There are people all over the world who are willing to exploit others. You can't just point the finger at America.

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

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant.

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

Song-writing's just kinda like catching fish--you sit there and pull them out as they go by--though I think Bob Dylan's up stream from me somewhere.

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

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.

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

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

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

I froze in time! And I thought, "My God... I'm free!"

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.

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.