Arlo Guthrie

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

“There's only one God. Call him whatever you want.”

“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.”

“I thought I would be governor of Massachusetts. I stood on a pile of my old albums and said, 'I'm the only one with a record to stand on.'”

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

“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.”

“Probably my two biggest musical influences were the Everly Brothers and the Beatles, in chronological order. Both of them have had a very simple-sounding musical style that's actually quite complex as far as popular songs are concerned.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I've written quite a variety of songs, everything from kids songs to political satire, and my dad covered a fairly large range, also.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“I'd rather have friends who care than friends who agree with me.”

“If you do anything for 40 years, you can do it comfortably. And it will always be good. But unless you're willing to risk it being bad, it can never be great.”

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

“We would turn everything into songs in those days.”

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

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

“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.”