Pete Seeger

“I like to say I'm more conservative than Goldwater. He just wanted to turn the clock back to when there was no income tax.”

“I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this. I would be very glad to tell you my life if you want to hear of it.”

“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.”

“It's a very important thing to learn to talk to people you disagree with.”

“Being generous of spirit is a wonderful way to live.”

“The good and bad are all tangled up together. American popular music is loved around the world because of its African rhythm. But that wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for slavery.”

“I still call myself a communist, because communism is no more what Russia made of it than Christianity is what the churches make of it.”

“I try to sing many different kinds of songs. If I sing a batch of humorous songs, I'll throw in a deadly serious song. Or if I'm singing too many serious songs, I'll throw in a ridiculous song, to mix it up.”

“You'd be surprised how many stupid mistakes I've made. I make stupid mistakes all the time, and some of them have been very big stupid mistakes.”

“I decline to discuss, under compulsion, where I have sung, and who has sung my songs, and who else has sung with me, and the people I have known.”

“I have sung for Americans of every political persuasion, and I am proud that I never refuse to sing to an audience, no matter what religion or color of their skin, or situation in life.”

“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.”

“Songs won't save the planet, but neither will books or speeches.”

“When you're facing an opponent over a broad front, you don't aim for the opponent's strong points, important though they may be. Pick a little outpost that you can capture and win. And then you find another place that you can capture and win it, and then you move slowly toward the big places.”

“I believe that my choosing my present course I do no dishonor to them, or to those who may come after me.”

“Down through the centuries, this trick has been tried by various establishments throughout the world. They force people to get involved in the kind of examination that has only one aim and that is to stamp out dissent.”

“Well, normally I’m against big things. I think the world is going to be saved by millions of small things. Too many things can go wrong when they get big.” — Pete Seeger (on how he felt about attending his big 90th birthday bash last year)”

“One of the things I'm most proud of about my country is the fact that we did lick McCarthyism back in the fifties.”

“But I decline to say who has ever listened to them, who has written them, or other people who have sung them.”

“My mother was a very good violinist; my father was a musicologist and spent most of his life in academia.”