Robbie Robertson

“I'm always optimistic.”

“Bob Dylan is as influential as any artist that there has been.”

“I've been really fortunate that I've been at a lot of critical crossroads in my musical journey. When I look back, there are some pretty interesting things to look at.”

“Cowboys had guitars. And they sang country 'cause they lived in the country.”

“I do not have yearnings to get back on a bus. If it means getting on a bus, I don't want to do it.”

“A lot of people from my generation can't write songs anymore, or it's really hard and it's an unpleasant experience. I don't feel that way at all.”

“Chuck Berry told me if it wasn't for Louis Jordan, he wouldn't have probably ever even got into music. That Louis Jordan changed everything and made him want to become a musician.”

“I don't like overt traditionalism.”

“I play guitar quite a bit, because I'm always in search of something. I don't play to jam, but because I'm fishing. I'm looking for something, that I hope you can never find. If I do find it, I'm afraid I won't have a need to do this any more.”

“I've always been in love with that Delta-flavored music... the music that came from Mississippi and Memphis and, especially, New Orleans. When I was 14, I was in a wanna-be New Orleans band in Toronto.”

“People go through periods when things are dark and cloudy, and they talk dark and cloudy.”

“When you look at that period when Warhol and the Velvets and the Stones were doing things, it was this intersection of art and music. And then it went away.”

“I always like to keep one hand in the tepee and the other hand in the synagogue. Wouldn't it be great if there was a combination of the two? You could go to synagogue, and it would be really hot in there.”

“Some bands today have the experience of really working together and honing their craft. And other bands are very much like, 'I just got a guitar for Christmas, let's start a band.' And you can hear the difference.”

“I could never be a movie star and get up at 7:30 to be at someone else's studio.”

“There's a bookstore in New York where you could buy scripts, and I got addicted to them because they were easy, quick reads... and the pictures were so vivid.”

“There's a thing that has happened in the U.S. where the spirit has been beaten so badly and so you feel no unity in the voice of the country.”

“A lot of times when you're making a record, you put your head down and charge forward until you're done. You just hope that the ideas hold up, because you're kind of lost in your own storm.”

“For years after 'The Last Waltz,' I got all kinds of silly movie offers - or, maybe, not silly, but parts that are not my calling... lots of offers to play some wonderful boyfriend.”

“That whole lifestyle - make a record, do a tour: I know how to do that. It doesn't interest me.”