Robert Hunter Quotes & Sayings

When life looks like easy street there is danger at your door — Robert Hunter

I'm not good at being lionized, and when I'm in 'Grateful Dead'-type situations, that happens. — Robert Hunter

Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world. — Robert Hunter

There are things you can replace, and others you cannot. The time has come to weigh those things, this space is getting hot. — Robert Hunter

Don't waste the breath to save your face, When you have done your best, And even more is asked of you, Let fate decide the rest. — Robert Hunter

Being in a floodplain is like sitting down in a bathtub. — Robert Hunter

Comes a Time when the blind man takes your hand says DON'T YOU SEE? — Robert Hunter

A song doesn't happen as a whole verse; it happens linearly, line by line, almost word by word, phrase by phrase. And if each phrase, each line, has a proper emotional feel and connects to the line before it and the line after it, the song will be doing what it should be doing. — Robert Hunter

Keep an eye to the future, and ear to the past, and after thinking it over notice nothing much lasts. — Robert Hunter

Without love in a dream it will never come true — Robert Hunter

Every song falls short of the glory of what a song could be. That's why the urge is there to start again and yet again. Often it's the fault of rhyme. I've discovered a hundred times that there just aren't enough rhymes to say what I wanted to say, so I said something else instead. Sometimes it was a better thing, but the thing I meant to say went unsaid. So there's an opening for another song. — Robert Hunter

Ain't nobody messin' with you but you — Robert Hunter

When I got out of the hospital, it was one of those classic things - you're looking death in the eye, and it changes you. I thought, I ought to go back on the road. — Robert Hunter

When I was just a little young boy, Papa said Son, you'll never get far, I'll tell you the reason if you want to know, 'cause child of mine, there isn't really very far to go. — Robert Hunter

Crippled but free, I was blind all the time I was learning to see. — Robert Hunter

When you get ready to vote, make sure you know what you are doing. — Robert Hunter

Let my inspiration flow, in token lines suggesting rhythm, that will not forsake me, till my tale is told and done — Robert Hunter

River gonna take me, Sing me sweet and sleepy,
Sing me sweet and sleepy all the way back home,
It's a far gone lullaby sung many years ago
Mama, Mama, many worlds I've come since I first left home — Robert Hunter

If you can even manage to tell exactly what a song is about, all you do is put that song in a box forever, and it loses its evocative power. — Robert Hunter

In wickedness of pride is lost the light to understand how little grace is earned and how much given. — Robert Hunter

There's a better way. There has to be education, and the education has to come from the poets and musicians, because it has to touch the heart rather than the intellect, it has to get in there deeply. — Robert Hunter

The storyteller makes no choice, soon you will not hear his voice, his job is to shed light, and not to master — Robert Hunter

I walk away from writing what I consider to be a good song - with a good character, a good story in it - with all I'm gonna really get out of that song. My greatest pleasure is to create it, not to record it, not to hear anyone else play it, though that can be nice too. — Robert Hunter

What do you want me to do,
To watch for you,
To see you through?
A box of rain will ease the pain,
and love, will see you through. — Robert Hunter

I tend to write things and don't go the next step and try to get it published. I don't want to do book signings and stuff. — Robert Hunter

Ain't no time to hate, barely time to wait — Robert Hunter

Counting stars by candlelight all are dim but one is bright; the spiral light of Venus rising first and shining best, from the northwest corner of a brand-new crescent moon crickets and cicadas sing a rare and different tune. — Robert Hunter

But I would rather be with you, somewhere in San Francisco on a back porch in July, just looking up to Heaven, at this crescent in the sky — Robert Hunter

Such a long, long time to be gone and a short time to be there — Robert Hunter

If you get confused, just listen to the music play. — Robert Hunter

Inspiration, move me brightly, light the song with sense and color, hold away despair — Robert Hunter

I won't slave for beggar's pay, likewise gold and jewels, but I would slave to learn the way, to sink your ship of fools. — Robert Hunter

Driving that train, high on cocaine
Casey Jones you'd better watch your speed
Trouble ahead, trouble behind
And you know that notion just crossed my mind — Robert Hunter

I don't believe there's any evidence that credit scoring is a risk factor. What is it about someone having a worse credit score that makes them a worse driver? (Insurers) can't answer that. — Robert Hunter

Destroy yourself physically and morally and insist that all true brothers do likewise as an expression of unity. — Robert Hunter

It's better to wear seaweed socks than stick a melon in your brother's ear. — Robert Hunter

You who choose to lead must follow. But if you fall, you fall alone. — Robert Hunter

When it seems like the night will last forever,
And there's nothing left to do but count the years,
When the strings of my harp to sever,
And stones fall from my eyes instead of tears ...
I will walk alone by the black muddy river,
And dream me a dream of my own,
I will walk alone by the black muddy river,
And sing me a song of my own. — Robert Hunter

One man gathers what another man spills — Robert Hunter

The sky was yellow and the sun was blue... — Robert Hunter

Let there be songs to fill the air. — Robert Hunter

Everything you cherish
Throws you over in the end
Thorns will grab your ankles
From the gardens that you tend. — Robert Hunter

But never give your love, my friend, Unto a foolish heart — Robert Hunter

Sometimes we live no particular way but our own — Robert Hunter

I got really, really sick with a spinal infection that put me in a hospital for a couple of months, and it was touch and go. I had my guitar with me, and as soon as I got well enough to play, there was nothing else to do in that hospital. The nurses would come in and request songs. — Robert Hunter

At the top of the cycle you write policies for everybody, no matter how bad, and at the bottom you cancel everybody, no matter how good. It's a manic-depressive cycle. — Robert Hunter

Poised for flight, Wings spread bright, Spring from night into the Sun. — Robert Hunter

Sit back picture yourself swooping up a shell of purple with foam crests of crystal drops soft nigh they fall unto the sea of morning creep-very-softly mist ... and then sort of cascade tinkley-bell like (must I take you by the hand, every so slowly type) and then conglomerate suddenly into a peal of silver vibrant uncomprehendingly, blood singingly, joyously resoundingbells ... By my faith if this be insanity, then for the love of God permit me to remain insane. — Robert Hunter

There are times when you get hit upon, Try hard but you cannot give. Other times you'd gladly part, With what you need to live — Robert Hunter

Everything you gather is just one that you can lose. — Robert Hunter

Walk out of any doorway feel your way, feel your way like the day before Maybe you'll find direction around some corner where it's been waiting to meet you. — Robert Hunter

Outside major darkness where the circle is complete there's no fear that lovers born will ever fail to meet — Robert Hunter