Arlo Quotes & Sayings

The New York State Freeway's closed, man. Far out! — Arlo Guthrie

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. — Arlo Guthrie

I'm not just a singer-songwriter doing songs in the key of me. — Arlo Guthrie

If you want to end war and stuff, you gotta sing loud. — Arlo Guthrie

The thing about families, Arlo thought, was that there was always some question nobody wanted to answer for you, and it was like a stray thread pulling loose in a sweater. You could tug at it all you wanted, but in the end, all you'd have was a pile of twisted yarn. — Sarah Sullivan

You teach kids how to succeed when they successfully foil the educational system. — Arlo Guthrie

Songwriting is like fishing in a stream; you put in your line and hope to catch something. And I don't think anyone downstream from Bob Dylan ever caught anything. — Arlo Guthrie

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. — Arlo Guthrie

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. — Arlo Guthrie

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. — Arlo Guthrie

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

Greed and globalization aren't just America's fault. — Arlo Guthrie

Songs are like fish. You just gotta have your line in the water. And it's a bad idea to fish downstream from Bob Dylan. — Arlo Guthrie

Thank God that the people that run this world are not smart enough to keep running it forever. You know, everybody gets a handle on it for a little while. — Arlo Guthrie

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. — Arlo Guthrie

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. — Arlo Guthrie

No Judgment = No Expectations: That's my motto. — Arlo Guthrie

Even so, the land felt like it still does today - it filled the hollow in a satisfying way. — Arlo Crawford

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. — Arlo Guthrie

Coming into Los Angeles, bringing in a couple of keys. Don't touch my bags, if you please Mr. Customs man. — Arlo Guthrie

Be serious. Folk songs are serious. That's what Pete Seeger told me. Arlo, I only wanna tell you one thing. Folk songs are serious. And I said Right. — Arlo Guthrie

We live in an increasingly sophisticated world that makes it difficult to make simple comments on stuff. There are too many people on both sides of the border who are taking advantage of circumstances and the situation. — Arlo Guthrie

I froze in time! And I thought My God ... I'm free! — Arlo Guthrie

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. — Arlo Guthrie

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

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. — Arlo Guthrie

Everyone has troubles. Finding yourself in the same boat with everyone else is the first sign of spirituality. — Arlo Guthrie

There aren't any GOOD guys. You realize that, don't you? I mean: there aren't EVIL guys, and INNOCENT guys. It's just - it's just... It's just a bunch of guys. — Jake Kasdan

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. — Arlo Guthrie

With the advent of radio and recording, music became an industry rather than just a tradition. — Arlo Guthrie

Only the words of love kept alive are worthy of not being wasted. — Arlo Guthrie

If readers understand that they do not understand what they are reading then they must possess an understanding which is superior to the meaning which caused that misunderstanding. — Arlo Guthrie

Ostrich is a very lean meat. Bison is a very lean meat. Chicken is a very lean meat. Notice something about my favorite meats? — Arlo Guthrie

We went back, afterward, after the show was over that night, I took my kids backstage and said, You know what? I know my dad's songs ... — Arlo Guthrie

One of the first things was I made Arlo [the Apatosaurus] a younger character. And then when I was that age (around 11 or 12), what was I like? Sweat pants, turtle-neck kid; didn't know anything about fashion or style, the culture of the world. I was very sheltered. — Peter Sohn

I think of my parents as a single unit, and it's interesting because they shared so much, and they were totally opposite. My mother, a Martha Graham dancer, had a classical background; my father had a back-porch background. — Arlo Guthrie

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. — Arlo Guthrie

Everyone has a responsibility to not only tolerate another person's point of view, but also to accept it eagerly as a challenge to your own understanding. And express those challenges in terms of serving other people. — Arlo Guthrie

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

I'd rather have friends who care than friends who agree with me. — Arlo Guthrie

I've been singing this song now for twenty five minutes. I could sing it for another twenty five minutes. I'm not proud ... or tired. — Arlo Guthrie

Santa Claus wears a Red Suit, he must be a communist. And a beard and long hair, must be a pacifist. What's in that pipe that he's smoking? — Arlo Guthrie

Democracy doesn't begin at the top; it begins at the bottom, when flesh-and-blood human beings fight to rekindle what Arlo Guthrie calls 'The Patriot's Dream. — Bill Moyers

What's in that pipe that he's smoking? — Arlo Guthrie

Arlo: Show her the ropes.
Finn: Where do we keep the ropes again? — Julie Anne Peters

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. — Arlo Guthrie

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.' — Arlo Guthrie

Naaaaaaayyyyy," said Pootie. "Milk comes out of goats?" I asked. "I thought milk came out of cows." "It comes out of goats, too, Arlo," said Andrea. Little Miss Know-It-All was proud of herself because she knew something I didn't know. I hate her. "See, we learned something already," said Mrs. Lizzy. "Goats — Dan Gutman

You don't need spirituality to discover the troubles that come your way. But, it's good to know that troubles are not unique to you alone. — Arlo Guthrie

I don't write as many songs as I used to. But, I find myself writing for social media more - times have changed. And I love photography, so a lot of my creative energy gets caught up that way. — Arlo Guthrie

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

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

When I was still working at the museum, every project had a checklist, a clear set of milestones. I worked until I satisfied these requirements, and then I put the project away. On the farm, though, we were immersed in the summer, a wide, warm ocean with no shore in sight and no landmarks to swim toward. Now we rested in that same ocean, floating as it moved around us. — Arlo Crawford

My dad's songs were really written to make certain people feel as though they had some kind of value. Because they were told from where they work and from the countries they had immigrated from that they did not. — Arlo Guthrie

He loved me," Cameron insisted in a rough whisper. "He would have let me know he was alive."
"Oh, I don't know," Lancaster drawled with a slow, malicious smirk. "Love is just a word most of the time. — Abigail Roux

We would turn everything into songs in those days. — Arlo Guthrie

The rage for swiftness which is so characteristic of this restless time has been extended to fashions of reading. One effect of the modern habit of swift and careless reading is seen in the impatience with which anything is regarded which is not to be taken in at a glance. — Arlo Bates

I don't want a pickle, I just want ride on my motorcikle. I don't want to die, I just want a ride on my motorcy ... cle. — Arlo Guthrie

But think of the last guy. For one minute, think of the last guy. Nobody's got it worse than that guy. Nobody in the whole world. — Arlo Guthrie

There's only one God. Call him whatever you want. — Arlo Guthrie

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. — Arlo Guthrie

Anyway,' he said, without hearing me, 'that whole week he was gone, Bis sat next to the dumpster and didn't move, and we all thought he was waiting by the road for Arlo to come back. Except we had it wrong- he was waiting for us to find Arlo. — Tea Obreht

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

Being famous is not the same as being important. A lot of important people aren't famous, and a lot of famous people aren't important. — Arlo Guthrie

All the blood spilled from her face, making the bruises grotesquely bright. "Oh God ... " She stumbled back, away from him, her hands flying to her mouth. "You killed him?" It was insulting and amusing that that was the first place her mind always seemed to go where Arlo and Killen were concerned. "And if I did?" He circled around her slowly, taking a sort of pleasure in her panic. She rounded on him. "Then you gave up a bit of your soul for someone who didn't deserve it. Yes, Arlo deserves to die. Yes, I imagined doing it myself a million times. But he has no right to taint any part of you with his ... his evil. — Airicka Phoenix

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

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

Yes, I was born in Coney Island. The Holy Land. — Arlo Guthrie

Margaret [Arlo] was once asked how she felt about her life over the past fifty years. The look in her eyes revealed that she understood the true question: How is it that you continued over fifty years to be as poor as you were at the beginning? ... 'I'm rich-poor,' she said. 'You see, I got my son. I got my Bible. That's all I need. I don't treasure nothin' on earth. — Dale Maharidge

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. — Arlo Guthrie