Guthrie Quotes & Sayings

My musical heroes are people like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie who wrote and sang real songs for real people; for everyone, old, young, and in between. — Tom Chapin

You oil field workers, come and listen to me I'm goin' to tell you a story about old John D. That company union made a fool out of me. That company union don't charge no dues It leaves you a-singing them Rockefeller blues. That company union made a fool out of me. Takes that good ole C.I.O., boys To keep that oil a-rollin', rollin' over the sea. Takes that good ole C.I.O., boys To keep that oil a-rollin' over the sea. — Woody Guthrie

The clothes have no emperor. — Stewart Elliott Guthrie

A lot of Woody Guthrie's songs were taken from other songs. He would rework the melody and lyrics, and all of a sudden it was a Woody Guthrie song. — John Mellencamp

When I was in college, there were a couple years there where I was just not sure what to do, and it was actually my mom who suggested I take some journalism classes. — Savannah Guthrie

If we fix it so's you can't make money on war, we'll all forget what we're killing folks for. — Woody Guthrie

I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work. And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you. — Woody 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

Racing is a calling, a passion. — Janet Guthrie

I have decided long ago that my songs and ballads would not get the hugs and kisses of the capitalistic experts. — Woody Guthrie

Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? — Thomas Guthrie

I never have any clothes to go out in, because I always just buy for work. I don't know why. Habit. — Savannah Guthrie

I liked the American folk style of Woody Guthrie. — Gordon Lightfoot

Speed is a byproduct of good, slow practice. — Guthrie Govan

Perhaps God does with His heavenly garden as we do with our own. He may chiefly stock it from nurseries, and select for transplanting what is yet in its young and tender age
flowers before they have bloomed and trees ere they begin to bear. — Thomas Guthrie

[A]nd you may know how little God thinks of money by observing on what bad and contemptible characters he often bestows it.
[Man and the Gospel (1865)] — Thomas 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

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

Sin! Sin! Thou art a hateful and horrible thing, that abominable thing which God hates. And what wonder? Thou hast insulted His holy majesty; thou hast bereaved Him of beloved children; thou hast crucified the Son of His infinite love; thou hast vexed His gracious Spirit; thou hast defied His power; thou hast despised His grace; and in the body and blood of Jesus, as if that were a common thing, thou hast trodden under foot His matchless mercy. Surely, brethren, the wonder of wonders is, that sin is not that abominable thing which we also hate. — Thomas Guthrie

It is not with a rush and a spring that we are to reach Christ's character, and attain to perfect saintship; but step by step, foot by foot, hand over hand, we are slowly and often painfully to mount the ladder that rests on earth, and rises to heaven. — Thomas Guthrie

Isn't it interesting how in Christmas cards and on public displays we often see the words, "Peace on earth, good will toward men"? But how seldom do we see the prior words, "Glory to God in the highest"! But there is no peace, there is no good will, unless there is glory to God in the highest first. We forget to put God's glory first. Fortunately, he does not. God will be glorified — Raymond C. Ortlund Jr.

That your own interpretation of a work of art is flagrantly subjective seems to be regarded as an arrogant attitude. But the truer view is that the interpretative artist can only make his own comment upon the work. — Tyrone Guthrie

The finest flowers of genius have grown in an atmosphere where those of Nature are prone to droop, and difficult to bring to maturity. — Thomas 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

Fiction is love and hate and agreement and conflict and common adventure, not lonely musings on have-beens and might-have-beens. — Alfred Bertram Guthrie

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

I came along and was a teenager in the Depression, and nobody had jobs. So I went out hitchhiking, when I met a man named Woody Guthrie. He was the single biggest part of my education. — Pete Seeger

In the spangled sky, the rainbow, the woodland hung with diamonds, the sward sown with pearly dew, the rosy dawn, the golden clouds of even, the purple mountains, the hoary rock, the blue boundless main, Nature's simplest flower, or some fair form of laughing child or lovely maiden, we cannot see the beautiful without admiring it. — Thomas Guthrie

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

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

Even with politics, stuff comes around again. Woody Guthrie would recognize America today. — Billy Bragg

I better quit my talking 'cause I told you all I know But please remember, pardner, wherever you may go The people are building a peaceful world, and when the job is done, That'll be the biggest thing that man has ever done. — Woody Guthrie

The Christian is not always praying; but within his bosom is a heaven-kindled love
fires of desire, fervent longings
which make him always ready to pray, and often engage him in prayer. — Thomas Guthrie

Was a great high wall there that tried to stop me. Was a great big sign there said private Property but on the back side it didn't say nothing. That side was made for you and me. — Woody Guthrie

Guthrie handed him the mug, a wee pout pulling his pale face out of shape. With his semi-skimmed skin, faint ginger hair, and blond eyebrows he looked like a ghost that had been at the pies. "Milk, two sugars. — Stuart MacBride

My father was a painter. There was a lot of singing. We hung around with a lot of folk musicians. My family knew a lot of great folk musicians of the time, like Woody Guthrie, Paul Robeson, Leadbelly. They were all people we knew. — Alan Arkin

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

Perserverance: Outlasting the most rash, pessimistic, cowardly naysayers; those first in line to deny us the dreams never tried. Ourselves. — R.S. Guthrie

If you steal from one person is Theft, and if you steal from Lots of people is Research — Guthrie Govan

This land is made for you and me. — Woody Guthrie

I have two mini huskies called Woody Guthrie and Edison Guthrie. — Dhani Harrison

One of the things I love about New York is that it's one of the only places where you could have an entire restaurant dedicated to macaroni and cheese. — Savannah Guthrie

Anyone who uses more than two chords is just showing off. — Woody Guthrie

He lay still for a while, alone in the silent house, remembering the night before, what that had been like, wondering what might be starting. Thinking did he want it to start, and what if he did. Late in the afternoon he called her. You doing all right? he said. Yes, aren't you? Yes, I am. Good. I enjoyed myself, he said. You think you'd like to get together again sometime? You're not suggesting an actual date, are you? Maggie said. In broad daylight? I don't know what you'd call it, Guthrie said. I'm just saying I'd be willing to take you out for supper at Shattuck's and invest in a hamburger. To see how that would go down. When were you thinking of doing that? Right now. This evening. Give me fifteen minutes to get ready, she said. He hung up and went upstairs and put on a clean shirt and entered the bathroom and brushed his teeth and combed his hair. He looked at himself in the mirror. You don't deserve it, he said aloud. Don't ever even begin to think that you do. — Kent Haruf

I see in the papers where Roy Guthrie committed suicide. Why, I wonder? — Robert E. Howard

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

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

Now as I look around, it's mighty plain to see,
This world is such a great and a funny place to be.
Oh, the gamblin' man is rich, an' the workin' man is poor,
And I ain't got no home in this world anymore. — Woody Guthrie

Second, there is something insidiously pathological about the melting pot concept in its assumption that groups should assimilate. Wehrly states, "Cultural assimilation, as practiced in the United States, is the expectation by the people in power that all immigrants and people outside the dominant group will give up their ethnic and cultural values and will adopt the values and norms of the dominant society - the White, male Euro-Americans" (1995, p. 5). Many psychologists of color, however, have referred to this process as cultural genocide, an outcome of colonial thought (Guthrie, 1997; Thomas & Sillen, 1972). — Derald Wing Sue

You drive the car, you don't carry it. — Janet Guthrie

I got started in Oklahoma. That's where I was born. Population down there is one-third Indians, one-third Negroes and one-third white people. — Woody Guthrie

You can't write a good song about a whorehouse unless you've been in one. — Woody 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

If you want to learn something, just steal it. — Woody Guthrie

Now as through this world I ramble, I see lots of funny men, Some rob you with a six gun, And some with a fountain pen. — Woody Guthrie

Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple. — Woody 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

If it were possible for a metaphysician to be a golfer, he might perhaps occasionally notice that his ball, instead of moving forward in a vertical plane (like the generality of projectiles, such as brickbats and cricket balls), skewed away gradually to the right. If he did notice it, his methods would naturally lead him to content himself with his caddies's remark-'ye heeled that yin,' or 'Ye jist sliced it.' ... But a scientific man is not to be put off with such flimsy verbiage as that. He must know more. What is 'Heeling', what is 'slicing', and why would either operation (if it could be thoroughly carried out) send a ball as if to cover point, thence to long slip, and finally behind back-stop? These, as Falstaff said, are 'questions to be asked. — Peter Guthrie Tait

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

Let me be known as just the man that told you something you already knew. — Woody 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

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 would never put my job before my family. — Savannah Guthrie

The new novel is sought more eagerly, and devoured more greedily, the New Testament. — Thomas Guthrie

All you can write is what you see. — Woody Guthrie

Good enough is never good enough. — Alfred Bertram Guthrie

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

The Christian is like the ripening corn; the riper he grows the more lowly he bends his head. — Alfred Bertram Guthrie

I can remember back as far as age 8, performing with the Boston Folk Song Society. It was a Woody Guthrie song. — Frank Black

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

Irish fathers still have certain responsibilities, and by the time my two daughters turned seven, they could swim, ride a bike, sing at least one part of a Woody Guthrie song, and recite all of W. B. Yeats's 'The Song of Wandering Aengus.' — Adrian McKinty

Racing is a matter of spirit not strength. — Janet Guthrie

I worked in your orchards of peaches and prunes. I slept on the ground in the light of the moon. On the edge of the city you'll see us and then, we come with the dust and we go with the wind. — Woody Guthrie

What created democracy was Thomas Paine and Shays' Rebellion, the suffragists and the abolitionists and on down through the populists and the labor movement, including the Wobblies. Tough, in your face people ... Mother Jones, Woody Guthrie ... Martin Luther King and Caesar Chavez. And now it's down to us. — Jim Hightower

If you play more than two chords, you're showing off. — Woody Guthrie

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

The most profound, life-altering gift you can offer the Indie writer you love is to TELL as MANY avid readers as you are able. — R.S. 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

In a phone interview in 1994, Celia Powell stressed two sentiments: music was her father's life; it was the driving force of his existence, in her opinion. And she thought the music industry had very much taken advantage of him.121 — Guthrie P. Ramsey Jr.

I fell in love with folk music at Surprise Lake Camp. It was the songs of Woody Guthrie and the Weavers. — Neil Diamond

I'm trying to set out the passion and complexity of this sport. Many people think it's a dumb activity: stand on the gas and turn left. In fact, it's probably one of the most complex sports in existence. — Janet Guthrie

I went to a performance of 'The Crucible' at the Guthrie when I was a sophomore in high school, and I knew right away that that's what I wanted to do. — John Hawkes

Guthrie turned to see who his attacker was. And smiled when he caught her eye.
He had the most devilishly wolfish look about him -- a mixture of impending payback with a snowball and something a wee bit more intimate, like a tackle in the snow. But he wouldn't. Not in front of his clansmen. Not when they weren't courting. At least, she hoped not. — Terry Spear

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

Some men rob you with a six-gun
others rob you with a fountain pen. — Woody Guthrie

Racing is a passion ... at this level, a source of immense gratification. So the rest is no problem. — Janet Guthrie

This machine kills fascists. — Woody Guthrie

Despite all the commotion, and to Calla's surprise, Guthrie kissed her. His lips were warm and masculine and tasted like wassail. Cinnamon, apple cider, and oranges. She licked his mouth to enjoy more of the taste and he licked hers back, smiling. then he deepened the kiss.
Oh my God! She hadn't felt this naughty in forever! The men were going to move the tree soon, and here she and Guthrie would be. Kissing. In front of several members of his pack. She pushed her arms through the branches, trying to wrap them around his neck. She tangled her tongue with his, his cock hardening against her belly, and she felt deliciously wicked hidden beneath the half-decorated tree. — Terry Spear

In writing songs, I've learned as much from Cezanne as I have from Woody Guthrie. — Bob Dylan

Do Re Mi
California is a garden of Eden, a paradise to live in or see,
But believe it or not, you won't find it so hot
If you ain't got the do re mi — Woody Guthrie

Don't be precious about anything-much less a certain guitar sound. There is always another interesting sound or effect just waiting to be discovered. — Robin Guthrie

The words are the important thing. Don't worry about tunes. Take a tune, sing high when they sing low, sing fast when they sing slow, and you've got a new tune. — Woody Guthrie

If we are not being moved in heart and moved to new places in life - new levels of obedience to God - we are not really reading the Bible the way God wants us to. — George H. Guthrie

All of you cowboys, fight for your land. — Woody Guthrie

You will never find peace with these fascists
You'll never find friends such as we
So remember that valley of Jarama
And the people that'll set that valley free.
From this valley they say we are going
Do not hasten to bid us adieu
Even though we lost the battle at Jarama
We'll set this valley before we're through.
All this world is like this valley called Jarama
So green and so bright and so fair
No fascists can dwell in our valley
Nor breathe in our new freedoms air. — Woody Guthrie

Life has got a habit of not standing hitched. You got to ride it like you find it. You got to change with it. If a day goes by that don't change some of your old notions for new ones, that is just about like trying to milk a dead cow. — Woody 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 went to high school right outside Dallas, and (songwriter and performer) Michael Martin Murphey was a senior there when I was a sophomore or junior, really into folk and acoustic music. Larry Gross, who's the host of "Mountain Stage" on public radio, and B.W. Stevenson, also a musician, were there at the same time, too. Michael was a big inspiration
through him I discovered Woody Guthrie, Dylan, Jimmy Rogers. Then I ran into Jerry Jeff Walker there in Dallas back when he was just a folk singer. Those are my earliest influences. — Ray Wylie Hubbard