Quotes & Sayings About Woodstock

I should have been conceived during Woodstock; it's in my blood: that burning desire to turn an absolute on its head and see what's underneath. I'm as random as I can be and as responsible as I should be. Attempting to fuse the two makes for interesting days. — Chila Woychik

I'd have to say that the 1994 Woodstock completely destroyed anything that came after it. — Charlie Benante

Over the years Woodstock got glorified and romanticised and became the event that symbolised Utopia. It's the last page of our collective memory of the age of innocence. Then things turned ugly and would never be the same again. — Ang Lee

Woodstock was both a peaceful protest and a global celebration. — Richie Havens

It was the uniform of a time and place, of a nearly extinct species - the belligerent middle-American redneck who had fought in Korea, come back with his faith unshaken, and then watched the 1960s unfold the way he might watch his house burn down. There had never been any Summer of Love for Arthur Schuler. He had no interest in Civil Rights, hippies or liberals - or Democrats for that matter. I heard him say once that it might have worked out very well if we had indeed brought all the planes back from Vietnam, just in time to napalm the Woodstock festival. But the man had lived. He had been an orphan of the Great Depression and seen the country and the world. He had made his way, been a barroom fighter and - he hinted - a womanizer at some distant point in the twentieth century, and had come away with an instinct for life, for the things that people do and their base and predictable motivations. We — Matthew Louis

And it may be that a crowd at a particular moment of history creates the object to justify its gathering, as it did at the first Human Be-In and Monterey Pop and Woodstock. Or it may be that two generations of war and surveillance had left people craving the embodiment of their own unease in the form of a lone, unsteady man on a slide guitar. — Jennifer Egan

Down the Woodstock Road towards them an elderly, abnormally thin man was pedalling, his thin white hair streaming in the wind and sheer desperation in his eyes. Immediately behind him, running for their lives, came Scylla and Charybdis; behind them, a milling, shouting rout of undergraduates, with Mr Adrian Barnaby (on a bicycle) well in the van; behind them, the junior proctor, the University Marshal, and two bullers, packed into a small Austin car and looking very elect, severe and ineffectual; and last of all, faint but pursuing, lumbered the ungainly form of Mr Hoskins. — Edmund Crispin

Live Aid was a baby Woodstock, a child of Woodstock, which I call Globalstock. — Richie Havens

A few performances have been left out of the various Woodstock soundtracks and film edits over the years, most notably The Grateful Dead. — Shawn Amos

People say Altamont was the 'end of the '60s.' It was unfortunate, but at the time we didn't think of it as signaling anything. The fact that nobody got killed at Woodstock is amazing because that was half a million people. We only had 300,000 at Altamont. — Grace Slick

Woodstock was a business. A very poorly run business. — Shawn Amos

Woodstock was about the closest thing to anarchy I've ever seen in my whole life, and I didn't like it. — Billie Joe Armstrong

Woodstock - I didn't see anybody play, except when I was standing backstage waiting to go on, because it was so muddy. And the weather was so horrible, you literally couldn't get there except by helicopter. — Grace Slick

The Woodstock dove on the iconic poster is really a catbird. And it was originally perched on a flute. — Shawn Amos

I played Woodstock in '69, and it really changed my life. Without a doubt, it was the single event that really changed the way I felt about music. Up to that point, I hadn't really thought of myself as more serious musician, and I didn't really have that much interest in pop music. — Edgar Winter

I was admired by all these hippies, and it was wonderful playing at Monterey and Woodstock, performing for half a million people. — Ravi Shankar

Our customer base isn't just people saying, 'I'm an environmentalist, I'm in my Birkenstocks, I went to Woodstock.' Solar is a bipartisan technology. Republicans like solar; conservatives like solar. Over 30% of our customers are veterans. There's something very American about being able to produce power on your own rooftop. — Lynn Jurich

Kerouac opened a million coffee bars and sold a million pairs of Levis to both sexes. Woodstock rises from his pages. — William S. Burroughs

It's going to be a combination Scopes trial, revolution in the streets, Woodstock Festival and People's Park, all rolled into one. — Abbie Hoffman

I was living in Woodstock for a long time, and I thought, I got to get out of here, man. — Jules Shear

Woodstock was the antithesis of what the music industry turned into. And if anyone tries to tie another Woodstock festival to an obnoxious sponsor, I'll be out protesting again. — Michael Wadleigh

When Woodstock ended on Monday morning, over 600 acres of garbage was left behind on Max Yasgur's farm. It took over 400 volunteers and $100,000 to remove it all. — Shawn Amos

It's an honor for me to close out Mysteryland. In American music history this is hallowed ground. I think electronic music has a lot in common with the spirit of rock and roll and what Woodstock had going on at the time. We are kind of the new kids on the block and this music isn't accepted by everyone so we are still kind of getting into pop culture and I think its appropriate that this festival is here and kicking down the door. — Kaskade

The "problem" is that Comic-Con is so damned successful. People who are there seem to have a wonderful time. The very size of it makes it exciting. Wherever you look, there's something exciting. The attendees are always looking around for a familiar face. It's either 'There's a movie star!' Or, 'There's a TV star!' Or, 'There's the guy who drew the Green Lantern!' It means so much to the fans. It makes them feel like they're where it's happening. It's like Woodstock. — Stan Lee

When my mother was raising me, she moved us upstate to the Woodstock area. Our closest neighbor was a mile away. She planted all her own vegetables. — Debi Mazar

Abbie Hoffman's inspiration was, in a sense, inadvertent. I wanted to do something to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Woodstock at the time, and it just happened that Abbie died the same year. Hoffman was always an inspiration to me, for his activism and execution of that activism, and any of his books will give you a guide and a map to creating almost anything, if you apply it to what it is you want to do. — Richard Cotovsky

The Woodstock Film festival is among the finest of a dying breed: a festival that isn't trying to sell you anything, but simply and beautifully celebrating the art & craft of filmmaking. — Ethan Hawke

Describing Woodstock as the 'big bang,' I think that's a great way to describe it, because the important thing about it wasn't how many people were there or that it was a lot of truly wonderful music that got played. — David Crosby

Spitz and Michael Wadleigh's documentary film Woodstock — Andrew Gentes

There's always been an element of 'right time, right place' to Nine Inch Nails. When we stepped onstage at Woodstock '94, I could sense it. I get goosebumps thinking about it now. Like, 'I don't know how we did this, but somehow we've touched a nerve.' — Trent Reznor

It is too late! Ah, nothing is too late
Till the tired heart shall cease to palpitate.
Cato learned Greek at eighty; Sophocles
Wrote his grand Oedipus, and Simonides
Bore off the prize of verse from his compeers,
When each had numbered more than fourscore years,
And Theophrastus, at fourscore and ten,
Had but begun his Characters of Men.
Chaucer, at Woodstock with the nightingales,
At sixty wrote the Canterbury Tales;
Goethe at Weimar, toiling to the last,
Completed Faust when eighty years were past,
These are indeed exceptions; but they show
How far the gulf-stream of our youth may flow
Into the arctic regions of our lives.
Where little else than life itself survives. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

If every vampire who said he was at The Crucifixion, was actually there, it would have been like Woodstock ... — Joss Whedon

Life rocks. It's better than Woodstock. — Karen Marie Moning

Chicago '68 was a relatively small demonstration for its time, but I've talked to millions of people who claim they were there because it felt like we were all there. Everyone from our generation was there and was at Woodstock. — Bill Ayers

I'm higher than a hippie at Woodstock — Ray Hudson

The 'rock world' is a lot smaller than it used to be. It's doing a lot less things than it used to be. From Woodstock back in the day and Rage Against the Machine, no one sells millions of records anymore. — Austin Carlile

I rented a summer home in the winter on Long Island, I took long walks, and then I ended up moving to Woodstock. It was a fertile musical area and time, and I played with a lot of different musicians there, including getting into women's music, and I ended up playing with Cris Williamson. — June Millington

I opened the Woodstock Festival even though I was supposed to be fifth. I said, 'What am I doing here? No, no, not me, not first!' I had to go on stage because there was no one else to go on first - the concert was already two-and-a-half hours late. — Richie Havens

This isn't the Democratic party of our fathers and grandfathers. This is the party of Woodstock hippies. I was at Woodstock
I built the stage. And when everything fell apart, and people were fighting for peanut butter sandwiches, it was the National Guard who came in and saved the same people who were protesting them. So when Hillary Clinton a few years ago wanted to build a Woodstock memorial, I said it should be a statue of a National Guardsman feeding a crying hippie. — John Ratzenberger

After months of playing air guitar to 'Free Bird', what really got me into guitar was watching a documentary about Jimi Hendrix and picking up the Woodstock soundtrack. Listening to his version of 'Star Spangled Banner' and 'Purple Haze.' My brother played acoustic guitar and, idolising him, I thought, 'I'm going to get a guitar.' — Kirk Hammett

When they said "Make love, not war" at Woodstock, they never imagined that one would become as dangerous as the other. — Jay Leno

Woodstock happened in August 1969, long before the Internet and mobile phones made it possible to communicate instantly with anyone, anywhere. It was a time when we weren't able to witness world events or the horrors of war live on 24-hour news channels. — Richie Havens

I don't care what you do, I just don't want to be a mud hippie like you. [From 1994 woodstock] — Green Day

The Boston Globe: The Woodstock Music and Art Festival will surely go down in history as a mass event of great and positive significance in the life of the country ... That this many young people could assemble so peaceably and with such good humor in a mile-square area ... speaks volumes about their dedication to the ideal of respect for the dignity of the individual ... In a nation beset with a crescendo of violence, this is a vibrantly hopeful sign. If violence is infectious, so, happily, is nonviolence. — Michael Lang

But when I played Woodstock, I'll never forget that moment looking out over the hundreds of thousands of people, the sea of humanity, seeing all those people united in such a unique way. It just touched me in a way that I'll never forget. — Edgar Winter

But, what did happen is I went to Woodstock as a member of the audience. I did not show up there with a road manager and a couple of guitars. I showed up with a change of clothes and a toothbrush. — John Sebastian

Weed is going to bring us together as a generation. Drugs is what created Woodstock. Let's be clear about that. — ASAP Rocky

Woodstock was not about sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It was about spirituality, about love, about sharing, about helping each other, living in peace and harmony. — Richie Havens

To come out here and play on Woodstock grounds, first year ever headlining on the main stage there's nothing more iconic. [Mysteryland] is one of those festivals that holds down the legacy of dance music it's been around for so many years. It's been part of what we do for so long. It kinda makes sense to bring the tradition over here to America. The festival grounds of Woodstock, that's pretty epic. — Steve Aoki

I was invited for the first Woodstock. Actually, I started the programme. — Ravi Shankar

The only reason Woodstock was necessary is because they didn't have iTunes. — Daniel Tosh

There's a lot of surplus rage from the '60s that was never really worked through publicly. I think a lot of that rage still exists, and I think you see that when John McCain runs a commercial that beats up on Hillary Clinton's earmark for a Woodstock museum. — Rick Perlstein

What we have in mind is breakfast in bed for 400,000 — Wavy Gravy

I grew up with the Woodstock generation. I went to Woodstock, and like everybody in my school, I wanted to be in a rock-and-roll band, and most of us were. But I also grew up with a lot of piano lessons and a lot of classical music training. — John Tesh

A hundred million crystallized polio viruses could cover the period at the end of this sentence. There could be two hundred and fifty Woodstock Festivals of viruses sitting on that period-the combined populations of Great Britain and France-and you would never know it. — Anonymous

Though it's frequently portrayed as this crazy, unbridled festival of rain-soaked, stoned hippies dancing in the mud, Woodstock was obviously much more than that - or we wouldn't still be talking about it in 2009. People of all ages and colors came together in the fields of Max Yasgur's farm. — Richie Havens

I know about Woodstock probably as much as your average person who is over 30, where I'd know Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Grateful Dead. — Demetri Martin

At the time of Woodstock, I was just 13, but I used to see these exotic hippy creatures and I did look on with envy. How could you not? In an ideal world, I would have loved to have been a hippy - but I might have been a bit strait-laced. It was my fantasy. — Imelda Staunton

Even Woodstock turned out to be a disaster. Everybody was stuck in the mud and people got sick. — Johnny Rivers

I was at Woodstock. In the mud. — Louis Gossett Jr.

I was barely in 'Taking Woodstock.' — Katherine Waterston

My mom had me at 16 and took me every place she went. I remember going on peace marches. She tried to take me to Woodstock - it was pouring rain. It was on my birthday, and I was crying so much in the car they turned the car around and dumped me at my grandmother's house ... I had a little attitude. — Debi Mazar

Instantly, the pair fell to groping one other as if each had puff the magic dragon at a rock concert in Woodstock. — Tai

Many teachers of the Sixties generation said "We will steal your children", and they did. A significant part of America has converted to the ideas of the 1960s - hedonism, self-indulgence and consumerism. For half of all Americans today, the Woodstock culture of the Sixties is the culture they grew up with - their traditional culture. For them, Judeo-Christian culture is outside the mainstream now. The counter-culture has become the dominant culture, and the former culture a dissident culture - something that is far out, and 'extreme'. — Pat Buchanan

You know that song, 'Woodstock.' It says 'We are stardust.' And we are. We come from stardust. Everything on earth is just ashes. — Priscille Sibley

Woodstock is well known because this country is so hyped on amount. It was big. Half a million people doesn't necessarily mean something is good. It just means it's big. — Grace Slick

They met at Woodstock, and their love lasted a lifetime. Heartbroken but determined he calls on his two best friends to help him return to where it all began. One last roadtrip. One last chance to say Good-bye, Emily — Michael Murphy

'Occupy' is nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness. These clowns can do nothing but harm America. — Frank Miller

You went to Woodstock and all that trash, your generation is fading fast. — Rod Stewart

In the Woodstock movie, you see Justin, my son, who is now a filmmaker, being carried off by my wife at the time to the helicopter. He's just this little bundle of joy in her arms. And it's 1969. — Bill Kreutzmann

I'm from the '60s, but no one has ever accused me of being a hippie. I never had much interest in the Woodstock crowd, which partied to change the world, while real people were starving to death in Africa. — Lloyd Kaufman

He dreamed of amassing musicians from all over the world in Woodstock and they would sit in a field in a circle and play and play. It didn't matter what key or tempo or what melody, they would keep on playing through their discordance until they found a common language. — Patti Smith

I write most of my first drafts on an old manual typewriter, a really old one. It's a big black metal "Woodstock" from about 1920. I try to write everything down at once, in one sitting. The longer stories in this collection are divided up into sections. Each section represents a different sitting, a different idea for the same story. — Arthur Bradford

What happened to YOU old partner?" Lex asked him. "Suicide I take it?"
He frowned. "Worse - business school. Can you believe it? Two years of Croak, then one day the kid decided he wants to be the next Donald Trump. So we threw him in a car, dropped him off near Woodstock and now he think he spent the past two years in a drug-addled haze at some hippie commune. — Gina Damico

Hollywood, Woodstock, nor the hippie culture was the source of power of the 1960's freedom movement. God was. — Glenn Beck

The boys from Staten Island would fill more body bags than Stuyvesant could ever imagine. Mechanics and plumbers had to fight while college students shook indignant fists, fornicated in the fields of Woodstock and sat in. — Frank McCourt