Bob Dylan — People

Born: 1941
Occupations: songwriter, film actor, poet
Notable works: Like a Rolling Stone, Highway 61 Revisited, Bringing It All Back Home

Facts: Wikidata (CC0), as of 2026-07-09

Spoken Dylan is datable the way sung Dylan is not: the saved-and-lost-people line comes from his stage sermons on the 1979 gospel tour, as distinct an era as any album. The interviews supply the rest -- Cezanne alongside Woody Guthrie as songwriting teachers -- and are the only place Dylan explains himself, sparingly and usually in riddles.

Chaos is a friend of mine.

Bob Dylan

Despite everybody who has been born and has died, the world has just gone on. I mean, look at Napoleon-but we went right on. Look at Harpo Marx-the world went around, it didn't stop for a second. It's sad but true. John Kennedy, right?

Bob Dylan

Don’t matter how much money you got, there’s only two kinds of people: there’s saved people and there’s lost people.

Bob Dylan

I am against nature. I don’t dig nature at all. I think nature is very unnatural. I think the truly natural things are dreams, which nature can’t touch with decay.

Bob Dylan

I like America, just as everybody else does. I love America, I gotta say that. But America will be judged.

Bob Dylan

In writing songs I've learned as much from Cezanne as I have from Woody Guthrie.

Bob Dylan

I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.

Bob Dylan

It pays to know who your friends are but it also pays to know you ain't got any friends.

Bob Dylan

I’ve been up the mountain and I had a choice. Should I come down? So I came down. God said, “Okay, you’ve been up on the mountain, now you go down. You’re on your own, free. Check in later, but now you’re on your own.”

Bob Dylan

Jesus tapped me on the shoulder and said, Bob, why are you resisting me? I said, I’m not resisting you! He said, You gonna follow me? I said, I’ve never thought about that before! He said, When you’re not following me, you’re resisting me.

Bob Dylan

The first way to answer the questions in the song is by asking them. But lots of people have to first find the wind.

Bob Dylan

When I first heard Elvis’s voice I just knew that I wasn’t going to work for anybody and nobody was gonna be my boss. Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail.

Bob Dylan