Bruce Springsteen Quotes

Mental illness and creativity are - it's a thin line in between the two. I tend to believe that.

If you're an artist, you try to keep an ear to the ground and an ear to your heart.

Every rock song is some variation of 'Pull down your pants'

Most of the artists I know are crazy in one way or another. I think that's why you get into it. You're in pursuit of a certain sort of peace that's very, very, very difficult to come by.

I tend to be a subscriber to the idea that you have everything you need by the time you're 12 years old to do interesting writing for most of the rest of your life - certainly by the time you're 18.

In the past, some of the songs that were the most fun, and the most entertaining and rocking, fell by the wayside because I was concerned with what I was going to say and how I was going to say it.

Certainly tolerance and acceptance were at the forefront of my music.

The audiences are there as a result of my history with the band but also as a result of my being able to reach people with a tune.

It's always felt natural, because I'm generally very comfortable with people.

Every song has a piece of you in it, because just general regret, love. You have to basically zero in on the truth of those particular emotions.

Politics and life go hand in hand.

Most bands don't work out. A small unit democracy is very, very difficult.

Well let there be sunlight, let there be rain Let the brokenhearted love again Sherry, we can run with our arms open before the tide.

Sister, I won't ask for forgiveness, my sins are all I have.

Now those memories come back to haunt me they haunt me like a curse.

The only thing I know as I get older is that I don't really need to be No. 1.

The man on the radio says Elvis Presley's died. We drove to Memphis, the sky was hard and black.

I wanted to be the reasonable voice of revenge for what I'd seen [my father] life come to.

I wouldn't be windmilling a Fender Telecaster if it weren't for Pete Townshend.

Some guys they just give up living, and start dying little by little, piece by piece.

Madman drummers, bummers, Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat. In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat.

When I was growing up, there were two things that were unpopular in my house. One was me, and the other was my guitar.

I was always concerned with writing to my age at a particular moment. That was the way I would keep faith with the audience that supported me as I went along.

Somehow all you ever need's never really quite enough.

All I try to do is write music that feels meaningful to me, that has commitment and passion behind it.

The one thing I wished for my children is that they'd be readers.

Pessimism and optimism are slammed up against each other in my records, the tension between them is where it's all at, it's what lights the fire.

The country we carry in our hearts is waiting.

The release date is just one day, but the record is forever.

Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby, edgy and dull and cut a six inch valley through the middle of my soul.

I think politics come out of psychology.

If you have written really well, people will swear that it happened to you.

Music was my way of keeping people from looking through and around me. I wanted the heavies to know I was around.

I think that is what film and art and music do; they can work as a map of sorts for your feelings.

Every good writer or filmmaker has something eating at them, right? That they can't quite get off their back . And so your job is to make your audience care about your obsessions.

People see you onstage and, yeah, I'd want to be that guy.I want to be that guy myself very often.

You'll walk with me out on the wire, cuz baby, I'm just a scared and lonely rider, but I gotta know how it feels... I want to know love is wild, babe, I want to know love is real.

The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive.

I guess there's just a meanness in this world

I tend to be not my own best company. I can get a little lost when - if I don't have my work to occasionally focus me.

At night I wake up with my sheets soaking wet and a freight train running through the middle of my head.

Now young faces grow sad and old and hearts of fire grow cold We swore blood brothers against the wind I'm ready to grow young again

They say "ya gotta stay hungry"... Hey Baby...I'm just about starvin' tonight!

The first thing that I do when I come out every night is to look at the faces in front of me, very individually.

The highway is alive tonight But nobody's kiddin' nobody about where it goes I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light With the ghost of old Tom Joad.

Somebody who can reckon with the past, who can live with the past in the present, and move towards the future - that's fabulous.

[The Catholic religion] was something I carried with me, never forgot, brought into my music. And it's been in my music ever since.

In a restless heart the seed of betrayal lay.

Blame it on the lies that killed us. Blame it on the truth that ran us down.

I know I ain't nobody's bargain, but hell a little touchup and a little paint.