Alan [Lomax] and his father started off changing the definition of folk music from something ancient and anonymous to something very contemporary.

I want to turn the clock back to when people lived in small villages and took care of each other.

Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don't.

Some of my ancestors were religious dissenters who came to America over three hundred years ago. Others were abolitionists in New England in the eighteen forties and fifties.

It's a very important thing to learn to talk to people you disagree with.

I tell kids, don't trust the media. The media with their emphasis on fame is helping to destroy this country, helping destroy the human race. It's the plug-in drug.

Shh. Listen to the sounds that surround you. Notice the pitches, the volume, the timbre, the many lines of counterpoint. As light taught Monet to paint, the earth may be teaching you music.

Songs are funny things. They can slip across borders. Proliferate in prisons. Penetrate hard shells. I always believed that the right song at the right moment could change history.

This world is so full of hypocrisy, the only way you can be honest is to be a hermit.

Long live teachers of children, because they can show children how they can save the world.

If it can’t be reduced, reused, repaired, rebuilt, refurbished, refinished, resold, recycled or composted, then it should be restricted, redesigned or removed from production.

There are many things to resist, but disease is not one of them.

True friendship is like sound health the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.

I very much dislike the intolerance and moralism of many Christians, and feel more sympathy with Honest Doubters than with them.

All things are dark to sorrow.

Our wisdom is no less at fortune's mercy than our wealth.

We have so many words for states of mind, and so few words for the states of the body.

I am always on the women's side.

People deal with me, but they are genuinely fond of Prim. Maybe there will be enough fondness to keep her alive.

Experience is truly the only thing that makes experts so expert.

Most people have no idea of the giant capacity we can immediately command when we focus all of our resources on mastering a single area of our lives.