Bruce Cockburn Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Politics is a part of life and art is about life. It doesn't mean that all the art has to be about politics - in fact, heaven forbid. But politics is a totally legitimate area of focus for any art, whether it's painting or songwriting or anything else, as much as sex is, as much as spirituality is, as much as any other behavior of people is.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Art, Sex, Mean

  Source: progressive.org

  4 Copy quote

• I watch the confusion of friends all numb with love moving like stray dogs to the anthem of night long conversations of pulsing rhythms and random voltage voices in spite of themselves graceful as these raindrops creeping spermlike across the car window.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Friendship, Dog, Moving

  Song: You Pay Your Money and You Take Your Chance, Album: Inner City Front

  7 Copy quote

• Here's Iraq, where irrigation was invented, where law was invented, where writing was invented. All these things that we consider necessities of civilization started there. And the people who live there damn well know that.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Writing, Law, Civilization

  Source: progressive.org

  5 Copy quote

• There's so many ways in which Canada and America are inextricably connected politically, economically, socially. There's no stepping away. But at the same time, we don't have a say. Canada is a different country. Sometimes I think of it as Finland in the Soviet era. We're totally free, but we're totally free to agree, basically. If we disagree too heartily or over too sensitive an issue, then we pay a price for that.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Country, Thinking, America

  Source: progressive.org

  7 Copy quote

• I've been accused of being a little pedantic here and there, but I don't buy that criticism. I'm telling it like I see it. You don't have to buy it. You don't have to like it. You don't have to listen to it at all. I'm not trying to convince people of things, other than the fact that I'm trying to make as vivid as I can my own feelings and experiences.

  Bruce Cockburn

  People, Feelings, Trying

  Source: progressive.org

  7 Copy quote

• The trouble with normal is it always gets worse, fashionable fascism dominates the scene.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Normal, Trouble, Scene

  Source: progressive.org

  7 Copy quote

• My overall responsibility is to be truthful. If people pay money to come and see me, looking for something other than that, then they've made a mistake.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Mistake, Responsibility, People

  Source: progressive.org

  4 Copy quote

• Most of the time, our deeper, stronger feelings are things we all have in common.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Feelings, Stronger, Common

  Source: progressive.org

  4 Copy quote

• We all grow up with anger. It's part of the human condition. But what do you do with that? It seems obvious to me that you've got to use it for something, but you have to separate it from your ego.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Growing Up, Ego, Use

  Source: progressive.org

  4 Copy quote

• Once you tie anger and ego together then you're a monster, at least a latent one. So you have to be able to separate those things before you are going to be able to do anything useful with your anger.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Ties, Ego, Together

  Source: progressive.org

  4 Copy quote

• Anger is energy, and you've got to find a place to put it that works for you.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Energy

  Source: progressive.org

  4 Copy quote

• Music itself isn't enough to completely wear down my stash of anger. And I don't have all that much more to be angry about than anyone else. It's not like I was abused as a kid or anything. I had a pretty comfortable childhood with parents who took good care of me. But resentment exists, and some of it goes into the music. Some of it goes into physical activity.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Kids, Childhood, Parent

  Source: progressive.org

  4 Copy quote

• The people who have impressed me most - and the closest I've come to having heroes - are the people who have devoted their lives to making things better for others. These are people whose names you never hear, people who work for Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam, and other humanitarian groups. They're just out there in the world, doing stuff.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Hero, Doctors, Names

  Source: progressive.org

  5 Copy quote

• Sometimes I catch myself doing something that I've already done. The more I've done, the more that's likely to happen. Then I just throw it away. I wait until I've got the right way of getting a thing done, which means my songwriting proceeds at a very slow pace. But it's the only way I can really work.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Mean, Waiting, Pace

  Source: progressive.org

  4 Copy quote

• There are so many people I love in the United States, and I've had such great adventures in this country and have been so well received by people here.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Country, Adventure, People

  Source: progressive.org

  4 Copy quote

• Going to places like Honduras, Nicaragua, and various African countries you get to see very clearly what the cause and effect is. We finance the obnoxious elites in those countries and they exploit their people so we don't have to say that we're doing the exploiting but nevertheless we are benefiting from it.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Country, People, Nicaragua

  Source: progressive.org

  12 Copy quote

• Everything that makes a society run is broken in Iraq. The only real structure is the people's own sense of themselves as Iraqis, which was very strong. They're a proud people, and they trace their historic roots way, way back.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Running, Strong, Real

  Source: progressive.org

  4 Copy quote

• Abu Ghraib, as bad as it was, can't be compared to what Saddam was doing to people.

  Bruce Cockburn

  People, Abu Ghraib, Saddam

  Source: progressive.org

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• Almost all the military personnel were wearing sunglasses. No Iraqis wear sunglasses. They really want to see your eyes. So immediately they can't trust the Americans.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Military, Eye, Want

  Source: progressive.org

  5 Copy quote

• I always write the lyrics first. There are one or two exceptions over the years, but that's pretty much the way it's been. The process of applying music to words is a bit like scoring a film. You've got imagery.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Writing, Years, Two

  Source: progressive.org

  4 Copy quote

• I'm particularly attuned to lyrics, and very often a bad set of lyrics will ruin a song for me, while my friends will be just grooving on the music. I don't mean that it has to be about anything in particular, but there has to be some art applied to it, simple or otherwise.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Song, Art, Mean

  Source: progressive.org

  4 Copy quote

• I did a lot of writing for a lot of different kinds of bands that I was in and out of during those five years and that left me with a little body of songs that I liked better when I played alone, so I ended up going out solo and very soon made my first album.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Song, Writing, Years

  4 Copy quote

• Sun's up, uh huh, looks okay -
  the world survives into another day,
  and I'm thinking about eternity.
  Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Thinking, Looks, World

  4 Copy quote

• The invitation for artists to compete to see who can be the most charitable is a wonderful thing.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Artist, Wonderful, Charitable

  4 Copy quote

• I wear my shadows where they're harder to see, but they follow me everywhere. I guess that should tell me I'm traveling toward light.

  Bruce Cockburn

  Light, Shadow, Follow Me

  4 Copy quote

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