Quotes By Bruce Springsteen

If you're good, you're always looking over your shoulder.

But I think that your entire life is a process of sorting out some of those early messages that you got.

The only thing I can say about having this type of success is that you can get yourself in trouble because basically the world is set open for you. People will say yes to anything you ask, so it's basically down to you and what you want or need.

I hadn't performed by myself in a while. It feels very natural to me, and I assume people come for the very same reasons as they do when I'm with the band: to be moved, for something to happen to them.

I can sing very comfortably from my vantage point because a lot of the music was about a loss of innocence, there's innocence contained in you but there's also innocence in the process of being lost.

But then I go through long periods where I don't listen to things, usually when I'm working. In between the records and in between the writing I suck up books and music and movies and anything I can find.

I like narrative storytelling as being part of a tradition, a folk tradition.

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 a sad man my friend who's livin' in his own skin and can't stand the company.

I think politics come out of psychology.

From the beginning, I imagined I would have a long work life.

In the early years, I found a voice that was my voice and also partly my father's voice. But isn't that what you always do? Why do kids at 5 years old go into the closet and put their daddy's shoes on? Hey, my kids do it.

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.

This music is forever for me. It's the stage thing, that rush moment that you live for. It never lasts, but that's what you live for.

The best music, you can seek some shelter in it momentarily, but it's essentially there to provide you something to face the world with.

No, I always felt that amongst my core fans- because there was a level of popularity that I had in the mid '80s that was sort of a bump on the scale- they fundamentally understood the values that are at work in my work.

In America everything's about who's number one today.

But the star thing I can live with. The music I can't live without. And that's how it lays out for me, you know. I got as big an ego and enjoy the attention.

You can go from doing something quite silly to something dead serious in the blink of an eye, and if you're making those connections with your audience then they're going to go right along with it.

My image had always been very heterosexual, very straight. So it was a nice experience for me, a chance to clarify my own feelings about gay and lesbian civil rights.

I'm interested in what it means to live in America. I'm interested in the kind of country that we live in and leave our kids. I'm interested in trying to define what that country is. I got the chutzpa or whatever you want to say to believe that if I write a really good about it, it's going to make a difference.

The best music is essentially there to provide you something to face the world with.

Plus, you know, when I was young, there was a lot of respect for clowning in rock music - look at Little Richard. It was a part of the whole thing, and I always also believed that it released the audience.

Talk about a dream, try to make it real.

And whether you're drawn to gospel music or church music or honky-tonk music, it informs your character and it informs your talent.

I do a lot of curiosity buying; I buy it if I like the album cover, I buy it if I like the name of the band, anything that sparks my imagination.

We all have stories we're living and telling ourselves.

When it comes to luck, you make your own.

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.

You can't have a United States if you are telling some folks that they can't get on the train. There is a cracking point where a society collapses.