When you play the 12-string guitar, you spend half your life tuning the instrument and the other half playing it out of tune.
— Pete Seeger
I've found that festivals are a relatively painless way to meet people and make a few points that need making, without having to hit them over the head with too many speeches.
I live in the country, so I get a fair amount of exercise. We heat our house with wood, so I split wood. We also live on a steep hill, and I have to rake and put in cross-stitches to keep the road from washing out when there's a big rain.
According to my definition of God, I'm not an atheist. Because I think God is everything. Whenever I open my eyes, I'm looking at God. Whenever I'm listening to something, I'm listening to God.
I came from an intellectual family. Most were doctors, preachers, teachers, businessmen. My grandfather was a small businessman. His father was an abolitionist doctor, and his father was an immigrant from Germany.
Being generous of spirit is a wonderful way to live.
It's a very important thing to learn to talk to people you disagree with.
I like to say I'm more conservative than Goldwater. He just wanted to turn the clock back to when there was no income tax.
I have sung for Americans of every political persuasion, and I am proud that I never refuse to sing to an audience, no matter what religion or color of their skin, or situation in life.
I feel that my whole life is a contribution.
I fought for peace in the fifties.
Historically, I believe I was correct in refusing to answer their questions.
I love my country very dearly, and I greatly resent the implication that some of the places that I have sung and some of the people that I have known, and some of my opinions, whether they are religious or philosophical, make me less of an American.
I'm still a communist in the sense that I don't believe the world will survive with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer - I think that the pressures will get so tremendous that the social contract will just come apart.
The good and bad are all tangled up together. American popular music is loved around the world because of its African rhythm. But that wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for slavery.
You'd be surprised how many stupid mistakes I've made. I make stupid mistakes all the time, and some of them have been very big stupid mistakes.
I came along and was a teenager in the Depression, and nobody had jobs. So I went out hitchhiking, when I met a man named Woody Guthrie. He was the single biggest part of my education.
If I've got a talent, it's for picking the right song at the right time for the right audience. And I can always get people to sing with me.
Songs won't save the planet, but neither will books or speeches.
I still call myself a communist, because communism is no more what Russia made of it than Christianity is what the churches make of it.
I decline to discuss, under compulsion, where I have sung, and who has sung my songs, and who else has sung with me, and the people I have known.
But I decline to say who has ever listened to them, who has written them, or other people who have sung them.
I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this. I would be very glad to tell you my life if you want to hear of it.
One of the things I'm most proud of about my country is the fact that we did lick McCarthyism back in the fifties.
I believe that my choosing my present course I do no dishonor to them, or to those who may come after me.
I am saying voluntarily that I have sung for almost every religious group in the country, from Jewish and Catholic, and Presbyterian and Holy Rollers and Revival Churches, and I do this voluntarily.
When you're facing an opponent over a broad front, you don't aim for the opponent's strong points, important though they may be. Pick a little outpost that you can capture and win. And then you find another place that you can capture and win it, and then you move slowly toward the big places.
I try to sing many different kinds of songs. If I sing a batch of humorous songs, I'll throw in a deadly serious song. Or if I'm singing too many serious songs, I'll throw in a ridiculous song, to mix it up.
I keep reminding people that an editorial in rhyme is not a song. A good song makes you laugh, it makes you cry, it makes you think.
My mother was a very good violinist; my father was a musicologist and spent most of his life in academia.
Education is when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get if you don't.
If there's something wrong, speak up!
I want to turn the clock back to when people lived in small villages and took care of each other.
I have sung in hobo jungles, and I have sung for the Rockefellers, and I am proud that I have never refused to sing for anybody.
Again, I say I will be glad to tell what songs I have ever sung, because singing is my business.
I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs.
Down through the centuries, this trick has been tried by various establishments throughout the world. They force people to get involved in the kind of examination that has only one aim and that is to stamp out dissent.
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.
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.
