On the historical ideation of manhood: "I bought into it, and now I'm buying myself right out of it"
On pacifism: "It takes a long time to shut up and listen"
On the people's memory: "Yes, the long memory is the most radical idea in this country. It is the loss of that long memory which deprives our people of that connective flow of thoughts and events that clarifies our vision, not of where we're going, but where we want to go."
On folk songs: "The songs weren't just there to make people happy or to make them applaud. The songs were there to make them think. The songs were there to help people define problems and define solutions."
On folk heroes: "But they lived those extraordinary lives that can never be lived again. And in the living of them, they gave me a history that is more profound, more beautiful, more powerful, more passionate, and ultimately more useful, than the best damn history book I ever read."
Bonus: Frying Pan Jack to Utah Phillips: "But if it's true that the only real life I had was the life of my brain, what sense does it make to hand that brain to someone for eight hours a day, for their particular use, on the presumption that at the end of the day they will give it back in an unmutilated condition? Fat chance!"
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