18 quotes
Let me be known as just the man that told you something you already knew.
Ever'body might be just one big soul,
Well it looks that a-way to me.
Tom Joad (1940)
I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose.
Statement quoted in Prophet Singer: The Voice And Vision of Woody Guthrie (2007)
We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do.
I ain't a communist necessarily, but I been in the red all my life.
Wherever little children are hungry and cry,
Wherever people ain't free.
Wherever men are fightin' for their rights,
That's where I'm a-gonna be, Ma.
That's where I'm a-gonna be.
Tom Joad (1940)
The human race is a pretty old place.
Nobody living can ever stop me
As I go walking my freedom highway
Nobody living can make me turn back
This land is made for you and me.
All you can write is what you see.
My songs has been my messages that I tried to scatter across the back sides and along the steps of the fire escapes and on the window sills and through the dark halls.
Bound For Glory (1943)
I have hoped as many hopes and dreamed so many dreams, seen them swept aside by weather, and blown away by men, washed away in my own mistakes, that — I use to wonder if it wouldn't be better just to haul off and quit hoping.
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land is made for you and me.
This Land Is Your Land (1940)
One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple
By the Relief Office I saw my people —
As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if
God blessed America for me.
As I go walking this ribbon of highway
I see above me the endless skyway
And all around me the wind keeps saying:
This land is made for you and me.
This Land Is Your Land (1940)
I'm blowing, and just as wild and whirling as you are, and lots of times I've been picked up, throwed down, and picked up; but my eyes has been my camera taking pictures of the world and my songs has been my messages that I tried to scatter across the back sides and along the steps of the fire escapes and on the window sills and through the dark halls...
Bound For Glory (1943)
I worked in your orchards of peaches and prunes
I slept on the ground in the light of the moon
On the edge of the city you'll see us and then
We come with the dust and we go with the wind
Pastures of Plenty (1941)
No matter how bad the wicked world has hurt you, in the long run, there is something gained, and it is all for the best … The note of hope is the only note that can help us or save us from falling to the bottom of the heap of evolution, because, largely, about all a human being is, anyway, is just a hoping machine, a working machine, and any song that says, the pleasures I have seen in all of my trouble, are the things I never can get — don't worry — the human race will sing this way as long as there is a human to race.
The human race is a pretty old place.
When the sun came shining as I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting a voice come chanting:
This land was made for you and me.
This Land Is Your Land (1940)