Jakob Dylan quotes:

I got to watch my heroes meet him and saw how they reacted, whether it was Joe Strummer or Tom Waits. It was peculiar. I'm so stoked to meet Tom Waits, and he's so nervous to meet my dad. It's a head spin.

To us, there was Bob Dylan, and there was dad. As for what he meant to other people, that was never glorified in our house. There were no accolades there, no gold records.

My songs have always had hope and perseverance in them - I never write songs that have no escape hatch, no positivity.

I don't like to sing things that just sound like they're going straight down the tubes, and they're circling the drain, and there's no hope. It doesn't feel good in any way to sing.

Writing songs is a trade like anything else.

I liked getting the Grammy more than not getting it.

Tolerance can lead to learning something.

I'm waiting for my kids to grow up and get into the Offspring and look at me like I'm a total candy-ass.

I'm not somebody who carries around a notepad and writes songs all day long. I don't imagine everything I think of is worth being in a song. So I tend to collect notes, and I set time aside to go to work and write songs.

Some people just can't get over their own hang-ups to listen to my music.

It's been said that I formed The Wallflowers to hide my name but, really, I've always wanted to be in a band - right from the day my friends and I soundproofed a garage with bed-covers for our first rehearsal.

If all you were left believing was what you were seeing, it'd be nothing but desperate. To have hope, you're going to have to imagine that there's something behind the curtain.

Every song you write you think is the last one you're going to manage. You put everything you've got into the song, and you've twisted it and pulled at it and dug in and found a way to complete it. To get another one is the trick.

I do like a song that can look good on a page without even being sung. I edit and edit and edit.

I see myself as a traditionalist ... I like traditional things. I like things of substance and value that have been proven. Conceptually, as the songs started to come together, I followed that lead, which is the language I work in.

There's only so many things to sing about, so what's going to make a song appeal to you more than someone else's is just a unique way of saying the same thing.

You might have a favorite band and really dislike one of the records. That's fine.

If people want to talk about Bob Dylan, I can talk about that. But my dad belongs to me and four other people exclusively. I'm very protective of that. And telling people whether he was affectionate is telling people a lot. It has so little to do with me. I come up against a wall.

Its a little gross to put yourself in every song. I mean, how interesting do people really think you are?

I think there's always been hope in my songs, no matter how they've first appeared. I think there's always been a shred of hope in everything I've written 'cause I like that balance.

Songs are not better just because they're emotionally honest. To write a song well, you have to put some work into it and grind it out.

I've got a life that really matters to me, and that's because of the way I was raised. My ethics are high because my parents did a great job.

When you're in the middle of writing a song, you can come up with this whole web of stuff only you know how to get through. That's very entertaining for me to do that.

I do look at songwriting as a lot of work. I don't over-intellectualize music as a special medium that only some people deserve to do. I think it's something you do if you put the work in.

A guilty conscience means at least you have one.

My father said it himself in an interview many years ago: 'Husband and wife failed, but mother and father didn't.' I've got a life that really matters to me, and that's because of the way I was raised. My ethics are high because my parents did a great job.

But there's got to be an opening somewhere here in front of me. Through this maze of ugliness and greed.

Those things interest me a lot in songwriting - the human nature of how people think, and the muck that we wind up in.

I always saw songwriting as the top of the heap. No matter what else you were going to do creatively...writing songs was king

There's only one thing that's certainAnd that's everybody, everybody's hurting

The trouble, dollIs not moving mountains, butDigging the ground that you're on

It doesn't always have a shape,Almost never does it have a name,It maybe has a pitchfork, maybe has a tail,But evil is alive and well.

Music is something I really have a need to do - I don't seem to be able to stop

There is trouble in my mind There is dark, there's dark and there is light There is no order, and there is chaos, and there is crime There is no one home tonight, in the empire of my mind