“We now have cultural machines so powerful that one singer can reach everybody in the world, and make all the other singers feel inferior because they’re not like him.”

The dimension of cultural equity needs to be added to the humane continuum of liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and social justice.

I knew Bobby Dylan back in the days when he lived in the village.

He used to come and see me and sing songs for me, saying they ought to go into my next collected book on American folk music.

The modern computer with all its various gadgets and wonderful electronic facilities now makes it possible to preserve and reinvigorate all the cultural richness of mankind.

The essence of America lies not in the headlined heroes…but in the everyday folks who live and die unknown, yet leave their dreams as legacies

My life has been devoted to opposing that tendency.

That the land that had produced American jazz, the blues, the spirituals, the mountain ballads and the work songs had gone sterile.

And the thing that I always tried to do with important singers when I met them was to sit down and record everything they knew, give them a first real run-through of their art.

People were saying that Southern folk song was dead.

Crushing the life out of all the other human possibilities.

Once that gets started, he gets backed by so much cash and so much power that he becomes a monstrous invader from outer space.

Folk Music is the map of singing.

Human nature is almost unbelievably malleable, responding accurately and contrastingly to contrasting cultural conditions.

I’ve always been multi-cultural myself. I’m not black and I’m not white and I’m not pink and I’m not green. Eartha Kitt has no color, and that is how barriers are broken.

Music is more objective, I think, than a lot of art is, but a surprising amount of it is cultural.

Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting the progress of the arts and the sciences and a flourishing culture in our land.

All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.

The dimension of cultural equity needs to be added to the humane continuum of liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and social justice.

There is a cultural diversity that’s very valuable, and it’s valuable to have different ways of looking at the world.

We have to assume now that all mission is cross-cultural.