Aretha with no goals, eternally single & one step soft of heaven/ let it be understood that she owns this melody along with her emotional diplomats & her earth & her musical secrets
Bob DylanRead
Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues; you can tell by the way she smiles.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that the Mona Lisa's smile carries a deep, perhaps melancholic, emotional weight.
Bob Dylan's observation about the Mona Lisa reflects the idea that true art often embodies complex emotions and narratives. The phrase 'highway blues' implies a sense of longing or sadness, suggesting that even the seemingly serene smile of one of the most famous paintings in the world carries layers of unexpressed sorrow, illustrating the duality of beauty and pain in human experience.
Themes
ArtEmotionMona LisaSmileMelancholy
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion about emotional interpretations of art.
More from Bob Dylan
All quotes βIf I wasn't Bob Dylan, I'd probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.
Bob DylanRead
Some formulas are too complex and I don't want anything to do with them.
Bob DylanRead
I'm the oldest son of a crazy man, I'm in a cowboy band.
Bob DylanRead
My songs are personal music, they're not communal. I wouldn't want people singing along with me. It would sound funny. I'm not playing campfire meetings. I don't remember anyone singing along with Elvis, Carl Perkins or Little Richard.
Bob DylanRead
I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes. You'd know what a drag it is to see you.
Bob DylanRead
Similar quotes
Every scene should be able to answer three questions: "Who wants what from whom? What happens if they don't get it? Why now?"
David MametRead
Where would fashion be without literature?
Diana VreelandRead
Revolutionary art and visionary physics are both investigations into the nature of reality.
Leonard ShlainRead
Picasso is what is going to happen and what is happening; he is posterity and archaic time, the distant ancestor and our next-door neighbor. Speed permits him to be two places at once, to belong to all the centuries without letting go of the here and now.
Octavio PazRead
It seems likely that many of the young who don't wait for others to call them artists, but simply announce that they are, don't have the patience to make art.
Pauline KaelRead
Some people start with the lyrics first because they know what they want to talk about and they just write a whole bunch of lyrical ideas, but for me the music tells me what to talk about.
John LegendRead