Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born 23 September 1949) is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist.

Sourced

• This music is forever for me. It's the stage thing, that rush moment that you live for. It never lasts, but that's what you live for.
  • Time magazine (27 October 1975)

• Music was my way of keeping people from looking through and around me. I wanted the heavies to know I was around.
  • Time magazine (27 October 1975)

• Your success story is a bigger story than whatever you’re trying to say on stage... Success makes life easier. It doesn’t make living easier.
  • Q magazine (August 1992)

• We're here to re-dedicate you to The Power, The Passion, The Mystery, and The Ministry of Rock and Roll.
  • Guitar magazine (July 1999)

Born To Run (1975)

• Show a little faith, there's magic in the night.
  • "Thunder Road"

• Oh, come take my hand
  Riding out tonight to case the Promised Land
  • "Thunder Road"

• Roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair.
  Well the night's busting open, these two lanes will take us anywhere.
  We've got one last chance to make it real, to trade in these wings on some wheels.
  Climb in back, heaven's waiting down on the tracks.
  • "Thunder Road"

• And in the lonely cool before dawn, you hear their engines roaring on.
  But when you get to the porch they're gone
  On the wind, so Mary climb in.
  It's a town full of losers and I'm pulling out of here to win.
  • "Thunder Road"

• Remember all the movies, Terry that we'd go see?
  Trying to learn how to walk like the heroes we thought we had to be
  And after all this time we find we're just like all the rest
  Stranded in the park and forced to confess
  To hiding on the Backstreets.
  • "Backstreets"

• The highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive.
  Everybody's out on the run tonight but there's no place left to hide.
  Together, Wendy, we can live with the sadness.
  I'll love you with all the madness in my soul.
  Someday, girl, I don't know when,
  We're gonna get to that place where we really want to go,
  And we'll walk in the sun,
  But till then tramps like us, baby we were born to run.
  • "Born To Run"

• The street's alive as secret debts are paid,
  Contacts made, they vanished unseen.
  Kids flash guitars just like switch-blades
  Hustling for the record machine.
  The hungry and the hunted explode into rock'n'roll bands
  That face off against each other out in the street, down in Jungleland.
  • "Jungleland"

• The street's on fire in a real death waltz
  Between what's flesh and what's fantasy
  Man, the poets down here don't write nothin' at all,
  They just stand back and let it all be
  • "Jungleland"

Darkness On The Edge Of Town (1978)

• Poor man wanna be rich,
  rich man wanna be king
  And a king ain't satisfied
  till he rules everything.
  • "Badlands"

• Now some guys they just give up living
  and start dying little by little piece by piece.
  Some guys come home from work and wash up
  And go racing in the streets.
  Tonight, tonight the strip's just right,
  I wanna blow 'em all out of their seats.
  We're callin' out around the world, we're going racin' in the street.
  • "Racing In The Street"

• Gonna be a twister to blow everything down
  That ain't got the faith to stand its ground
  Blow away the dreams that tear you apart
  Blow away the dreams that break your heart
  Blow away the lies that leave you nothing but lost and brokenhearted.
  • "The Promised Land"

• Well everybody's got a secret, son, something that they just can't face.
  Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it, they carry it with them every step that they take
  Till some day they just cut it loose, cut it loose or let it drag 'em down
  Where no one asks any questions or looks too long in your face
  In the darkness on the edge of town.
  • "Darkness On The Edge Of Town"

The River (1980)

• I got a wife and kids in Baltimore, jack
  I went out for a ride and I never went back.
  Like a river that don't know where it's flowing
  I took a wrong turn and I just kept going.
  • "Hungry Heart"

• I met her in a Kingstown bar.
  We fell in love, I knew it had to end.
  We took what we had and we ripped it apart.
  Now here I am down in Kingstown again.
  • "Hungry Heart"

• Then I got Mary pregnant and man that was all she wrote.
  And for my nineteenth birthday I got a union card and a wedding coat.
  We went down to the courthouse and the judge put it all to rest.
  No wedding day smiles, no walk down the aisle,
  No flowers, no wedding dress.
  That night we went down to the river and into the river we'd dive,
  Oh down to the river we did ride.
  • "The River"

Born In The U.S.A. (1984)

• Born down in a dead man's town;
  The first kick I took was when I hit the ground.
  You end up like a dog that's been beat too much
  'Til you spend half your life just covering up.
  • "Born in the USA"

• Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby, edgy and dull,
  And cut a six-inch valley through the middle of my skull.
  At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet
  and a freight train running through the middle of my head.
  Only you can cool my desire.
  Oh, I'm on fire.
  • "I'm On Fire"

• We learned more from a three minute record than we ever learned in school.
  • "No Surrender"

• You hung with me when all the others turned away, turned up their noses
  We liked the same music, we liked the same bands, we liked the same clothes
  Yeah we told each other that we were the wildest, the wildest things we'd ever seen
  Now I wish you would have told me, I wish I could have talked to you
  Just to say goodbye, Bobby Jean.
  • "Bobby Jean"

• Just sitting back trying to recapture a little of the glory of...
  Well, the time slips away and leaves you with nothing, mister, but boring stories of
  Glory days - yeah, they'll pass you by,
  Glory days - in the wink of a young girl's eye.
  • "Glory Days"

• Last night me and Kate we laid in bed talking about getting out,
  Packing up our bags, maybe heading south.
  I'm thirty-five, we got a boy of our own now.
  Last night I sat him up behind the wheel and said, "Son, take a good look around,
  This is your hometown."
  • "My Hometown"

Tunnel Of Love (1987)

• Ought to be easy, ought to be simple enough:
  Man meets woman, and they fall in love,
  But the house is haunted and the ride gets rough.
  You got to learn to live with what you can't rise above.
  • "Tunnel of Love"

• God have mercy on the man who doubts what he's sure of.
  • "Brilliant Disguise"

Human Touch (1992)

• Baby, in a world without pity
  Do you think what I'm askin's too much
  I just want to feel you in my arms
  Share a little of that Human Touch.
  • "Human Touch"

• So I bought a .44 magnum it was solid steel cast
  And in the blessed name of Elvis well I just let it blast
  'Til my TV lay in pieces there at my feet
  And they busted me for disturbin' the almighty peace.
  Judge said "What you got in your defense son?"
  "Fifty-seven channels and nothin' on"
  I can see by your eyes friend you're just about gone
  Fifty-seven channels and nothin' on.
  • "57 Channels (And Nothin' On)"

• If the angels are unkind or the season is dark
  Or if in the end
  Love just falls apart
  Well then here's to our destruction
  Baby let me be your soul driver.
  • "Soul Driver"

Lucky Town (1992)

• When it comes to luck you make your own.
  • "Lucky Town"

• But it's a sad man my friend who's livin' in his own skin
  And can't stand the company.
  Every fool's got a reason to feelin' sorry for himself
  And turn his heart to stone.
  Tonight this fool's halfway to heaven and just a mile outta hell
  And I feel like I'm comin' home.
  • "Better Days"

The Ghost Of Tom Joad (1995)

• The highway is alive tonight
  But nobody's kiddin' nobody about where it goes
  I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light
  With the ghost of old Tom Joad.
  • "The Ghost of Tom Joad"

The Rising (2002)

• Hell's brewin' dark sun's on the rise
  This storm'll blow through by and by
  House is on fire, Viper's in the grass
  A little revenge and this too shall pass.
  • "Lonesome Day"

• So let's take the good times as they go and I'll meet you further on up the road...
  • "Further On (Up the Road)"

Devils & Dust (2005)

• We're a long, long way from home, Bobbie;
  Home's a long, long way from us.
  I feel a dirty wind blowing;
  Devils and dust.
  • "Devils & Dust""

• Fear's a powerful thing
  It'll turn your heart black you can trust
  It'll take your God filled soul
  Fill it with devils and dust.
  • "Devils & Dust"

Magic (2007)

• This is Radio Nowhere
  Is there anybody alive out there?
  • "Radio Nowhere"

• She went away, she cut me like a knife
  Hello beautiful thing, maybe you could save my life
  In just a glance, down here on magic street
  Loves a fool's dance
  And I ain't got much sense, but I still got my feet.
  • "Girls in Their Summer Clothes"

• The wise men were all fools, what to do?
  • "Last To Die"

• Here everybody has a neighbor
  Everybody has a friend
  Everybody has a reason to begin again.
  • "Long Walk Home"

• That you know flag flying over the courthouse
  Means certain things are set in stone
  Who we are, what we'll do and what we won't.
  • "Long Walk Home"

• When they built you brother
  they broke the mold.
  • "Terry's Song"

Working On A Dream (2009)

• Out of the east on an Irish Stallion came bounty hunter Dan
  His heart quickened and burdened by the need to get his man
  He found Pete peacefully fishing by the river pulled his gun and got the drop
  He said, "Pete, you think you've changed, but you have not"
  • "Outlaw Pete"

• Have you ever seen a one trick pony in the field so happy and free?
  If you've ever seen a one trick pony then you've seen me
  Have you ever seen a one-legged dog making his way down the street?
  If you've ever seena one-legged dog then you've seen me.
  • "The Wrestler"

Bruce Springsteen Talking

Quotes from Bruce Springsteen Talking (2004) edited by John W. Duffy

• At this point, I don’t need my records to be Number One or sell as many as this person or that person. That’s not fundamentally important — I don’t believe that sustains you.

• In the third grade a nun stuffed me in a garbage can under her desk because she said that’s where I belonged.

• There ain't a note that I play on stage that can’t be traced back directly to my mother and father.

• The first day I can remember looking into a mirror and being able to stand what I saw was the day I had a guitar in my hand.

• You ride in a limousine the first time, it’s a big thrill but after that it’s just a stupid car.

Quotes of others about Springsteen

• Last Thursday, at the Harvard Square theatre, I saw my rock'n'roll past flash before my eyes. And I saw something else: I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen. And on a night when I needed to feel young, he made me feel like I was hearing music for the very first time.
  • Jon Landau, The Real Paper (1974)

• The first time I saw Bruce he was opening up for Jethro Tull, before he had a record deal. I went to see Bruce because I was singing in that area with different bands and I wanted to get in a good rock band and he had the best rock band.
  • Patti Scialfa

• In all my years in this business he is the only person I've met who cares absolutely nothing about money.
  • John A. Hammond

• When Bruce Springsteen sings on his new album, that's not 'fun', that's fucking triumph, man.
  • Pete Townshend

• At every date he goes out and sits in every section of the hall to listen to the sound. And if it isn't right, even in the last row, I hear about it and we make changes. I mean every date too.
  • Bruce Jackson, sound engineer

• I will always desire to play with Bruce Springsteen. He's the most inspirational, most dedicated, most committed and most focused artist I've ever seen. I like to be around people like that.
  • Max Weinberg

• I think he's a great guitarist, a great musician and an excellent keyboard player — which most people don't know. But he knows what sets him apart from everybody is that he's a brilliant writer. Part of that is having a vision to put it across onstage as a performer, too.
  • Nils Lofgren

• He's so good, you really want to hit him now and again. He'd come to rehearsal and he'd write five songs in a day, and he'd do that all the time, whenever he felt like it.
  • Steven van Zandt

• Bruce was writing five or ten songs a week. He would say, "I'm gonna go home tonight and write a great song," and he did. He was the Boss then, and he's the Boss now.
  • Steven van Zandt

• I'd heard The Bruce Springsteen Band was nearby at a club called The Student Prince. A rainy, windy night it was, and when I opened the door the whole thing flew off its hinges and blew away down the street. The band were on-stage, but staring at me framed in the doorway. And maybe that did make Bruce a little nervous because I just said, "I want to play with your band," and he said, "Sure, you do anything you want."
  • Clarence Clemons

• There'll be no oiling up with this band. The oil has been there for years and it only gets better.
  • Clarence Clemons

• He's older and wiser but he never strays from his basic values. He cares as much, more, about the losers than the winners. He's so unlike everything you think a real successful rock star would be.
  • Roy Bittan

• The label of liberalism is hardly a sentence to public igominy: otherwise Bruce Springsteen would still be rehabilitating used Cadillacs in Asbury Park and Jane Fonda, for all we know, would be just another overweight housewife.
  • Barbara Ehrenreich - Mother Jones (1986)

• I couldn't believe how happy his music made me and how good it was. He's a gift, and I didn't know. I mean, I knew 'Born in the USA' and 'Glory Days,' but I didn't know that he covered so much ground, and there was something in his music that touched what I was going through, the process of falling back in love with my America.
  • The Killers frontman Brandon Flowers http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1529924/05012006/killers_the.jhtml

• The reason I’m running for president is because I can’t be Bruce Springsteen.
  • President Barack Obama http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/arts/music/01pare.html