Sam Shepard on Bob Dylan and myth

"Myth is a powerful medium because it talks to the emotions and not the head. It moves us into an area of mystery. Some myths are poisonous to believe in, but others have the capacity for changing something inside us, even if it's just for a minute or two. Dylan creates a mythic atmosphere out of the land around us. The land we walk on every day and never see it until someone shows it to us."

Sam Shepard, Rolling Thunder Logbook, Penguin, 1978.