There's a lot of surplus rage from the '60s that was never really worked through publicly. I think a lot of that rage still exists, and I think you see that when John McCain runs a commercial that beats up on Hillary Clinton's earmark for a Woodstock museum.

Rick Perlstein

I always say that even though my dad was alive during Woodstock, he was just not invited. He just seemed like he was from a different generation.

Adam F. Goldberg

We can't recreate Woodstock, nor do we want to. We want to turn its notoriety into a place where we can shape controlled, scaled-down musical events of all sorts.

Alan Gerry

Woodstock is the only thing we have going for us in this part of the state in terms of national recognition. The idea is to extract what was good about Woodstock, repackage it, and present it to Middle America.

Alan Gerry

Woodstock didn't define a generation because everyone showed up or those who did were a perfectly representative sample. It defined a generation because, for a few days, it bottled its peculiar zeitgeist.

Alexandra Petri

Over the years Woodstock got glorified and romanticised and became the event that symbolised Utopia. It's the last page of our collective memory of the age of innocence. Then things turned ugly and would never be the same again.

Ang Lee

I like to head upstate to the Catskills, to Woodstock.

Anna Ewers

The 'rock world' is a lot smaller than it used to be. It's doing a lot less things than it used to be. From Woodstock back in the day and Rage Against the Machine, no one sells millions of records anymore.

Austin Carlile

Chicago '68 was a relatively small demonstration for its time, but I've talked to millions of people who claim they were there because it felt like we were all there. Everyone from our generation was there and was at Woodstock.

Bill Ayers

In the Woodstock movie, you see Justin, my son, who is now a filmmaker, being carried off by my wife at the time to the helicopter. He's just this little bundle of joy in her arms. And it's 1969.

Bill Kreutzmann

Chaplin was my idol. I remember watching those movies at this little theater in Woodstock, N.Y., when I was probably 6 and laughing so hard at the surprises, like Keaton suddenly being dragged by a streetcar.

Chevy Chase

Of all the '60s - there was Elvis, there was the Beatles, there was the British invasion, Jimmy Hendrix, and Woodstock - the No. 1 record was 'The Twist.'

Chubby Checker

I've always felt like if I was going to be born any other time that it would be during the '60s or definitely during Woodstock.

Dan Fogler

Describing Woodstock as the 'big bang,' I think that's a great way to describe it, because the important thing about it wasn't how many people were there or that it was a lot of truly wonderful music that got played.

David Crosby

My mom had me at 16 and took me every place she went. I remember going on peace marches. She tried to take me to Woodstock - it was pouring rain. It was on my birthday, and I was crying so much in the car they turned the car around and dumped me at my grandmother's house... I had a little attitude.

Debi Mazar

When my mother was raising me, she moved us upstate to the Woodstock area. Our closest neighbor was a mile away. She planted all her own vegetables.

Debi Mazar

I know about Woodstock probably as much as your average person who is over 30, where I'd know Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Grateful Dead.

Demetri Martin

But when I played Woodstock, I'll never forget that moment looking out over the hundreds of thousands of people, the sea of humanity, seeing all those people united in such a unique way. It just touched me in a way that I'll never forget.

Edgar Winter

I played Woodstock in '69, and it really changed my life. Without a doubt, it was the single event that really changed the way I felt about music. Up to that point, I hadn't really thought of myself as more serious musician, and I didn't really have that much interest in pop music.

Edgar Winter

'Occupy' is nothing but a pack of louts, thieves, and rapists, an unruly mob, fed by Woodstock-era nostalgia and putrid false righteousness. These clowns can do nothing but harm America.

Frank Miller

People say Altamont was the 'end of the '60s.' It was unfortunate, but at the time we didn't think of it as signaling anything. The fact that nobody got killed at Woodstock is amazing because that was half a million people. We only had 300,000 at Altamont.

Grace Slick