Up the airy mountain, Down the rushy glen, We daren't go a-hunting, For fear of little men; Wee folk, good folk, Trooping all together; Green jacket, red cap, And white owl's feather!

-Allingham,William
  'The Fairies'.

All music is folk music. I ain't never heard no horse sing a song.

-Armstrong, Louis known as Satchmo
Quoted in the NewYork Times,7  Jul1971.

When chapman billies leave the street, And drouthy neebors, neebors meet, As market-days are wearing late, An'folk begin to tak the gate.

-Burns, Robert
  'Tam o' Shanter.  A  Tale'.

And smale foweles maken melodye, That slepen al the nyght with open ye (So priketh hem nature in hir corages); Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages.

-Chaucer, Geoffrey
  Canterbury  Tales,'General Prologue', l.9^12.

Folk music is a bunch of fat people.

-Dylan, Bob pseudonym of  Robert Allen Zimmerman
Quoted in David Pickering Brewer's Twentieth Century Music (1994).

   For thof ye had as wise a snout on As Shakespeare or Sir Isaac Newton, Your judgement fouk wou'd hae a doubt on, I'll tak myaith, Till they cou'd see ye wi'a suit on O'gude Braid Claith.

-Fergusson, Robert
  'Braid Claith', stanza 9.

To put it vulgarly, the whole trouble with a folk song is that once you have played it through there is nothing much you can do except play it over again and play it rather louder.

-Lambert, Constant
  Music Ho!

Will yer stop yer tickling, Jock! Oh, stop yer tickling, Jock! Dinna mak'me laugh so hearty, or you'll mak'me choke. Oh! I wish you'd stop yer nonsenseöjust look at all the folk. Will yer stop yer ticklingötickle-ickle-ickle-ingö Stop yer tickling, Jock!

-Lauder, Sir Harry (Hugh MacLennan)
  'StopYer Tickling,  Jock!', chorus.

Readers of novels are strange folk, upon whose probable or even possible tastes no wise book-maker would ever venture.

-Lucas, E(dward) V(errell)
  Reading, Writing and Remembering, ch.1.

We are a breed apart from the rest of humanity, we theatre folk.We are the original displaced personalities, concentrated gatherings of neurotics, egomaniacs, emotional misfits and precocious children.

-Mankiewicz, Herman
  George Sanders as  Addison De Witt in  All  About Eve.

In the springtime of America's cultural life, its itinerant folk artiststook totheroad to record the life and times of a people.Perhaps never again will we have an artistic record created in such direct and unassuming terms.

-Rockefeller,Winthrop
  On an exhibition of American folk art at the US Embassy, London. In news summaries, 31 Jan.

It is little I repair to the matches of the Southron folk, Though my own red roses there may blow; It is little I repair to the matches of the Southron folk, Though the red roses crest the caps, I know. For the field is full of shades as I near theshadowy coast, And a ghostly batsman plays to the bowling of a ghost, And I look through my tears on a soundless-clapping host As the run-stealers flicker to and fro, To and fro:ö O my Hornby and my Barlow long ago!

-Thompson, Francis
  'At Lord's', poem dedicated to friends to explain why he could not attend a match at Lord's at their invitation for fear of the sadness it would cause him, remembering the long-dead friends who had played there (for Lancashire) back in1878.

   Hobbits are an unobtrusive but veryancient people, more numerous formerly than theyare today; for they love peace and quiet and good tilled earth: a well- ordered and well-farmed countryside was their favourite haunt† Even in ancient days they were, as a rule, shy of 'the Big Folk', as they call us, and now they avoid us with dismay and are becoming hard to find.

-Tolkien,J(ohn) R(onald) R(euel)
  The Fellowship of the Ring, prologue.