Janis Joplin Quotes (38 Quotes)

It's gonna be a long hard drag, but we'll make it.

I always wanted to be an artist, whatever that was, like other chicks want to be stewardesses. I read. I painted. I thought.

My father wouldn't get us a TV, he wouldn't allow a TV in the house.

nonsense environment.

Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to loose. And nothin' aint' nothin' honey, if it aint' free.

...to be true to myself, to be the person that was on the inside of me, and not play games. That's what I'm trying to do mostly in the whole world, is to not bullshit myself and not bullshit anybody else.

It's hard to be free but when it works, it' s worth it

I had a moment with her at Elaine's (the celebrity hangout in Manhattan),

Audiences like their blues singers to be miserable.

You know why we're stuck with the myth that only black people have soul? Because white people don't let themselves feel things.

I hope you're going to edit this stuff. I don't want to sound like a senile, self-pitying chick babbling on and on about her days of glory.

I'd trade all my tommorows for a single yesterday.

Oh, Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.

Don't ever compromise yourself. You're all you've got.

All my life I just wanted to be a beatnik. Meet all the heavies, get stoned, get laid, have a good time. That's all I ever wanted. Except I knew I had a good voice and I could always get a couple of beers off of it. All of a sudden someone threw me in this rock 'n' roll band. They threw these musicians at me, man, and the sound was coming from behind. The bass was charging me. And I decided then and there that that was it. I never wanted to do anything else. It was better than it had been with any man, you know. Maybe that's the trouble.

Why should I hold back now and sound mediocre just so I can sound mediocre twenty years from now

Women to be in-a the music business give up more than you'd ever know. She's got kids she gave up. Any woman gives up home life, an old man, probably, because you're so crazy on planes and runnin' and you never find 'em egain. You give up, you give up a home and friends, you give up children and friends, you give up an old man and friends, you give up any constant in the world except music. That's the only thing you've got man, after you boil it down, the only thing you got left in the world is that music, man. And, so for a woman to sing, she really needs to, or wants to. A man can do it as a gig, 'cause he knows he can get laid tonight.

Fourteen heart attacks and he had to die in my week. In MY week.

Being an intellectual creates a lot of questions and no answers.

You can destroy your now by worrying about tomorrow.

On stage, I make love to 25,000 different people, then I go home alone.

I'm one of those regular weird people.

Texas is OK if you want to settle down and do your own thing quietly, but it's not for outrageous people, and I was always outrageous.

Guess what, I might be the first hippie pinup girl.

Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got.

I got treated very badly in Texas. They don't treat beatniks too good in Texas. Port Arthur people thought I was a beatnik, though they'd never seen one and neither had I.

I gotta go on doin' it the way I see it...I got no choice but to take it like I see it. I'm here to have a party while I'm on this earth...I'm gettin' it now, today. I don't even know where I'm gonna be twenty years from now, so I'm just gonna keep on rockin', cause if I start saving up bits and pieces of me...man, there ain't gonna be nothing left for Janis.

You got to get it while you can.

When I sing, I feel like when you're first in love. It's more than sex. It's that point two people can get to they call love, when you really touch someone for the first time, but it's gigantic, multiplied by the whole audience. I feel chills.

Which showed that my interest in rock was not based in a vast knowledge of their work. It was about them.

On stage I make love to twenty five thousand people; and then I go home alone.

Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz.

I won't quit to become someone's old lady.

As a matter of fact, as we discovered on the train, tomorrow never happens, man. It's all the same fing day, man.

I feel, you know, I hurt, please help.' I'm saying words, man, and if I look at an audience and they ain't understanding me, it's just like getting kicked in the teeth.

Don't compromise yourself. It's all you've got.

If I hold back, I'm no good. I'm no good. I'd rather be good sometimes, than holding back all the time.

Rock on out.