Janis Joplin Quotes - Page 2

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.

Being an intellectual creates a lot of questions and no answers. You can fill your life up with ideas and still go home lonely. All you really have that really matters are feelings. That's what music is to me.” – Janis Joplin

You can feel all things at once, so why not wear all things at once?

I'd rather have ten years of superhypermost than live to be seventy sitting in some goddamn chair watching TV.

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

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.

I had a lot of hurts and confusions. You know, it's hard when you're a kid to be different. You're all full of things, and you don't know that it's about.

Like most girls I'm always really self-conscious about do I look fat, if my legs are short, if I'm weird shaped, but when I go on stage, man, it never occurs to me. I think I look beautiful.

Don't you know that you're nothing more than a one night stand?

I'm just doing what I wanted to and what feels right and not settling for bullshit and it worked. How can they be mad at that?

Distance cannot kill this relationship. Time cannot breakdown anything we have. This is a relationship that I am ready to sacrifice and stand up for.

My business is to enjoy and have fun. And why not, if in the end everything will end, right?

You better not compromise yourself, it's all you've got.

You are what you settle for. You are only as much as you settle for.

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

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.

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

In my insides, it really hurts if someone doesn't like me. It's silly.

I'd rather not sing than sing quiet.

If you can get them once, man, get them standing up when they should be sitting down, sweaty when they should be decorous, smile when they should be applauding politely-and I think you sort of switch on their brain, man, so that makes them say: 'Wait a minute, maybe I can do anything.' Whoooooo! It's life. That's what rock and roll is for, turn that switch on, and man, it can all be.

I'm not really thinking much... Just sort of, trying to feel.

If someone comes along, gonna give you some love and affection, I say get it while you can.

I'm tired of all these hippie jack-offs

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

What we've had to do is learn to control success, put it in perspective, and not lose the essence of what we're doing - the music.