Janis Joplin Quotes - Page 3

This whole thing that's happened to me, you see, this whole success thing..it hasn't yet really compromised the position that I took a long time ago in Texas, that was to be true to myself, to be the person that I...that was on inside of me and not play games.

People, whether they know it or not, like their blues singers miserable. They like their blues singers to die afterwards.

I can't talk about my singing; I'm inside it. How can you describe something you're inside of?

I don't know what happened. I just exploded. I'd never sung like that before. I used to stand still and sing simple, but you can't sing like that in front of a rock band. You have to sing loud and move wild with all that in back of you. Now, I don't know how to perform any other way.

I love being a star more than life itself.

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

You got to get it while you can.

I read a story about some old opera singer once, and when a guy asked her to marry him, she took him backstage after she had sung a real triumph, with all the people calling for her, asked, 'Do you think you could give me that?' That story hit me right, man. I know no guy ever made me feel as good as an audience. I'm really far into this now, really committed. Like, I don't think I'd go off the road for long now, for life with a guy no matter how good. Yeah, it's the truth. Scary thing to say though, isn't it?

All any girl really wants is just love and a man. But what man can put up with a rock-n-roll star?

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

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

Don't go looking for Mr. Right. Look for Mr. Right Now.

They asked me, How did you learn to sing the blues like that? How did you learn to sing that heavy? I just opened my mouth and that's what I sounded like. You can't make up something that you don't feel. I didn't make it up. I just opened my mouth and it existed.

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

At least we know we tend to be afraid. If you object to my plural noun, I'll retract it.

Honey, if you've had your eye on a piece of talent and that chick down the road has been getting all the action, then you know what you gotta do... Try A Little Bit Harder.

Maybe my audiences can enjoy my music more if they think I'm destroying myself.

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

You can't stay in your home town and play because the two people will get tired of seeing you.

Gimme a pigfoot and a bottle of beer.

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.

After they see me, when their mothers are feeding them all that cashmere sweater and girdle ----- [expletive deleted by the New York Times], maybe they'll have a second thought - that they can be themselves and win.

I started singing rhythmically, and now I'm learning from Otis Redding to push a song instead of just sliding over it

At my concerts most of the chicks are looking for liberation, they think I'm gonna show 'em how to do it.

When everything is together - the band, me, the audience, it's boss! It's just like magic.