Quotes By Janis Joplin

People expect Janis Joplin to be a tough bitch, and say I start talking to them like a lonely little girl-that's not in their image of me-they don't see it. Say you meet somebody you've heard about, you don't ever see them, you don't see who they are and who they need to be recognized as, you see who you need them to be.

Music's for grooving man, and music's not for puttin' yourself through bad changes, y'know? I mean, you don't have to go take anybody's shit, man, just to like music, y'know what I mean? You don't. So... so if you're getting' more shit than you deserve, you know what to do about it man. Y'know, it's just music. Music's... music's s'posed to be different than that.

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 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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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've been looking around, and I noticed something: how much you really need to be loved. Ambition isn't just a desperate quest for positions or money. It's just love - lots of love.

Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin. Now, they are so subtle, they can milk you with two notes. They can make you feel like they told you the whole universe. But I don't know that yet. All I got now is strength. Maybe if I keep singing, maybe I'll get it.

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.

As it gets closer and more probable, being a star is really losing its meaning.

One good man, Oh ain't much, honey ain't much, It's only everything...

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

It used to make me unhappy, all that feeling. I just didn't know what to do with it. But now I've learned how to make feeling work for me... I don't know, I just want to feel as much as I can, it's what 'soul' is all 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.

Hippies believe the world could be a better place. Beatniks believe things aren't going to get better and say the hell with it, stay stoned and have a good time.