Top 94 Quotes & Sayings by Janis Joplin

All of a sudden, someone threw me in front of this rock and roll band. And I decided then and there that was it. I never wanted to do anything else.

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

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

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

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

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 have to have the 'umph.' I've got to feel it, because if it's not getting through to me, the audience sure as hell aren't going to feel it either.

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

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.

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

Audiences like their blues singers to be miserable.

Rock on out.

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.

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.

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.

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'm one of those regular weird people.

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.

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

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

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

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

Playing is just about feeling. Playing isn't necessarily about misery. Playing isn't necessarily about happiness. But it's just about letting yourself feel all those things that you have already on the inside of you, but you're all the time trying to push them aside because they don't make for polite conversation or something.

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'm a victim of my own insides. There was a time when I wanted to know everything. It used to make me very unhappy, all that feeling. I just didn't know what to do with it. But now I've learned to make that feeling work for me.

Who you are is what you settle for, you know?

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

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.

I think I think too much. That's why I drink!

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.

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

I just want to feel as much as I can, it's what soul is all about.

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?

You are what you settle for.

As good as you've been to this world is as good as it's gonna be right back to you.

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

Wait a minute, maybe I can do anything.

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.

Life is too damn short and [screwed] up to go through it silently loving someone and never telling them how you feel. [Screw] the consequences, [screw] the implications of the actions, to hell with it all... whatever happens as a result is better than the nothingness that is inevitable with silence.

Freedom is just another word for when you have NOTHING left to lose.

If you've got a today, don't wear it tomorrow. Tomorrow never happens. It's all the same day.

You can destroy your now by worrying about tomorrow.

The older the grapes, sweeter the wine.

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.

When you hold somebody, you gotta hold them like it's the last minute of your life.

It's not what isn't, it's what you wish was that makes unhappiness.

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.

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

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

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 not bullshit myself and not bullshit anybody else.

Don't compromise your self, you're all you got.

You know you've got it, if it makes you feel good.

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

Singing, it's like it's like loving somebody, it's a supreme emotional and physical experience.

I would trade all my tomorrow's for one single yesterday.

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.

The more you live, the less you die.

You're only as much as you settle for. If they settle for being somebody's dishwasher that's their own f***ing problem. If you don't settle for that and you keep fighting it, you know, you'll end up anything you want to be.

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