Top 169 Quotes & Sayings by Joan Jett - Page 3

There's nothing wrong with being single and not getting married and being, you know, just an old single lady. Who cares?

I hope one day people don't look at women like they're out of their minds when they want to pick up an instrument and play. And I think we're getting a lot closer to that.

Vegan With A Vengeance is on my kitchen shelf. This fun and creative book is delicious for people like me, who don’t eat pets.

That's the sad thing about it, is that you don't know. And you certainly don't know when you quickly meet somebody. But even as you know somebody longer, it's really hard to know. Obviously you go on your gut feeling but that can be wrong too. ANd it's terrible to have to be wary about people, because it is not my nature, but I've been burned a few times and you just have to careful.

As a kid, in the Runaways, I would see the interviewers start to ask about our personal lives and what we did — and I could see the look in their eyes. They were practically frothing at the mouth. So if I answered these questions, I knew they were never gonna talk about the music. It was like that instinct — don’t go there, man. Have boundaries. Have mystery. You don’t have to let everybody in! I want to be singing to everybody, and I want everybody to think that I’m singing to them. Guys, girls and everyone in between.

I learned how to scream from Marc Bolan.

Get a book, so you know where to put your fingers. Otherwise it would be tough to learn. Also you have to fight through getting callouses on your fingers because it hurts, you are pressing your fingers on metal strings, they will hurt at first until you start building up callouses.

You can never say never. I'm not sure if I even want to. I just don't know. Some of it is just not able to be reached, you can't remember some of it and the people that could help you remember have passed away. It might have to remain a remain.

Obviously, the music and lyrics are in me, but if I let myself get in my own way, I do. I empty out and let it come, and then the music spirits take over.

The better your base is, and the more you know from experience, the better off you'll be when you try and make the big move.

It's very tough to give advice because it's tough out there for everybody but for a girl it's even tougher, because I don't think the glass ceiling has changed at all in the past 30 years. Otherwise the radio would be covered with girl bands, or girls in bands, so I don't think much has changed on that level. But I think that bands can still have a lot of success trying to go another route.

I tend to keep my private life private. I think it's important to have mystique. It's important to keep people thinking and guessing, and you want everyone to think you're singing to them.

Can't break free from the things that you do. I wanna walk, but I run back to you, that's why I hate myself for loving you.

To reach the highest level you have to not just have a dream and focus but you also have to make sure you are writing great songs, and if you feel they're what you want to represent you, that is key. But getting out on the road is key. And get your music out there. Maybe something catches, maybe it gets picked up and used on television, you just never know.

Egotistical people are not pretty. We all know that, I'm sure everybody knows an egotistical person someplace.

I think what I'm going to do is get more balance in my life to still be able to go out and play the hard rock 'n' roll and do what I like to do in music

Being onstage is everything thats good about life.

I wanted to be an actor, an astrologer, an astronaut; a lot of different things were going through my mind. But I also wanted to play guitar. I mentioned to my parents that I wanted an electric guitar for Christmas. They got me one! I sat there all Christmas morning making a lot of loud horrible noise.

Well before I was in a band, I wanted to be everything from a vet, an astronaut, an archeologist was a big one. It could be very wide-ranging because I had a lot of different interests including music so I'm very happy where I wound up.

I consider that success for anything, whether it's being a musician or a writer. As long as you can support yourself, you're successful. People need to change their idea of what success is.

Well you know I've been in that place too where you worry about what everybody thinks of you, am I popular, do people care, are they looking at me, all that stuff. That's a drag, man. Having to worry about fitting in, am I cool enough to ANYTHING.

I think the media has got into this Enquirer mentality. Years ago, legitimate press didn't really concern itself with sordid details of people's personal lives. That wasn't the focus. But also a lot of celebrities were bullied into revealing this breakup or tragedy or divorce or problem. They started to talk about it and the press just started to talk about people's private lives. That just seems to be the norm.

The Runaways' audience was 90 percent male. That was kind of depressing...Why don't women-our own gender-come out and support us?

The thing that sometimes gets lost is people look at the harder edge of me ... the leather jacket and the tough rock 'n' roll attitude... and get the wrong impression that I'm mean. That's really something I don't want people to think because I don't think that's the case.

The internet did not exist when I started out, the fact that bands can build a website and get all their information out there is really helpful. If you really love to play, I would say to keep doing it, because it's what you love and what you have to do.

I think what people see in me is one slice of who I am. It does permeate my life in the sense that I don't like to be told what to do, or how to be, or how I can do it. But I'm probably a lot tamer than people would expect.

I don't pay attention. I don't read stuff or message boards because you definitely get affected. You can read a hundred great comments, amazing comments, and have one bad one and that is all you can focus on and it wrecks your day. It says something about negativity and how it draws us somehow.

When I met you you were oh so sweet, now you give me the bread and you take all the meat.

I went from a naive, regular girl in high school to trying to realize my dream. When my family moved from the East Coast to California, I thought in my little brain, "Wow, I'm going to Hollywood. I could actually make this happen." It was easier for me to think it's possible living in a place like Los Angeles than trying to do it in suburban Maryland.

To be so superfocused and honed in on one thing can be good because then you get what you're supposed to get done, done but you also miss out on other things. I could have spent more time with my family, and a million other little things.

A lot of people would say "well that's not a bad reputation. you sound like a pussy" and I would say yea. but I am passionate about music and being taken seriously about my music, so if you're going to mess with that, we have a problem.

It's hard to have a dialogue when you're name-calling.

Record stores are the backbone of the recorded music culture. It's where we go to network, browse around, and find new songs to love. The stores whose staff live for music have spread the word about exciting new things faster and with more essence than either radio or the press. Any artist that doesn't support the wonderful ma and pa record stores across America is contributing to our own extinction.

I've been able to do a lot of things a lot of people haven't, that other people would dream of. I've been able to live out my fantasies, and dreams! So, I'm real lucky.

Fetish is a straight-up sex song.

One of the mistakes I made was believing that the rock 'n' roll genre as a genre was much more free than the whole pop or R&B scene.

When you write songs you're commenting on love, you're commenting on sex, relationships, whatever it is that you decide to write about it. And I've wanted to write about politics or spiritual ideas for years.

I think the one-on-one gigs connecting with the fans - is the most important thing. That will help build your fan base. They'll talk about you, and word spreads. Those things are just as important as knowing how to play an E chord.

When you're singing songs about love and sex, you want everyone to think you're singing to them. Whether you're a boy, a girl, a woman, a man - whatever you're into, I can be that.

I know that sounds cliché, but mostly from my own experiences and things I see around me. We're all human beings, and a lot of the things I write about are pretty universal things.

If it's just a pastime, keep doing it because it's relaxing and to blow off some steam. But if you're not sure if you want to do it, or you're thinking you can be famous, you shouldn't do it because you want to be famous. You have to do it because you love it and you want to play for people. And if that's what you want to do, then do it, but you can't go into it with that mindset of "we'll be in a band and we'll be famous."

It's just hard to look at yourself and guess how you're going to be perceived by other people sometimes. I do my best to let people know that I'm approachable, but I'm a human being just like anybody else. Sometimes people forget that. They forget that you're a person and they treat you like this celebrity thing. But I have to be patient with that, and I try to be.

A lot of the touring stuff has become a drag. Traveling itself is a drag. Anyone who's been to an airport knows that.

I love sports. I love animals. I love kids. I want to save the world. So how do I combine all those things? I don't know

The most important thing is being genuine, and real, and not getting caught up in the "Star-Ness" of it. You don't want to act like a star around other people. You have to watch it, and you want to stay grounded, it's very important, and that's probably what I have learned most because you definitely have opportunities to let your ego run wild and you have to keep your ego in check.

I fiercely protect my privacy. I just don't think it's everyone's business to know every little detail about my life. That's just the way I've handled myself.

Radio has changed, there was a little bit of difference around the country and now that is gone and everything is uniform. That is not the only place it's happening in music, there's a lot of consolidation.

I think it's what the times are demanding. If you're talking about the popular artists, they collaborate with a lot of different people and it seems to be in vogue now. It probably is indicative of the times.

If you are having trouble making a chord, get a book, that is how I learned. There are guitar tuning apps so you can tune your guitar, and just learn how to play along with your records. And it's great to be able to play along with another musician. That is like trial by fire.