Janis Joplin Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 77 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Janis Joplin.
Famous Quotes By Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 2072209 Janis Joplin Quotes 2072209](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-2072209.jpg)
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. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 424967 Janis Joplin Quotes 424967](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-424967.jpg)
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. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 2253386 Janis Joplin Quotes 2253386](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-2253386.jpg)
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. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 822929 Janis Joplin Quotes 822929](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-822929.jpg)
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. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1896331 Janis Joplin Quotes 1896331](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1896331.jpg)
Why should I hold back now and sound mediocre, just so I can sound mediocre twenty years from now? — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 384614 Janis Joplin Quotes 384614](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-384614.jpg)
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. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 567620 Janis Joplin Quotes 567620](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-567620.jpg)
People, whether they know it or not, like their blues singers miserable. They like their blues singers to die afterwards. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1243382 Janis Joplin Quotes 1243382](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1243382.jpg)
At my concerts most of the chicks are looking for liberation, they think I'm gonna show 'em how to do it. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 868647 Janis Joplin Quotes 868647](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-868647.jpg)
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? — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1428120 Janis Joplin Quotes 1428120](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1428120.jpg)
If someone comes along, gonna give you some love and affection, I say get it while you can. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1050392 Janis Joplin Quotes 1050392](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1050392.jpg)
When everything is together - the band, me, the audience, it's boss! It's just like magic. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 378205 Janis Joplin Quotes 378205](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-378205.jpg)
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. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 827162 Janis Joplin Quotes 827162](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-827162.jpg)
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. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 383196 Janis Joplin Quotes 383196](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-383196.jpg)
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? — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 2057170 Janis Joplin Quotes 2057170](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-2057170.jpg)
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. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1453106 Janis Joplin Quotes 1453106](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1453106.jpg)
Tomorrow never happens. It's all the same fucking day, man. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 2252139 Janis Joplin Quotes 2252139](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-2252139.jpg)
There isn't going to be any turning point ... There isn't going to be any next-month-it'll-be-better, next fucking year, next fucking life. You don't have any time to wait for. You just got to look around you and say, "So this is it. This is really all there is to it. This little thing." Everybody needing such little things and they can't get them. Everybody needing just a little ... confidence from somebody else and they can't get it. Everybody, everybody fighting to protect their little feelings. Everybody, you know, like reaching out tentatively but drawing back. It's so shallow and seems so ... fucking ... it seems like such a shame. It's so close to being like really right and good and open and amorphous and giving and everything. But it's not. And it ain't gonna be.
September 1969
quoted in "The New Yorker" 9 August 1999 — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1494561 Janis Joplin Quotes 1494561](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1494561.jpg)
You got to get it while you can — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1520043 Janis Joplin Quotes 1520043](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1520043.jpg)
I read, I painted, I didn't hate niggers, — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1167363 Janis Joplin Quotes 1167363](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1167363.jpg)
On stage I make love to twenty five thousand people; and then I go home alone. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1546641 Janis Joplin Quotes 1546641](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1546641.jpg)
I want a bigger band with higher highs, a bigger ladder. And I want more bottom - I want an incredible amount of bottom. I want more noise. When I do a rock tune I want it to be so HUGE ... — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1628225 Janis Joplin Quotes 1628225](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1628225.jpg)
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. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1405117 Janis Joplin Quotes 1405117](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1405117.jpg)
I talk to the audience, look into their eyes. I need them and they need me. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1640452 Janis Joplin Quotes 1640452](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1640452.jpg)
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. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1399686 Janis Joplin Quotes 1399686](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1399686.jpg)
You can't stay in your home town and play because the two people will get tired of seeing you. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1726520 Janis Joplin Quotes 1726520](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1726520.jpg)
My business is to enjoy and have fun. And why not, if in the end everything will end, right? — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 2214277 Janis Joplin Quotes 2214277](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-2214277.jpg)
I won't quit to become someone's old lady. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1769344 Janis Joplin Quotes 1769344](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1769344.jpg)
You know why we're stuck with the myth that only black people have soul? Because white people don't let themselves feel things. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1842530 Janis Joplin Quotes 1842530](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1842530.jpg)
At least we know we tend to be afraid. If you object to my plural noun, I'll retract it. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1849836 Janis Joplin Quotes 1849836](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1849836.jpg)
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. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1877485 Janis Joplin Quotes 1877485](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1877485.jpg)
As good as you've been to this world is as good as it's gonna be right back to you. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 2163915 Janis Joplin Quotes 2163915](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-2163915.jpg)
You can destroy your now by worrying about tomorrow. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 2099237 Janis Joplin Quotes 2099237](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-2099237.jpg)
Freedom is just another word for when you have NOTHING left to lose. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 2065209 Janis Joplin Quotes 2065209](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-2065209.jpg)
I'm tired of all these hippie jack-offs — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1896574 Janis Joplin Quotes 1896574](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1896574.jpg)
Singing, it's like it's like loving somebody, it's a supreme emotional and physical experience. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1969594 Janis Joplin Quotes 1969594](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1969594.jpg)
I'm not really thinking much ... Just sort of, trying to feel. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1983604 Janis Joplin Quotes 1983604](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1983604.jpg)
If you've got a today, don't wear it tomorrow. Tomorrow never happens. It's all the same day. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 2032347 Janis Joplin Quotes 2032347](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-2032347.jpg)
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 ... — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 875603 Janis Joplin Quotes 875603](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-875603.jpg)
Never compromise yourself. You are all you've got. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 248748 Janis Joplin Quotes 248748](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-248748.jpg)
The older the grapes, sweeter the wine. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 253568 Janis Joplin Quotes 253568](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-253568.jpg)
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. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 255479 Janis Joplin Quotes 255479](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-255479.jpg)
Audiences like their blues singers to be miserable. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 331457 Janis Joplin Quotes 331457](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-331457.jpg)
I can't talk about my singing; I'm inside it. How can you describe something you're inside of? — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 334261 Janis Joplin Quotes 334261](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-334261.jpg)
All any girl really wants is just love and a man. But what man can put up with a rock-n-roll star? — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 340536 Janis Joplin Quotes 340536](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-340536.jpg)
Maybe my audiences can enjoy my music more if they think I'm destroying myself. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 486836 Janis Joplin Quotes 486836](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-486836.jpg)
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz? — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 513422 Janis Joplin Quotes 513422](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-513422.jpg)
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. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 531517 Janis Joplin Quotes 531517](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-531517.jpg)
If I hold back, I'm no good. I'm no good. I'd rather be good sometimes, than holding back all the time. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 627964 Janis Joplin Quotes 627964](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-627964.jpg)
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. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 691302 Janis Joplin Quotes 691302](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-691302.jpg)
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. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 692910 Janis Joplin Quotes 692910](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-692910.jpg)
Guess what, I might be the first hippie pinup girl. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 709220 Janis Joplin Quotes 709220](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-709220.jpg)
Being an intellectual creates a lot of questions and no answers. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 719316 Janis Joplin Quotes 719316](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-719316.jpg)
It's hard to be free but when it works, it's worth it! — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1346871 Janis Joplin Quotes 1346871](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1346871.jpg)
I always wanted to be an artist, whatever that was, like other chicks want to be stewardesses. I read. I painted. I thought. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 919736 Janis Joplin Quotes 919736](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-919736.jpg)
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. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 946358 Janis Joplin Quotes 946358](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-946358.jpg)
I love being a star more than life itself. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 986195 Janis Joplin Quotes 986195](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-986195.jpg)
You can feel all things at once, so why not wear all things at once? — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1007112 Janis Joplin Quotes 1007112](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1007112.jpg)
Wait a minute, maybe I can do anything. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1079930 Janis Joplin Quotes 1079930](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1079930.jpg)
My father wouldn't get us a TV, he wouldn't allow a TV in the house. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1100393 Janis Joplin Quotes 1100393](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1100393.jpg)
I just want to feel as much as I can, it's what soul is all about. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1114373 Janis Joplin Quotes 1114373](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1114373.jpg)
You are what you settle for. You are only as much as you settle for — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1129962 Janis Joplin Quotes 1129962](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1129962.jpg)
I believe the only people who truly experience and test the application of equality are twins. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 127689 Janis Joplin Quotes 127689](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-127689.jpg)
You better not compromise yourself, it's all you've got. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1182333 Janis Joplin Quotes 1182333](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1182333.jpg)
I'd rather not sing than sing quiet. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1251642 Janis Joplin Quotes 1251642](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1251642.jpg)
I started singing rhythmically, and now I'm learning from Otis Redding to push a song instead of just sliding over it — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1289921 Janis Joplin Quotes 1289921](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1289921.jpg)
I started out to be a person on the street, just like everybody else. I didn't start out to be a singer. But I got sort of swept up in this singing thing, and after I got involved in it it got really important to me if I was good or not. — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1303332 Janis Joplin Quotes 1303332](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1303332.jpg)
I think I think too much. That's why I drink! — Janis Joplin
![Janis Joplin Quotes 1337848 Janis Joplin Quotes 1337848](https://quotessayings.net/pics/janis-joplin-quote-1337848.jpg)
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. — Janis Joplin