Top 100 Janis Quotes
#1. I thought that that mission and the mission of taking care of those soldiers were my priorities, and I stand by the same today. There wasn't a lot of support for those soldiers.
Janis Karpinski
#2. 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
#3. The mission statement was ordered, and it sent the 800th MP Brigade, effective the first of July, up to Baghdad. I joined my brigade to take command at the end of June.
Janis Karpinski
#4. I refuse to believe that Hendrix had the last possessed hand,
that Joplin had the last drunken throat,
that Morrison had the last enlightened mind.
Patti Smith
#5. I would love to play Janis Gaye in the Marvin Gaye story. If they ever do the Marvin Gaye story, I would love to play Janis - just throwing that out there.
Lauren London
#6. Nikki Lamborn has the best female rock voice since Janis Joplin and I know what I'm talking about, I knew Janis.
Roger Daltrey
#7. I want to do some fiction writing, I've had some pretty good luck with short stories, I'd like to do a couple of larger things.
Janis Ian
#8. On stage I make love to twenty five thousand people; and then I go home alone.
Janis Joplin
#9. I've always been an avid reader. If I don't have a book in the car, I'll stop and pick one up just to have something to read. I don't even remember learning to read.
Janis Ian
#10. If you are charged with this responsibility of enhancing interrogations, or using soldiers to enhance interrogations to find Saddam, and you're above the law for all practical purposes, you might try some unusual techniques. Now we know that, in fact, they did.
Janis Karpinski
#11. Maybe my audiences can enjoy my music more if they think I'm destroying myself.
Janis Joplin
#12. Janis was completely caught off guard that Lisa finally stood up for herself
John Corey Whaley
#13. Audiences like their blues singers to be miserable.
Janis Joplin
#14. My business is to enjoy and have fun. And why not, if in the end everything will end, right?
Janis Joplin
#15. 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
#16. You can safely assume you've remade God in your own image when it turns out God hates the same people you do. Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
Janis Bragan Balda
#17. I think no-one was surprised to hear that Janis Joplin was dead. She seemed to be living up all of her energy that she had to give in just a few years. Now you listen to covers of her songs by various women, and it's pale in comparison.
Michael Wadleigh
#18. 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
#19. Grits are hot; they are abundant, and they will by-gosh stick to your ribs. Give your farmhands (that is, your children) cold cereal for breakfast and see how many rows they hoe. Make them a pot of grits and butter, and they'll hoe till dinner and be glad to do it.
Janis Owens
#20. 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
#21. I gave guitar lessons. I tried to join bands. My mom always said it was obvious that nothing was going to stop me.
Janis Ian
#22. Those of us with ravaged faces, lacking in the social graces, desperately remained at home, inventing lovers on the phone.
Janis Ian
#23. If someone comes along, gonna give you some love and affection, I say get it while you can.
Janis Joplin
#24. The heart of a city
Is the soul of a man
It winds like a river
Through the heart of the land
They can tear down a building
They can tear down a park
They can strike at a symbol
But they can't strike the heart
Janis Ian
#25. You are what you settle for. You are only as much as you settle for
Janis Joplin
#26. Military intelligence interrogators, however, their goal is to get information, to save lives, to stop the war, to find Saddam - whatever the information is going to be used for, at whatever cost.
Janis Karpinski
#27. I remember the first time somebody played me Janis Joplin. My friend Donna put on Janis Joplin, and she said, 'You're like her.' At the time, I wasn't even a singer; I was a drummer. I just wanted to play the drums.
Sophie B. Hawkins
#28. I say I'm Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin all wrapped up into one. If I die early ... I'll be just like those guys.
Dennis Rodman
#29. 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
#30. The war was declared over - the end of major combat operations - in May 2003. Release procedures got under way immediately; reducing the population from 8,000 to just over 300, of course, requires fewer military police soldiers.
Janis Karpinski
#31. 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
#32. 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
#33. In November, they transferred control of Abu Ghraib to the military intelligence command completely; it was, after all, the center for interrogations for Iraq.
Janis Karpinski
#34. To be honest, I've made a game out of trying to live through my James Dean, Janis Joplin, Freddie Prinze, Jim Morrison period, those demons that we all have that we're either successful or not at making work for us rather than destroy us.
Patrick Swayze
#35. 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
#37. 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
#38. A friend of mine once told me 'For people like us, the meaning is the search for the meaning.
Janis Ian
#39. America? They had a good girl singer, Janis Joplin.
Maurice Gibb
#40. Truth is not the enemy and whatever does not kill us, sets us free.
Janis Ian
#41. On stage, I make love to 25,000 different people, then I go home alone.
Janis Joplin
#42. Janis Joplin didn't just sing a song, she took it over. She swallowed it whole, then sent it back through her gut and her heart.
Scott Simon
#43. At the end of the day, if you don't have a record contract, a studio or a guitar, you can still write songs. You're still an artist. That's something no one can take away.
Janis Ian
#44. If you've got a today, don't wear it tomorrow. Tomorrow never happens. It's all the same day.
Janis Joplin
#45. My parents both were doing the Civil Rights Movement, were very involved with the civil rights to Congress. And my friends' parents were as well.
Janis Ian
#46. When people used to call me a political writer, it was kind of confusing because I was always much more interested in the social end of things which hinges on the political, but it isn't really part of it.
Janis Ian
#47. The day after the prison was transferred to the military intelligence command, they had an entire battalion - 1,200, 1,500 soldiers - arrive at Abu Ghraib just for force protection alone.
Janis Karpinski
#48. I think I think too much. That's why I drink!
Janis Joplin
#49. I feel I was born with the music coming to me, and that's not something to be wasted.
Janis Ian
#50. The more I lived with Jan, the more I loved her, the more I made her miserable. It was a vicious cycle (page 209) ... ... The more I loved her the more I hated her. And the more she loved me, the more I harmed myself (page 269).
Marvin Gaye
#51. I love the Beatles, and when I was very young, I had young parents, so Led Zeppelin and Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles constantly were big influences on my life.
Phil Anselmo
#52. If I was mad, it was in this, that I had believed such a possession would protect me from the assassin.
Janis Cooke Newman
#53. Janis Joplin is definitely one of my biggest influences. She taught me how to feel music, and I don't think there's anyone like her that could bring such pain and emotion to a song.
LeAnn Rimes
#54. I was interviewed for a Grammy television show, and they asked me about Nashville, and I talked for three minutes and when I finished, I was teared up. The whole room was crying. Nashville has given me a home, where I never had a home before.
Janis Ian
#55. So remember those who win the game
Lose the love they sought to gain
In debitures of quality and dubious integrity
Their small-town eyes will gape at you
In dull surprise when payment due
Exceeds accounts received at seventeen
Janis Ian
#56. Hollywood is about playing the game, and I can't think of any successful actresses who didn't play the game. There's a lot more renegades in the music business, from Patti Smith to Janis Joplin.
Madonna Ciccone
#57. 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
#59. the Apaches in Florida, she is left shattered. Still, while her heart is broken, her will remains as strong as ever, and she immediately sets off after him, vowing to free him from unjust captivity. But there is one obstacle she
Janis Reams Hudson
#60. When you're young, the goal is to have a hit. You get a little older and the goal becomes to get to make another record.
Janis Ian
#61. As good as you've been to this world is as good as it's gonna be right back to you.
Janis Joplin
#62. I think one of the reasons musicians keep doing what they do and writers keep doing what they do, is that we're totally unsuited for anything else. And I for one am much too lazy.
Janis Ian
#63. 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
#64. It's not what isn't, it's what you wish was that makes unhappiness.
Janis Joplin
#65. In my insides, it really hurts if someone doesn't like me. It's silly.
Janis Joplin
#66. Being an intellectual creates a lot of questions and no answers.
Janis Joplin
#67. I knew how many MPs I had assigned to the brigade, how many military prison operations I would be running, but we needed to evaluate how many criminal prison operations we could support.
Janis Karpinski
#68. I had a vague idea of the song's impact in the '60s, but that was tempered by the hate mail and threats I was receiving. It was only about ten years ago, when I finally put it back in my show because so many people were asking for it, that I understood 'Society's Child' real impact.
Janis Ian
#69. Once you're halfway home, you know that you can probably get the rest of the way there.
Janis Ian
#70. People, whether they know it or not, like their blues singers miserable. They like their blues singers to die afterwards.
Janis Joplin
#71. My years with Aretha Franklin have been very special, as were the years making records with Dionne Warwick. Other highlights include working with Janis Joplin, who was the first artist I ever signed, as well as Patti Smith and Alicia Keys.
Clive Davis
#72. 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
#73. I remember my mom dressed like Janis Joplin.
Bryan White
#74. Some people would rather stay ignorant and self-satisfied.
Janis Ian
#75. It's hard to be free but when it works, it's worth it!
Janis Joplin
#76. It's neat to have finally reached a point where I can accept what I was and what I am.
Janis Ian
#77. I can't talk about my singing; I'm inside it. How can you describe something you're inside of?
Janis Joplin
#78. And shortly after that, when I try to get access to those soldiers, to ask them what in the world was going on, I was told that they did not work for me and I had no right to have access to any one of them.
Janis Karpinski
#79. 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
#80. It's what I do well - I write about things that make people uncomfortable. That's probably the only thing I do better than my peers.
Janis Ian
#81. Never compromise yourself. You are all you've got.
Janis Joplin
#82. You can feel all things at once, so why not wear all things at once?
Janis Joplin
#83. 'Society's Child' was a real hard record to start with. That's all you want is for you to put your first record out and have people screaming at you in the streets. But it taught me right away that what I was doing was valuable and important.
Janis Ian
#84. 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
#85. The late, great Janis Joplin could drink ten men under the table, then sing loud enough to shake the teeth out of their head.
Shawn Amos
#86. When everything is together - the band, me, the audience, it's boss! It's just like magic.
Janis Joplin
#87. 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
#88. Janis Joplin sings the blues as hard as any black person.
B.B. King
#89. I love seeing teachers outside of school. It's like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs.
Janis Ian
#90. Did you have an awesome time? Did you drink awesome shooters, listen to awesome music, and then just sit around and soak up each others awesomeness?
Janis Ian
#91. I believe the only people who truly experience and test the application of equality are twins.
Janis Joplin
#92. Shortly before she died Janis Joplin gave me the Gibson Hummingbird she recorded "Me and Bobbby McGee" on ... Janis was a good guitar player, for her purposes .. she just wanted to play along with her songs, and she had a real pure and nice style for that ...
Sam Andrew
#93. I don't pretend to be an expert on intellectual property law, but I do know one thing. If a music industry executive claims I should agree with their agenda because it will make me more money, I put my hand on my walletand check it after they leave, just to make sure nothing's missing.
Janis Ian
#95. It's hard to be happy when you are facing 120 to 140 degree temperatures and nothing seems to be moving in a direction that you think or they think or you've been told it's supposed to be moving in.
Janis Karpinski
#96. Life is like a shit sandwich, the more bread you have the less shit you have to eat.
Gary Jonathan Janis
#97. The quality of our lives is diminished every time we lose a great artist. It's a different world without Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Curtis Mayfield, Brian Jones and the rest.
Steven Van Zandt
#98. The vast majority of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, even after interrogation, had no further intel value whatsoever.
Janis Karpinski
#99. When you hold somebody, you gotta hold them like it's the last minute of your life.
Janis Joplin
#100. I started 'Society's Child' on a bus in East Orange as I was going home from school. I saw a black and white couple sitting there and started thinking about it.
Janis Ian
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