Janis Joplin Quotes

You can destroy your now by worrying about tomorrow.

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.

The more you live, the less you die.

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.

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

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

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

Oh, Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz - My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

You are what you settle for.

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.

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

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.

I'm one of those regular weird people.

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

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

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

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

I always wanted to be an artist, whatever that was, like other chicks want to be stewardesses. I read. I painted. I thought.

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.

I'm not really thinking much... Just sort of, trying to feel.

Don't you know that you're nothing more than a one night stand?

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

If someone comes along, gonna give you some love and affection, I say get it while you can.

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

The older the grapes, sweeter the wine.

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

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

You are what you settle for. You are only as much as you settle for.

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

Wait a minute, maybe I can do anything.

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?

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

Don't go looking for Mr. Right. Look for Mr. Right Now.

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

Audiences like their blues singers to be miserable.

Why should I hold back now and sound mediocre, just so I can sound mediocre twenty years from now?