Janis Joplin Quotes

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

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.

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

Rock on out.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 would trade all my tomorrow’s for one single yesterday.

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

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

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

You know why we’re stuck with the myth that only black people have soul? Because white people don’t let themselves feel things.

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.

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.