Audiences like their blues singers to be miserable.

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

Guess what, I might be the first hippie pinup girl.

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

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.

I won`t quit to become someone`s old lady.

I`m one of those regular weird people.

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

My father wouldn`t get us a TV, he wouldn`t allow a TV in the house.

Oh Lord, won`t you buy me a Mercedes Benz.

On stage, I make love to 25,000 different people, then I go home alone.

Rock on out.

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.

You got to get it while you can.

You know why we`re stuck with the myth that only black people have soul? Because white people don`t let themselves feel things.

Don`t compromise yourself. You are all you`ve got.

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.

Music`s for grooving man, and music`s not for puttin` yourself through bad changes, y`know? I mean, you don`t have to go take anybody`s sh-, man, just to like music, y’know what I mean? You don’t. So... so if you`re getting` more shit than you deserve, you know what to do about it man. Y`know, it`s just music. Music`s... music`s s`posed to be different than that.

Women to be in-a the music business give up more than you`d ever know. She`s got kids she gave up. Any woman gives up home life, an old man, probably, because you`re so crazy on planes and runnin` and you never find `em egain. You give up, you give up a home and friends, you give up children and friends, you give up an old man and friends, you give up any constant in the world except music. That`s the only thing you`ve got man, after you boil it down, the only thing you got left in the world is that music, man. And, so for a woman to sing, she really needs to, or wants to. A man can do it as a gig, `cause he knows he can get laid tonight.

You can destroy your now by worrying about tomorrow.

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.

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.

Honey, to them I`m just a chick who is hung over at 11:00 in the morning. My hair isn`t combed, I`m wearin` funny lookin` clothes, plus I`m wearin` feathers. I walk in here and say I want a drink. These people don`t want to see me, baby. I mean, let`s face it, they don`t want me in here - period. So there`s three old cats sayin`, `What is this chick doin` here and why?` They`d just as soon be talkin` about the Mets game and they don`t want this chick walkin` in with bells on and a big sack of beads. There`s the snide remarks I`m not supposed to hear, but loud enough, of course, for me to hear. Everybody gets it, man. Getting` treated like a hippie, that`s what I`m talkin` about.

Don`t compromise yourself. It`s all you`ve got.

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

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?