Janis Joplin, born January 19, 1943, in Port Arthur, Texas, was the foremost white female blues singer of the 1960s, celebrated for her powerful, unrestrained style.
Her childhood in Texas was troubled, leading her to drop out of college in 1963 to sing in local clubs.
By 1966, she returned to San Francisco, joining Big Brother and the Holding Company.
The band’s electrifying performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival was highlighted by Joplin’s “Ball and Chain.” Their album, Cheap Thrills (1968), reached number one.
Later, Joplin formed the Kozmic Blues Band, performed at Woodstock and briefly joined the Full Tilt Boogie Band.
Tragically, in 1970, she died from a heroin overdose. Her posthumous album, Pearl and single “Me and Bobby McGee,” both topped the charts in 1971.
Renowned for defying female singer conventions, Joplin’s potent blend of vocals and physicality was groundbreaking.
Documentaries and films, like “The Rose” (1979) and “Janis: Little Girl Blue” (2015), have covered her life and she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.
I have picked the best quotes by Janis Joplin for you below.
Best Janis Joplin Quotes
I won’t quit to become someone’s old lady. ~ Janis Joplin.
Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz. ~ Janis Joplin.
Maybe my audiences can enjoy my music more if they think I’m destroying myself. ~ Janis Joplin.
You are what you settle for. ~ Janis Joplin.
Audiences like their blues singers to be miserable. ~ Janis Joplin.
Don’t go looking for Mr. Right. Look for Mr. Right Now. ~ Janis Joplin.
I’m one of those regular weird people. ~ Janis Joplin.
I just want to feel as much as I can, it’s what soul is all about. ~ Janis Joplin.
If you’ve got a today, don’t wear it tomorrow. Tomorrow never happens. It’s all the same day. ~ Janis Joplin.
If someone comes along, gonna give you some love and affection, I say get it while you can. ~ Janis Joplin.
Guess what, I might be the first hippie pinup girl. ~ Janis Joplin.
You can’t stay in your hometown and play because the two people will get tired of seeing you. ~ Janis Joplin.
t’s not what isn’t, it’s what you wish was that makes unhappiness. ~ Janis Joplin.
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.
I think I think too much. That’s why I drink! ~ Janis Joplin.
Famous Janis Joplin Quotes
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.
My business is to enjoy and have fun. And why not, if in the end everything will end, right? ~ Janis Joplin.
Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got. ~ Janis Joplin.
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.
The more you live, the less you die. ~ Janis Joplin.
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.
When everything is together – the band, me, the audience, it’s boss! It’s just like magic. ~ Janis Joplin.
You are what you settle for. You are only as much as you settle for. ~ Janis Joplin.
Top Janis Joplin Quotes
Don’t you know that you’re nothing more than a one night stand? ~ Janis Joplin.
You can feel all things at once, so why not wear all things at once? ~ Janis Joplin.
I would trade all my tomorrow’s for one single yesterday. ~ Janis Joplin.
It’s hard to be free but when it works, it’s worth it! ~ Janis Joplin.
As good as you’ve been to this world is as good as it’s gonna be right back to you. ~ Janis Joplin.
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.
People, whether they know it or not, like their blues singers miserable. They like their blues singers to die afterwards. ~ Janis Joplin.
At my concerts most of the chicks are looking for liberation, they think I’m gonna show ’em how to do it. ~ Janis Joplin.
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.
I can’t talk about my singing; I’m inside it. How can you describe something you’re inside of? ~ Janis Joplin.
You can destroy your now by worrying about tomorrow. ~ Janis Joplin.
I talk to the audience, look into their eyes. I need them and they need me. ~ Janis Joplin.
At least we know we tend to be afraid. If you object to my plural noun, I’ll retract it. ~ Janis Joplin.
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.
Popular Janis Joplin Quotes
Gimme a pigfoot and a bottle of beer. ~ Janis Joplin.
When you hold somebody, you gotta hold them like it’s the last minute of your life. ~ Janis Joplin.
I’d rather have ten years of Superhypermost than live to be seventy sitting in some goddamn chair watching TV. ~ Janis Joplin.
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.
Being an intellectual creates a lot of questions and no answers. ~ Janis Joplin.
Why should I hold back now and sound mediocre, just so I can sound mediocre twenty years from now? ~ Janis Joplin.
In my insides, it really hurts if someone doesn’t like me. It’s silly. ~ Janis Joplin.
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.
I’m tired of all these hippie jack-offs. ~ Janis Joplin.
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.
The older the grapes, sweeter the wine. ~ Janis Joplin.
Great Janis Joplin Quotes
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.
My father wouldn’t get us a TV, he wouldn’t allow a TV in the house. ~ Janis Joplin.
I love being a star more than life itself. ~ Janis Joplin.
Freedom is just another word for when you have nothing left to lose. ~ Janis Joplin.
Wait a minute, maybe I can do anything. ~ Janis Joplin.
I believe the only people who truly experience and test the application of equality are twins. ~ Janis Joplin.
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.
Singing, it’s like loving somebody, it’s a supreme emotional and physical experience. ~ Janis Joplin.
You got to get it while you can. ~ Janis Joplin.
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.
I’d rather not sing than sing quiet. ~ Janis Joplin.
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.
So these were the 65 top Janis Joplin quotes and sayings.
If you like these quotes and sayings, then you can also read my other posts on Milton Friedman quotes and Melody Beattie quotes.
