Joni Mitchell Quotes

Joni Mitchell offers a wry, poetic look at love, art and loss that feels like a conversation with a thoughtful friend.

54 quotes

1. I don't like being too looked up at or too looked down on. I prefer meeting in the middle to being worshipped or spat out.

2. That's one thing that's always, like, been a difference between, like, the performing arts, and being a painter, you know. A painter does a painting, and he paints it, and that's it, you know. He has the joy of creating it, it hangs on a wall, and somebody buys it, and maybe somebody buys it again, or maybe nobody buys it and it sits up in a loft somewhere until he dies. But he never, you know, nobody ever, nobody ever said to Van Gogh, 'Paint a Starry Night again, man!' You know? He painted it and that was it.

3. I need to explore and discover and so that has given me, really, to some what seems like courage, but really it's just in my stars, there's nothing I can do about it . . . . I guess I'll just take my award and run now.

4. Any time I make a record it's followed by a painting period. It's good crop rotation.

5. I was demanding of myself a deeper and greater honesty, more and more revelation in my work in order to give it back to the people where it goes into their lives and nourishes them and changes their direction and makes light bulbs go off in their head and makes them feel. And it isn't vague, it strikes against the very nerves of their life and in order to do that you have to strike against the very nerves of your own.

6. There's been a tremendous amount of growth. An actress is not expected to continue to play her ingenue roles, you know, I've written myself roles to grow into gracefully, but there is no growing into gracefully in the pop world. Basically the reason I'm so unruly in this business is because I never wanted to be a human jukebox.

7. She is of course well past the stage of having to prove herself artistically. She is in possession of one of the most extraordinary song catalogs of the past half-century. Her chords break harmonic rules, have no technical names and defy Western musical theory. Her voice is an instrument that has grown sublimely heavier and huskier over the decades. . . .Once you get past the security gates, Ms. Mitchell's house feels like a pocket of middle-class comfort in the midst of zillionaire Beverly Hills. In some ways life is still as it was in 1974, when she bought the house: She has no computer, no voice mail, no cellphone and no e-mail. At one point, when we tried to remember one of her lyrics, we scrolled through my iPod. She said it was the first time she had listened to one.

8. Joni, you have more class than Richard Nixon, Mick Jagger, and Gomer Pyle combined!

9. In our possessive coupling So much could not be expressed So now I'm returning to myself These things that you and I suppressed.

10. You go down to the pick up station Craving warmth and beauty You settle for less than fascination A few drinks later you're not so choosy When the closing lights strip off the shadows On this strange new flesh you've found Clutching the night to you like a fig leaf You hurry To the blackness And the blankets To lay down an impression And your loneliness.

11. Oh, you're in my blood like holy wine, You taste so bitter and so sweet Oh I could drink a case of you, darling And I would still be on my feet I would still be on my feet.

12. Rows and flows of angel hair, And ice cream castles in the air, And feather canyons ev'rywhere, I've looked at clouds that way. But now they only block the sun, They rain and snow on ev'ryone, So many things I would have done But clouds got in my way.

13. I've looked at clouds from both sides now, From up and down, and still somehow It's cloud illusions I recall, I really don't know clouds at all.

14. Tears and fears and feeling proud, To say 'I love you' right out loud, Dreams and schemes and circus crowds, I've looked at life that way. But now old friends are acting strange They shake their heads, they say I've changed Well something's lost, but something's gained In living ev'ry day.

15. I've looked at love from both sides now From give and take, and still somehow, It's love's illusions I recall I really don't know love at all.

16. And the seasons they go round and round, And the painted ponies go up and down, We're all captive on the carousel of time We can't return we can only look behind From where we came And go 'round and 'round and 'round In the circle game.

17. I came upon a child of god, He was walking along the road And I asked him, where are you going And this he told me: 'I'm going on down to Yasgur's farm I'm going to join in a rock 'n' roll band I'm going to camp out on the land, I'm going to try an' get my soul free.

18. I don't know who I am / but you know, life is for learning.

19. We are stardust, We are golden, And we've got to get ourselves Back to the garden.

20. By the time we got to woodstock We were half a million strong And everywhere there was song and celebration. And I dreamed I saw the bombers Riding shotgun in the sky And they were turning into butterflies Above our nation.

21. They paved paradise And put up a parking lot With a pink hotel, a boutique and a swinging hot spot.

22. Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you've got Till it's gone. They paved paradise, And put up a parking lot.

23. They took all the trees And put them in a tree museum And they charged all the people A dollar and a half just to see 'em.

24. Hey farmer, farmer, Put away that DDT now Give spots on my apples But leave me the birds and the bees Please!

25. I remember the time you told me, you said 'Love is touching souls,' Surely you've touched mine, cause Part of you pours out of me In these lines from time to time.

26. I wanna be strong, I wanna laugh along, I wanna belong to the living. Alive, alive, I wanna get up and jive, Wanna wreck my stockings in some jukebox dive.

27. Secrets and sharing soda, That's how our time began. Love is a story told to a friend It's second hand.

28. Some are friendly Some are cutting Some are watching it from the wings Some are standing in the centre giving to get something.

29. Laughing and crying, you know it's the same release.

30. Friends have told her 'Not so proud' Neighbors trying to sleep are yelling 'Not so loud' Lovers in anger, 'Block of ice' Harder and harder just to be nice.

31. My childhood was very difficult. I had every childhood disease and then some, but my parents didn't mollycoddle me. They left me to fight those battles on my own. I guess that was very Canadian, very stoic. But it's good. I had to become a warrior. I had to give up hope and find a substitute for hope that would be far more stable.

32. My childhood was very difficult. I had every childhood disease and then some, but my parents didnt mollycoddle me. They left me to fight those battles on my own. I guess that was very Canadian, very stoic. But its good. I had to become a warrior. I had to give up hope and find a substitute for hope that would be far more stable.

33. Musically, I would never run dry. Any time I sit down to an instrument, I could write a song.

34. You snipe so steady, you snub so snide, so rip and ready to diminish and deride.

35. I loved Debussy, Stravinsky, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, anything with romantic melodies, especially the nocturnes. Nietzsche was a hero, especially with 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra.' He gets a bad rap; he's very misunderstood. He's a maker of individuals, and he was a teacher of teachers.

36. When the spirit of child's play enters into the creative process, it's a wonderful force and something to be nurtured.

37. Americans have decided to be stupid and shallow since 1980.

38. I was young for my age. Not as naïve as they expected. I don't know why I seem to bring that out in people.

39. This is a nation that has lost the ability to be self-critical, and that makes a lie out of the freedoms.

40. Land of snap decisions, land of short attention spans, nothing is savored long enough to really understand.

41. I like my freedom. I like to do my own grocery shopping.

42. I'm not a pitiable creature. It's just that I suffer very eloquently.

43. I can't remember anything I ever wrote.

44. You can give me 400,000 hostile people and I won't even break sweat. If you give me 200 adoring people, my mouth will dry out.

45. Acid, booze, and ass, needles, guns, and grass, lots of laughs.

46. Unlike some of my peers, I haven't really hit a writer's block. When I hit a block I just paint, which is an old crop rotation trick.

47. Let light hearts remake us.

48. Freedom to me is a luxury of being able to follow the path of the heart, to keep the magic in your life. Freedom is necessary for me in order to create, and if I cannot create I don’t feel alive.

49. Everybody's saying hell's the hippest way to go. Well, I don't think so, but I'm gonna take a look around it though.

50. The most important thing is to write in your own blood. I bare intimate feelings because people should know how other people feel.

51. I do have this reputation for being a serious person.

52. I never really wanted to be a star. I didn't like entering a room with all eyes on me. I still don't really like the attention of a birthday party.

53. I think I would go further into fine arts, I think, if I were to continue.

54. Abstract Expressionism was invented by New York drunks.