Joni Mitchell Quotes

I’m still obsessed with pushing the perimeters of what entails a pop song. I can’t really let go of that impulse yet. I don’t know where I’m going. I never really do. My songs could come out any shape at this point.

…I liked playing the coffeehouses, where I could step off the stage and go sit in the audience and be comfortable, or where there wasn’t a barrier between me and my audience in the clubs. The big stage had no appeal for me; it was too great a distance between me and the audience, and I never really liked it. I didn’t have a lot of fame in the beginning, and that’s probably good because it made it more enjoyable.

I've always been a painter. I didn't come to it late. I was always the school artist. I came to music late, you know, relatively. I mean, I picked up — I tried it at 8. I took a year of piano lessons and wrote my first song when I was 8, wrote it out in notes.

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.

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.

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.

I sing my sorrow and paint my joy.

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

it’s a funny time for women. We demand a certain sensitivity. We’ve made our outward attacks at machoism, right, in favor of the new sensitive male. But we’re just at the fledgling state of our liberty where we can’t handle it. I think we ask men to be sensitive and equal, but deep down think it’s unnatural. And we really want them to be stronger than us. So you get into this paradoxical thing.

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

I feel more ambidextrous: I suffer, I enjoy; I suffer, I enjoy.

I've got nervous energy like a kid, still.

I feel frustrated sometimes. I feel bitterness, but I’m not embittered. Feelings pass. A lot of the humor in the music is missed. They insist on painting me as this tragic . . . well not even a tragic, because in this town people don’t understand tragedy. All they understand is drama. You have to be moral to understand tragedy [laughs].

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.

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.