Top 60 Janis Joplin Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “You can destroy your now by worrying about tomorrow.”

— Janis Joplin

Featured in: Adventure Quotes, Worry Quotes

2. “Wait a minute, maybe I can do anything.”

— Janis Joplin

Featured in: Quotes About Waiting

3. “Freedom is just another word for when you have NOTHING left to lose.”

— Janis Joplin

4. “You are what you settle for.”

— Janis Joplin

Featured in: Self-Worth Quotes, Know Your Worth Quotes

5. “Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz.”

— Janis Joplin

6. “Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got.”

— Janis Joplin

7. “The older the grapes, sweeter the wine.”

— Janis Joplin

8. “The more you live, the less you die.”

— Janis Joplin

9. “My business is to enjoy and have fun. And why not, if in the end everything will end, right?”

— Janis Joplin

Featured in: Fun Quotes

10. “You are what you settle for. You are only as much as you settle for.”

— Janis Joplin

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

— Janis Joplin

12. “I’m one of those regular weird people.”

— Janis Joplin

13. “It’s hard to be free but when it works, it’s worth it!”

— Janis Joplin

14. “You got to get it while you can.”

— Janis Joplin

15. “You know you’ve got it, if it makes you feel good.”

— Janis Joplin

16. “Don’t go looking for Mr. Right. Look for Mr. Right Now.”

— Janis Joplin

17. “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

18. “I would trade all my tomorrow’s for one single yesterday.”

— Janis Joplin

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

— Janis Joplin

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

— Janis Joplin

21. “I think I think too much. That’s why I drink!”

— Janis Joplin

22. “Singing, it’s like it’s like loving somebody, it’s a supreme emotional and physical experience.”

— Janis Joplin

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

— Janis Joplin

24. “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

25. “As good as you’ve been to this world is as good as it’s gonna be right back to you.”

— Janis Joplin

26. “Don’t you know that you’re nothing more than a one night stand?”

— Janis Joplin

27. “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

28. “I’d rather not sing than sing quiet.”

— Janis Joplin

29. “I started singing rhythmically, and now I’m learning from Otis Redding to push a song instead of just sliding over it.”

— Janis Joplin

30. “I love being a star more than life itself.”

— Janis Joplin

31. “Why should I hold back now and sound mediocre, just so I can sound mediocre twenty years from now?”

— Janis Joplin

32. “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

33. “In my insides, it really hurts if someone doesn’t like me. It’s silly.”

— Janis Joplin

34. “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

35. “My father wouldn’t get us a TV, he wouldn’t allow a TV in the house.”

— Janis Joplin

36. “I believe the only people who truly experience and test the application of equality are twins.”

— Janis Joplin

37. “Maybe my audiences can enjoy my music more if they think I’m destroying myself.”

— Janis Joplin

38. “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

39. “You can’t stay in your home town and play because the two people will get tired of seeing you.”

— Janis Joplin

40. “Audiences like their blues singers to be miserable.”

— Janis Joplin

41. “What we’ve had to do is learn to control success, put it in perspective, and not lose the essence of what we’re doing – the music.”

— Janis Joplin

42. “I talk to the audience, look into their eyes. I need them and they need me.”

— Janis Joplin

43. “At my concerts most of the chicks are looking for liberation, they think I’m gonna show ’em how to do it.”

— Janis Joplin

44. “At least we know we tend to be afraid. If you object to my plural noun, I’ll retract it.”

— Janis Joplin

45. “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

46. “You can feel all things at once, so why not wear all things at once?”

— Janis Joplin

47. “When everything is together – the band, me, the audience, it’s boss! It’s just like magic.”

— Janis Joplin

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

— Janis Joplin

49. “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

50. “I’d rather have ten years of superhypermost than live to be seventy sitting in some goddamn chair watching TV.”

— Janis Joplin