Top 200 Joni Mitchell Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.”

— Joni Mitchell

Featured in: Sad Quotes, Loss Quotes, Longing Quotes, Broken Heart Quotes, Quotes About Songs

2. “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”

— Joni Mitchell

Featured in: Music Quotes

3. “We are stardust, we are golden and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.”

— Joni Mitchell

4. “Something’s lost, but something’s gained, in living everyday.”

— Joni Mitchell

5. “Keep a good heart. That’s the most important thing in life. It’s not how much money you make or what you can acquire. The art of it is to keep a good heart.”

— Joni Mitchell

6. “They won’t give peace a chance, that’s just a dream some of us had.”

— Joni Mitchell

7. “Heart and humor and humility, he said will lighten up your heavy load.”

— Joni Mitchell

8. “An unhappy mother does not raise a happy child.”

— Joni Mitchell

9. “I don’t know who I am but you know, life is for learning.”

— Joni Mitchell

10. “Love is touching souls.”

— Joni Mitchell

11. “I wish I had a river I could skate away on?”

— Joni Mitchell

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

— Joni Mitchell

13. “It’s life’s illusions that I recall, I really don’t know life at all.”

— Joni Mitchell

14. “I still believe in the power of the word, that words inspire.”

— Joni Mitchell

15. “So many things I would have done, but clouds got in my way.”

— Joni Mitchell

16. “And the seasons they go ’round and ’round And the painted ponies go up and down We’re 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.”

— Joni Mitchell

17. “I’m your biggest fan, California, I’m coming home.”

— Joni Mitchell

18. “All romantics meet the same fate some day. Drunk and cynical and boring someone in some dark cafe.”

— Joni Mitchell

19. “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 every day.”

— Joni Mitchell

20. “Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels The dizzy dancing way you feel As every fairy tale comes real I’ve looked at love that way.”

— Joni Mitchell

21. “Chase away the demons, and they will take the angels with them.”

— Joni Mitchell

22. “Sorrow is so easy to express and yet so hard to tell.”

— Joni Mitchell

23. “Happiness is the best facelift.”

— Joni Mitchell

24. “When I think of your kisses my mind see-saws.”

— Joni Mitchell

25. “I’m a little young for retirement.”

— Joni Mitchell

26. “I create by feeling rather than by intellectualizing.”

— Joni Mitchell

27. “I hang my laundry on the line when I write.”

— Joni Mitchell

28. “I hate show business.”

— Joni Mitchell

29. “I heard someone from the music business saying they are no longer looking for talent, they want people with a certain look and a willingness to cooperate.”

— Joni Mitchell

30. “Laughing and crying, you know it’s the same release.”

— Joni Mitchell

31. “But now it’s just another show, you leave em laughing when you go. And if you care, don’t let them know, don’t give yourself away.”

— Joni Mitchell

32. “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.”

— Joni Mitchell

33. “Bows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air and feather canyons everywhere, I’ve looked at clouds that way.”

— Joni Mitchell

34. “I dreamed I saw the bombers riding shot gun in the sky and they were turning into butterflies above our nation.”

— Joni Mitchell

35. “Give me spots on my apples, but leave me the birds and the bees, please.”

— Joni Mitchell

36. “When I came to California, it was the mecca of the world. Every young person on the planet wanted to be here.”

— Joni Mitchell

37. “Everyone I know has attention deficit, and they say it with great pride. It’s a bad time to be right.”

— Joni Mitchell

38. “I have always thought of myself as a painter derailed by circumstance.”

— Joni Mitchell

39. “I love you when I forget about me.”

— Joni Mitchell

40. “When I felt that fame, people were nosing me out, well I moved on. I used traveling names. Wigs, if necessary.”

— Joni Mitchell

41. “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.”

— Joni Mitchell

42. “My heart is broken in the face of the stupidity of my species.”

— Joni Mitchell

43. “The times you impress me the most are the times when you don’t try.”

— Joni Mitchell

44. “Just before our love got lost you said “I am as constant as a northern star” And I said, constantly in the darkness, Where’s that at? If you want me I’ll be in the bar.”

— Joni Mitchell

45. “Lord, there’s danger in this land, you get witch hunts and wars when church and state hold hands.”

— Joni Mitchell

46. “When the world becomes a massive mess with nobody at the helm, it’s time for artists to make their mark.”

— Joni Mitchell

47. “You could write a song about some kind of emotional problem you are having, but it would not be a good song, in my eyes, until it went through a period of sensitivity to a moment of clarity. Without that moment of clarity to contribute to the song, it’s just complaining.”

— Joni Mitchell

48. “I paint my joy and I sing my sorrow.”

— Joni Mitchell

49. “But you know it’s hard to tell When you’re in the spell if it’s wrong or if it’s real But you’re bound to lose If you let the blues get you scared to feel.”

— Joni Mitchell

50. “I lost my daughter at 21. I had to give her up because I was broke, no place to take her, no money to take her. That was very traumatic.”

— Joni Mitchell