Quotes from Joni Mitchell

The coming of the kids hasn't come out in my art yet.

The Hollywood sirens are shrieking, while down some search lit alley runs some lost belief.

Van Gogh was impulsive.

I wanted to paint in a folk-artist-y way. My heroes were Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse, and Rembrandt. I think Picasso is about as a modern as I got. But I incorporated things that they rejected as well as movements that happened later.

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

My style of songwriting is influenced by cinema. I'm a frustrated filmmaker. A fan once said to me, 'Girl, you make me see pictures in my head!' and I took that as a great compliment. That's exactly my intention.

There'll be icicles and birthday clothes And sometimes there'll be sorrow

Because Elvis gave 'em cars, you think I'm cheap.

I certainly don't want to be an angry old artist.

We managed to put together a compilation that had some creativity to it. In the meantime I was listening to the free radio stations and I noticed that during their war coverage they were playing these songs born out of the Vietnam War that were all critical of the soldiers.

Drag wasn't always counterculture.

There was this mountain village in Russia where my music was getting in on some German radio station. I remember this because music used to get up to Saskatchewan from Texas. Late at night after the local station closed down.

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

My family could only afford to get me the box of eight Crayola crayons, but I craved the one with all 24 colours. I wanted magenta and turquoise and silver and gold.

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.

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

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

She'll prophesy your death. She won't say when.

My goal as a writer is more to comfort than to disturb.

Oh, the jealousy, the greed is the unraveling. It's the unraveling and it undoes all the joy that could be.

Tears and fears and feeling proud to say 'I love you' right out loud.

I want to have fun. I want to shine like the sun. I want to be the one that you want to see. I want to knit you a sweater. I want to write you a love letter. I want to make you feel better. I want to make you feel free.

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

Do you see how you hurt me, baby? So I hurt you too. Then we both get so blue. I am on a lonely road and I am traveling, looking for the key to set me free.