Quotes from Joni Mitchell

Fear is like the wilderland - Stepping stones or sinking sand

Won't you stay We'll put on the day And we'll talk in present tenses

If you're smart or rich or lucky Maybe you'll beat the laws of man But the inner laws of spirit And the outer laws of nature No man can

I met a woman She had a mouth like yours She knew your life She knew your devils and your deeds And she said Go to him, stay with him if you can But be prepared to bleed

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

We are stardust, we are golden, We are billion year old carbon, And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

There's a man who's been out sailing In a decade full of dreams And he takes her to a schooner And he treats her like a queen Bearing beads from California With their amber stones and green He has called her from the harbor He has kissed her with his freedom He has heard her off to starboard In the breaking and the breathing Of the water weeds While she was busy being free

I never loved a man as far as I could pitch my shoe.

I see music as fluid architecture.

The songwriting was almost like something I did while I was waiting for my daughter to come back.

I'm a Buddhist.

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

My parents told me I'd point to a bed of flowers and say 'Pink. Pretty,' before I knew any other words.

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.

I'd had a rough childhood.

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.

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.

To enjoy my music, you need depth and emotionality.

I paint my joy and I sing my sorrow.

I have lost my credibility as a hit maker because of these side excursions into other branches of music; by not being consistent. Consistency seems to be all-important.

In some ways, my gift for music and writing was born out of tragedy, really, and loss.

you dont know what you got till its gone

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

If you're smart or rich or lucky Maybe you'll beat the laws of man But the inner laws of spirit And the outer laws of nature No man can