Quotes from Joni Mitchell

I had made all these rules for myself: I'm not writing social commentary, I'm not writing love songs.

I've looked at life from both sides now...from win and lose, and still somehow it's life's illusions I recall I really don't know life at all.

I do have this reputation for being a serious person.

I see bodies as individual things.

I can't remember anything I ever wrote.

I know my generation - a lot of them, they're getting old now, and they want to think back fondly, they want to kid themselves. A lot of them think, 'Yeah, we were the best.' That's the kiss of death. That's non-growth. And also that's very bad for the world.

I don't understand why Europeans and South Americans can take more sophistication. Why is it that Americans need to hear their happiness major and their tragedy minor, and as jazzy as they can handle is a seventh chord? Are they not experiencing complex emotions?

We love our lovin'....but not like we love our freedom.

Love is a very hard feeling to keep alive. It's a very fragile plant.

My first four albums covered the usual youth problems - looking for love in all the wrong places - while the next five are basically about being in your 30s.

The bands and the roadies, love 'em and leave 'em. It's pleasure to try 'em, but trouble to keep 'em.

Ira Gershwin, shame on him. I mean, some of the writing.

In New York, the street adventures are incredible. There are a thousand stories in a single block. You see the stories in the people's faces. You hear the songs immediately. Here in Los Angeles, there are less characters because they're all inside automobiles.

Back then, I didn't have a big organization around me. I was just a kid with a guitar, traveling around. My responsibility basically was to the art, and I had extra time on my hands. There is no extra time now. There isn't enough time.

But I have a tremendous will to live and a tremendous 'joie de vivre,' alternating with irritability.

All my battles were with male egos. I'm just looking for equality, not to dominate. But I want to be able to control my vision.

I'm irresponsible to my career in order to paint. Because painting is obsessive. I forget to eat. I forget to sleep.

Because I'm so busy and because I think of myself as a painter, I desperately guard the time that I have to paint. And sometimes I'm irresponsible to my career in order to paint. Because painting is obsessive. I forget to eat. I forget to sleep.

I get the same charge from juxtaposition of colors as I do from juxtaposition of chords.

I have an aversion to being mislabeled. Here's a label I'd accept: I'm an 'individual.' I'm someone who can't follow, and doesn't want to lead.

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

You wake up one day and suddenly realize that your youth is behind you, even though you're still young at heart.

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.

Edith Piaf knocked my socks off when I was 8, but I didn't know what she was singing about.