Quotes from Joan Jett

I bought one of those Learn How to Play Guitar Chords By Yourself and it shows you the diagram where to put your hands and I took that in my room, sat with my singles and learned how to play guitar.

I love school. I was a great student.

I remember times when I was at shows and the person onstage locked eyes with me. And in that moment, everything was right with the world. I think that's part of my job, to create these thousands of moments every night. And for the rest of their life, they can say, 'You guys looked at me,' or 'You sweated on me,' or 'I got your gum.'

I figured out it was a social thing, what women were allowed to do. At a very young age, I decided I was not going to follow women's rules.

Other people will call me a rebel, but I just feel like I'm living my life and doing what I want to do. Sometimes people call that rebellion, especially when you're a woman.

The follow your dreams thing is really important because so many people are railroaded into taking other paths by their family, their friends, people who should be supportive going, 'What are you talking about?' Even just seemingly regular career paths, but if it's not what people expect for you they kind of react funny.

Factory farming is one of the biggest contributors to the most serious environmental problems. The meat industry causes more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, planes and ships in the world.

Obviously, some people are thick, and they're not gonna see what they don't want to see.

So now 20 years later people want us to get together so they can take shots at all these old babes trying to get back some youth. I mean come on; I've been there. I know what the press would do.

I tend to keep my private life private. I think it's important to have mystique. It's important to keep people thinking and guessing, and you want everyone to think you're singing to them.

Anyone who wants to know who I am can just read my lyrics - I've always written about who I am.

Only because The Runaways were my baby and there's no reason to get it back together except to totally have fun. If that's not the goal, then I don't want to do it.

I love sports. I love animals. I love kids. I want to save the world. So how do I combine all those things? I don't know

When you're onstage and the audience is smiling and singing and bopping along and you're all on the same level, it's the best feeling in the world. It may sound dumb and corny to say it, but it's like pure love.

Shaving my head was a millennium ritual, to not let it pass as just another New Year's Eve. A lot has happened to me in the last couple of years, personally and spiritually. I wanted to mark it for myself.

I think it's important to have mystique.

So it was out of necessity that Blackheart was born. I think it's great that now, 25 years later, we're not only putting out our own music, but are able to put out music by other bands. That's really exciting for us.

I'm concentrating on staying healthy, having peace, being happy, remembering what is important, taking in nature and animals, spending time reading, trying to understand the universe, where science and the spiritual meet.

The media says that equality for women has arrived, but if you look around, you still don't see girls playing guitars and having success with it.

I hope one day people don't look at women like they're out of their minds when they want to pick up an instrument and play. And I think we're getting a lot closer to that.

The Runaways' audience was 90 percent male. That was kind of depressing...Why don't women-our own gender-come out and support us?

Blackheart Records being 25 years old represents staying power and the fact that we weren't able to get a record out through conventional means, so we had to create this record company to put out our records if we wanted to be a band that had records to give out to their fans.

Nobody knows what anticipation is anymore. Everything is so immediate.

I think I was born strong-willed. That's not the kind of thing you can learn. The advantage is, you stick to what you believe in and rarely get pushed out of what you want to do.