The thing that gave me the most pain in life, psychologically, and it gave me tremendous pain psychologically, is man's disrespect for nature.
— Joni Mitchell
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.
My individual, psychological descent coincided, ironically, with my ascent into the public eye.
White rhythm is waltzes, marches, and the polka. In Africa, rhythm is used for a celebratory groove, but white rhythm doesn't have such an enormous vocabulary of spirits. It's basically militant.
I'm a night owl.
I find a lot of poetry to be narcissistic.
I used to be monastic, almost. Now I'm like a Tibetan that has discovered hamburgers and television. I'm catching up on Americana.
I conceived in art college at the age of 20, near the end of term.
I had made all these rules for myself: I'm not writing social commentary, I'm not writing love songs.
Buddy Holly and the early rock 'n' roll was no lighter than the way I play. It's very minimal.
Not to dismiss Gershwin, but Gershwin is the chip; Ellington was the block.
I can't remember anything I ever wrote.
Nobody understood The Reoccurring Dream, but after September 11, when we were coerced to do a national duty and go out and shop, surely people could begin to see what I was getting at.
The Beginning of Survival is my best album. I am very proud of it, and I am surprised at it, too. I thought some of Travelogue was a little heavy, but I don't think this is heavy.
We have a war dictator who was not elected, he snuck in. so he punishes people that threaten him in any way, or even say something he doesn't like. It has no resemblance to democracy.
This is a nation that has lost the ability to be self-critical, and that makes a lie out of the freedoms.
I learned a woman is never an old woman.
I'd had a rough childhood.
The considerations of a corporation, especially now, have nothing to do with art or music.
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.
My heart is broken in the face of the stupidity of my species.
In terms of fiction, I'd rather go out and have a good time than read a book about someone having a good or bad time.
I'm not a pitiable creature. It's just that I suffer very eloquently.
The coming of the kids hasn't come out in my art yet.
I certainly don't want to be an angry old artist.
There are things to confess that enrich the world, and things that need not be said.
Paul Simon started piling up a lot of words, more than the bar could handle, and I stopped!
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.
I think I would go further into fine arts, I think, if I were to continue.
My name had gone stale, and no matter how progressive I got, it was my time to die.
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.
You have this mounting aggressive ignorance with the rabbit's foot of their particular religion. You don't really have any kind of spiritual law, just a kind of a rabid mental illness. The songs are a little slice of life.
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.
When you're trying to pass on the best of the stuff you're culling to what should be a hungry culture but you have it diminished... that's kind of disappointing.
My goal as a writer is more to comfort than to disturb.
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.
Americans have decided to be stupid and shallow since 1980.
I don't like being too looked up at or too looked down on. I prefer meeting in the middle to being worshiped or spat out.
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.
I don't like to make fluffy little songs, but now I want to make some light songs.
An unhappy mother does not raise a happy child.
My life came down to being a granny and watching a lot of television.
You know, Neil Young is singing Rock n' roll will never die, and Neil never rocked and rolled in his life. I mean, he rocked, but he didn't roll. He has got no swing in him.
Ira Gershwin, shame on him. I mean, some of the writing.
With a painting, you don't have to go back and paint it again.
I have one piece of music, since 1997, and I don't see it having lyrics. Where does it go in this world? So I haven't recorded it.
I hate show business.
No one likes to have less than they had before. That's the nature of the human animal.
Everyone I know has attention deficit, and they say it with great pride. It's a bad time to be right.
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?
