My guitar is not a thing. It is an extension of myself. It is who I am.
Joan Jett
Life is strong and fragile. It's a paradox... It's both things, like quantum physics: It's a particle and a wave at the same time. It all exists all together.
You got nothing to lose. You don't lose when you lose fake friends.
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.
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.
I like to hang out with my friends. I love music. I like to go to the movies. I like to eat. I like to cook.
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.
If you really believe in yourself, you cannot listen to other people.
I grew up in a world that told girls they couldn't play rock 'n' roll.
Things work in cycles.
People like to tear you down. People are always going to take shots. You've just got to go for it.
For me the challenge isn't to be different but to be consistent.
Even though everybody's lives are different, in general we're all human beings, and we go through the same things: disappointments, the pleasures of life, life and death. That's always been a really big part of the show to me, making sure the audience feels connected, and that carries through to the album.
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.
People don't want to see women doing things they don't think women should do.
Aggressive, tough and defiant may describe me, but that leaves the impression I'm mean and I'm not. People expect me to have fangs.
Rock 'n' roll music is what gets me off.
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.
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.
Anyone who wants to know who I am can just read my lyrics - I've always written about who I am.
Well, I'll tell you, I don't know how aware teenagers are of me. I think it really depends on the teenager and how well-versed in music they are and what kind of music they like.
We all make judgments on people, but some are much more brutal than others. It's easy to say, 'Ya know, I'm not crazy about what she's wearing,' but you don't have to be nasty about it, and you don't have to be public about it.
I feel like it's my job to carry the torch.
My job is intense. It's very physical.
You follow any family around, you're going to see elation, you're going to see disharmony.
If you're secure in yourself, and even if you're not secure in yourself, you don't need to bully.
God, I always just think of myself as a jeans and T-shirt kind of person.
I'm a good person.
I'd like to just be a little bit more open to making mistakes and not worrying about it so much.
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 like the way black looks. I think I look better in darker clothes. And maybe the fact that I wear black so much makes me more aware of putting people at ease. The black is sort of the bad-guy guise, so I work overtime to make people comfortable.
A lot of people ask me why I don't expand and explore other musical areas, but I like the plain three- and four-chord rock-and-roll that I call the the semi-blues.
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.
When I came back to it, we amicably separated from Warner Bros. I just picked up where I left off, trying to write the rest of this record. It took awhile to get out.
I left my family, and I left my brother and sister, and I went and lived my dream. I saw everybody, but is it ever enough?
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.'
We always play clubs. It's not something that I feel above. Those are my favorite shows because they're intimate, they're tight, their sweaty, they're hot. You're close to the people. Those are my favorites.
Performance-wise, you really need to be down in the trenches; you need to do the hard work, for a lot of reasons: To build yourself as a performer, to get a sense of the audience, to work hard and to wonder, 'Do I really want to do this?'
I'll be working until I die.
Nobody knows what anticipation is anymore. Everything is so immediate.
I have a tough time judging myself.
I think there's nothing better than seeing a three-chord straight up rock 'n' roll band in your face with sweaty music and three minute good songs.
I had a blast doing the Warped Tour, but it's good to be home, for sure.
I'm not necessarily intimidated by really jocky guys. I can talk football with them, you know what I mean?
I love school. I was a great student.
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 plan to stay in music. I plan to keep making records.
I think what I'm going to do is get more balance in my life to still be able to go out and play the hard rock 'n' roll and do what I like to do in music.
I've done some acting and a lot of different things, but mostly it's the music.
