I thrive on change. That's probably why my chord changes are weird, because chords depict emotions. They'll be going along on one key and I'll drop off a cliff, and suddenly they will go into a whole other key signature. That will drive some people crazy, but that's how my life is.
Joni Mitchell
Sorrow is so easy to express and yet so hard to tell.
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.
When the world becomes a massive mess with nobody at the helm, it's time for artists to make their mark.
You wake up one day and suddenly realize that your youth is behind you, even though you're still young at heart.
I see music as fluid architecture.
My heart is broken in the face of the stupidity of my species.
Rachmaninoff made a musician out of me. His 'Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini' was the piece that sent me into raptures. It spoke to me. To me, it was a tender entreaty for the misunderstood.
Fame is a series of misunderstandings surrounding a name.
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.
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.
Edith Piaf knocked my socks off when I was 8, but I didn't know what she was singing about.
The thing that gave me the most pain in life, psychologically, and it gave me tremendous pain psychologically, is man's disrespect for nature.
No one likes to have less than they had before. That's the nature of the human animal.
An unhappy mother does not raise a happy child.
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.
Americans have decided to be stupid and shallow since 1980.
At the point where I'm trying to force something and it's not happening, and I'm getting frustrated with, say, writing a poem, I can go and pick up the brushes and start painting. At the point where the painting seems to not be going anywhere, I go and pick up the guitar.
This is a nation that has lost the ability to be self-critical, and that makes a lie out of the freedoms.
I sing my sorrow, and I paint my joy.
But I have a tremendous will to live and a tremendous 'joie de vivre,' alternating with irritability.
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.
I loved Debussy, Stravinsky, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, anything with romantic melodies, especially the nocturnes. Nietzsche was a hero, especially with 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra.' He gets a bad rap; he's very misunderstood. He's a maker of individuals, and he was a teacher of teachers.
The God of the Old Testament is the depiction of evil.
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 have always thought of myself as a painter derailed by circumstance.
I'm a method actress in my songs, which is why it's hard to sing them.
To enjoy my music, you need depth and emotionality.
My family could only afford to get me the box of eight Crayola crayons, but I craved the one with all 24 colours. I wanted magenta and turquoise and silver and gold.
I see bodies as individual things.
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.
It's in my stars to invent; I was born on Madame Curie's birthday. I have this need for originals, for innovation. That's why I like Charlie Parker.
I learned a woman is never an old woman.
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.
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?
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 wanted to paint in a folk-artist-y way. My heroes were Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse, and Rembrandt. I think Picasso is about as a modern as I got. But I incorporated things that they rejected as well as movements that happened later.
Augustine, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath are confessional writers and all three make me sick. I have nothing in common with them.
I came through folk music simply because it was easy to get into it.
I'm irresponsible to my career in order to paint. Because painting is obsessive. I forget to eat. I forget to sleep.
What I do is unusual: chordal movements that have never been used before, changing keys and modalities mid-song.
Van Gogh was impulsive.
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.
Drag wasn't always counterculture.
I'm a very analytical person, a somewhat introspective person; that's the nature of the work I do.
I think I would go further into fine arts, I think, if I were to continue.
I see the entire world as Eden, and every time you take an inch of it away, you must do so with respect.
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.
