Joni Mitchell > Quotes

“We are stardust, we are golden and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden.”
― Joni Mitchell

“Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone.”
― Joni Mitchell

“We love our lovin'....but not like we love our freedom.”
― Joni Mitchell

“I don’t know if I’ve learned anything yet! I did learn how to have a happy home, but I consider myself fortunate in that regard because I could’ve rolled right by it. Everybody has a superficial side and a deep side, but this culture doesn’t place much value on depth — we don’t have shamans or soothsayers, and depth isn’t encouraged or understood. Surrounded by this shallow, glossy society we develop a shallow side, too, and we become attracted to fluff. That’s reflected in the fact that this culture sets up an addiction to romance based on insecurity — the uncertainty of whether or not you’re truly united with the object of your obsession is the rush people get hooked on. I’ve seen this pattern so much in myself and my friends and some people never get off that line.
But along with developing my superficial side, I always nurtured a deeper longing, so even when I was falling into the trap of that other kind of love, I was hip to what I was doing. I recently read an article in Esquire magazine called ‘The End of Sex,’ that said something that struck me as very true. It said: “If you want endless repetition, see a lot of different people. If you want infinite variety, stay with one.” What happens when you date is you run all your best moves and tell all your best stories — and in a way, that routine is a method for falling in love with yourself over and over.
You can’t do that with a longtime mate because he knows all that old material. With a long relationship, things die then are rekindled, and that shared process of rebirth deepens the love. It’s hard work, though, and a lot of people run at the first sign of trouble. You’re with this person, and suddenly you look like an asshole to them or they look like an asshole to you — it’s unpleasant, but if you can get through it you get closer and you learn a way of loving that’s different from the neurotic love enshrined in movies. It’s warmer and has more padding to it.”
― Joni Mitchell

“All romantics meet the same fate some day.
Drunk and cynical and boring someone in some dark cafe.”
― Joni Mitchell

“you dont know what you got till its gone”
― Joni Mitchell

“Love is touching souls.”
― Joni Mitchell

“Chase away the demons, and they will take the angels with them.”
― Joni Mitchell

“people will tell you were they have gone, they'll tell you where to go, but until you get there for yourself you never really know.”
― Joni Mitchell

“So many things I would have done, but clouds got in my way.”
― Joni Mitchell

“It's life's illusions that I recall, I really don't know life at all”
― Joni Mitchell

“Will you take me as I am? Strung out on another man...California, I'm comin' home.”
― Joni Mitchell

“Just before our love got lost you said
"I am as constant as a northern star"
And I said, constantly in the darkness,
Where's that at?
If you want me I'll be in the bar.”
― Joni Mitchell

“I could drink a case of you, darlin'...and I would still be on my feet, yes I would still be on my feet...”
― Joni Mitchell

“Oh you're in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter and so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you darling
And I would still be on my feet
Oh I would still be on my feet”
― Joni Mitchell, Joni Mitchell: The Complete Poems and Lyrics

“everything comes and goes; pleasure moves on too early and trouble leaves too slow”
― joni mitchell

“We are stardust
Billion-year old carbon
And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden”
― Joni Mitchell, Joni Mitchell: The Complete Poems and Lyrics

“There are things to confess that enrich the world, and things that need not be said. ”
― Joni Mitchell

“Daydreamin' drugs the pain of living.”
― Joni Mitchell

“If you're smart or rich or lucky
Maybe you'll beat the laws of man
But the inner laws of spirit
And the outer laws of nature
No man can”
― Joni Mitchell

“And the seasons they go 'round and 'round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game.”
― Joni Mitchell, The Circle Game

“Fear is like the wilderland - Stepping stones or sinking sand ”
― Joni Mitchell

“Won't you stay
We'll put on the day
And we'll talk in present tenses”
― Joni Mitchell, Chelsea Morning

“I met a woman
She had a mouth like yours
She knew your life
She knew your devils and your deeds
And she said
"Go to him, stay with him if you can
But be prepared to bleed”
― Joni Mitchell, Blue

“But you know it's hard to tell
When you're in the spell if it's wrong or if it's real
But you're bound to lose
If you let the blues get you scared to feel”
― Joni Mitchell

“We are stardust, we are golden,
We are billion year old carbon,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.”
― Joni Mitchell

“I never loved a man as far as I could pitch my shoe.”
― Joni Mitchell

“You've got to shake your fists at lightning now, you've got to roar like forest fire
You've got to spread your light like blazes all across the sky
They're going to aim the hoses on you, show 'em you won't expire
Not till you burn up every passion, not even when you die
Come on now, you've got to try, if you're feeling contempt, well then you tell it
If you're tired of the silent night, Jesus, well then you yell it
Condemned to wires and hammers, strike every chord that you feel
That broken trees and elephant ivories conceal”
― Joni Mitchell, Joni Mitchell: The Complete Poems and Lyrics

“There's a man who's been out sailing
In a decade full of dreams
And he takes her to a schooner
And he treats her like a queen
Bearing beads from California
With their amber stones and green
He has called her from the harbor
He has kissed her with his freedom
He has heard her off to starboard
In the breaking and the breathing
Of the water weeds
While she was busy being free”
― Joni Mitchell

“I see music as fluid architecture.”
― Joni Mitchell