Quotes by Joni Mitchell

Ive looked at life from both sides now From up and down and still somehowIts lifes illusions I recallI really dont know life at all

Dont it always seem to go, that you dont know what youve got till its gone.

The thing that gave me the most pain in life, psychologically, and it gave me tremendous pain psychologically, is mans disrespect for nature.

No one likes to have less than they had before. Thats the nature of the human animal.

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; hes very misunderstood. Hes a maker of individuals, and he was a teacher of teachers.

I see music as fluid architecture.

You have this mounting aggressive ignorance with the rabbits foot of their particular religion. You dont really have any kind of spiritual law, just a kind of a rabid mental illness. The songs are a little slice of life.

Sorrow is so easy to express and yet so hard to tell.

Its in my stars to invent; I was born on Madame Curies birthday. I have this need for originals, for innovation. Thats why I like Charlie Parker.

I find a lot of poetry to be narcissistic.