Joan Jett Quotes

One of the mistakes I made was believing that the rock n' roll genre as a genre was much more free than the whole pop or R&B scene.

God, I always just think of myself as a jeans and T-shirt kind of person.

I tend to keep my private life private. I think it's important to have mystique. It's important to keep people thinking and guessing, and you want everyone to think you're singing to them.

I leave for the show at least an hour ahead, and I do some vocal warm-ups, and that's pretty much it.

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.

People don't want to see women doing things they don't think women should do.

When I met you you were oh so sweet, now you give me the bread and you take all the meat.

Fetish is a straight-up sex song.

My parents taught me I could be anything in the world I wanted to be.

I think what people see in me is one slice of who I am. It does permeate my life in the sense that I don't like to be told what to do, or how to be, or how I can do it. But I'm probably a lot tamer than people would expect.

I think it's what the times are demanding. If you're talking about the popular artists, they collaborate with a lot of different people and it seems to be in vogue now. It probably is indicative of the times.

I wouldn't say no to other kinds of musical opportunities. I guess that it just depends on what it was or what it required me to do, and if I felt that it compromised my own soul.

I learned how to scream from Marc Bolan.

When you write songs you're commenting on love, you're commenting on sex, relationships, whatever it is that you decide to write about it. And I've wanted to write about politics or spiritual ideas for years.

Beyond just writing about falling in love and out of love and wanting to do certain things and going out and partying and all the things that I grew up writing about, I want to write about deeper things.

Happiness doesn't necessarily lie in material things. You just have to put yourself in a position to be happy. If you can do what you love for a living, that's a good start.

Well you know I've been in that place too where you worry about what everybody thinks of you, am I popular, do people care, are they looking at me, all that stuff. That's a drag, man. Having to worry about fitting in, am I cool enough to ANYTHING.

We were really grown up for our age and it was an incredible special band.

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 know music is subjective.

I've always got something to say.

I plan to stay in music. I plan to keep making records.

Before I settled on music, I wanted to be an archaeologist, an astronaut, all sorts of really diverse things.

I've been able to do a lot of things a lot of people haven't, that other people would dream of. I've been able to live out my fantasies, and dreams! So, I'm real lucky.

And you have a record company behind it, this is a key too, you need people to fight for your records, at least a little bit. So if you have a great song, it's catchy, and you've got a little bit of help, I think that's all you need. But there hasn't been that in music.

I don't like to say where I'll be in 10 years.

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'm not necessarily intimidated by really jocky guys. I can talk football with them, you know what I mean?

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.

Being onstage is everything thats good about life.

Cutting meat out of your diet is the best thing you can do for animals and your own health.

I want to be singing to everybody, and I want everybody to think that I'm singing to them. Guys, girls and everyone in between.

You gotta not care about what people think in general about you. I'm not talking about bad stuff, if you're a nasty person, because I don't consider myself a mean person, I consider that I know what i want and I'm tough. But I'm very emotional and un-tough on a lot of levels, I cry very easily, I'm sensitive and I don't think that's a bad thing.

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.

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.

I had a blast doing the Warped Tour, but it's good to be home, for sure.

I'd like to just be a little bit more open to making mistakes and not worrying about it so much.

A girl can do what she wants to do / And that's what I'm gonna do,

I'll be working until I die.

I was in drama, wanted to be an actor.

It's hard to have a dialogue when you're name-calling.

Can't break free from the things that you do. I wanna walk, but I run back to you, that's why I hate myself for loving you.

I don't know if I miss it per se, but I do miss the fact that there just doesn't seem to be any rock 'n' roll out there anyplace. Everything does seem kind of tame. It's even hard in Manhattan to go out and find a good band to go see.

I hope one day people don't look at women like they're out of their minds when they want to pick up an instrument and play. And I think we're getting a lot closer to that.

You got nothing to lose, you don't lose when you lose fake friends.

Women play cellos and violins in symphony orchestras. They're playing Beethoven and Bach. What do you mean they can't play rock and roll?

When you're singing songs about love and sex, you want everyone to think you're singing to them. Whether you're a boy, a girl, a woman, a man - whatever you're into, I can be that.

Things work in cycles.

You want to have butterflies in your stomach, because if you don't, if you walk out onstage complacent, that's not a good thing.

I think the one-on-one gigs connecting with the fans - is the most important thing. That will help build your fan base. They'll talk about you, and word spreads. Those things are just as important as knowing how to play an E chord.

I wanted to be an actor, an astrologer, an astronaut; a lot of different things were going through my mind. But I also wanted to play guitar. I mentioned to my parents that I wanted an electric guitar for Christmas. They got me one! I sat there all Christmas morning making a lot of loud horrible noise.

A lot of the touring stuff has become a drag. Traveling itself is a drag. Anyone who's been to an airport knows that.

A girl playing rock and roll, it's saying I own my sexuality and I'm going to tell you what I'm going to do. And I think people just find that threatening.

That was exactly why people didn't want to give us any kind of life, because we were threatening their status quo, and they just didn't want to have room for girls playing rock 'n' roll. It bothered them. First, people just tried to get around it by saying, "Oh, wow, isn't that cute? Girls playing rock 'n' roll!," and when we said, "Yeah, right, this isn't a phase; it's what we want to do with our lives," it became, "Oh! You must be a bunch of sluts. You dykes, you whores." That's what it became. Then it became a name-calling contest.

My job is intense. It's very physical.

Record stores are the backbone of the recorded music culture. It's where we go to network, browse around, and find new songs to love. The stores whose staff live for music have spread the word about exciting new things faster and with more essence than either radio or the press. Any artist that doesn't support the wonderful ma and pa record stores across America is contributing to our own extinction.

In pop music, you say, 'You can do what you want to me.' Rock 'n' roll says, 'I'm gonna do what I want to you.'

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.

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.

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.

I started The Runaways with Sandy West. We shared the dream of girls playing rock and roll. Sandy was an exuberant and powerful drummer. So underrated, she was the caliber of John Bonham. I am overcome from the loss of my friend. I always told her, we changed the world.

Get a book, so you know where to put your fingers. Otherwise it would be tough to learn. Also you have to fight through getting callouses on your fingers because it hurts, you are pressing your fingers on metal strings, they will hurt at first until you start building up callouses.

Women are still second-class citizens.

If you're secure in yourself, and even if you're not secure in yourself, you don't need to bully.

The thing I get out of it is the connection. I remember going to shows as a kid and meeting eyes with the people in the band, and knowing they are meeting eyes with you, and that moment, that smile, and that's your moment. I want to create millions of little moments for other people.

I sure saw a lot of kids that I'm sure didn't know a lot about us, or we were definitely new to them. The kids who came up to me afterward, we'd talk about music, sign a lot of autographs. So I'm sure we made a lot of new fans.

Just be yourself and everything will fall in line, the way it's supposed to be. If you're yourself, that's the best thing you can do, because you can never go "damn if I'd only been myself." Live an authentic life and you don't have to worry about your reputation.

People are very sincere in their praise, and you can't take it lightly.

Nobody knows what anticipation is anymore. Everything is so immediate.

There's nothing wrong with being single and not getting married and being, you know, just an old single lady. Who cares?

I'm really happy doing what I'm doing. I'm not looking to do anything else. I love what I do. I love music. I love playing. I love touring.

I feel like it's my job to carry the torch.

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 don't look good in beige.

You know I don't care if the world thinks I'm smart or not.

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 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 think it's important to have mystique.

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'm having fun opening up. Sort of struggling to get the audience into it. It's good. It makes you fight. Not fight like antagonistic. But fight for what you believe.

To reach the highest level you have to not just have a dream and focus but you also have to make sure you are writing great songs, and if you feel they're what you want to represent you, that is key. But getting out on the road is key. And get your music out there. Maybe something catches, maybe it gets picked up and used on television, you just never know.

Girls have got balls. They're just a little higher up, that's all.

If you really believe in yourself, you cannot listen to other people.

Partly, I like a bad reputation. But I also want a reputation of being a good person.

Well before I was in a band, I wanted to be everything from a vet, an astronaut, an archeologist was a big one. It could be very wide-ranging because I had a lot of different interests including music so I'm very happy where I wound up.

I do not knowingly kill any living thing - including insects or rodents - and I thank my food for sustaining me.

Vegan With A Vengeance is on my kitchen shelf. This fun and creative book is delicious for people like me, who don't eat pets.

Disharmony is natural in any band.

Success isn't one straight line - it's a ladder, and there's always another rung above you to reach out for. Like anything else, there are ups and downs.

I've done some acting and a lot of different things, but mostly it's the music.

The internet did not exist when I started out, the fact that bands can build a website and get all their information out there is really helpful. If you really love to play, I would say to keep doing it, because it's what you love and what you have to do.

You can never say never. I'm not sure if I even want to. I just don't know. Some of it is just not able to be reached, you can't remember some of it and the people that could help you remember have passed away. It might have to remain a remain.

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.

Something happens, you can't even put your finger on it, and then you don't quite feel the same way anymore. All of a sudden, there's fights or something and you are going "who is this person?" I've seen this happen to other people and it has happened to me.

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.

I don't wait till stage to use my sexuality. My zipper's down right now. I mean, I use it all the time.

You follow any family around, you're going to see elation, you're going to see disharmony.

The better your base is, and the more you know from experience, the better off you'll be when you try and make the big move.

I have a tough time judging myself.