Janis Ian quotes

Janis Ian is an American singer-songwriter and musician, celebrated for her insightful lyrics and emotional performances. Best known for songs like "At Seventeen," her work has earned critical acclaim and multiple Grammy awards. She continues to inspire audiences with her artistry and advocacy. Here are 35 of her quotes:

There will always be those people who are just backward and ignorant. There will always be those people. They need somebody to feel superior to.

Janis Ian

Once you're halfway home, you know that you can probably get the rest of the way there.

Janis Ian

I learned the truth at seventeen, That love was meant for beauty queens, And high school girls with clear skinned smiles, Who married young and then retired.

Janis Ian

I started 'Society's Child' on a bus in East Orange as I was going home from school. I saw a black and white couple sitting there and started thinking about it.

Janis Ian

The best thing you can learn from the worst times of your life is that it always gets better. It may take a month, a year, a decade, but it will get better if you leave yourself open to it.

Janis Ian

Some people would rather stay ignorant and self-satisfied.

Janis Ian

I think all of us thought that by the '70s, at the latest the '80s, all the world's problems would be solved and everyone would be getting along fine. And instead we saw that Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated that year, Robert F. Kennedy died. We saw that it was going to be a lot more difficult than I think we had thought.

Janis Ian

It seems to be part of the human condition to need someone you can look down on. I still don't get that one.

Janis Ian

I bought all my friends guitars and I had a good time with my money. But then one day the IRS came knocking.

Janis Ian

The money when you're having a hit is great, but money can be taken from you. What can't be taken from you is the talent and the effect your work has.

Janis Ian

Artists are taught to be humble about their impact, especially in folk music. It's so ingrained that I have a hard time even thinking I had any impact other than what a normal hit song would have.

Janis Ian

Going off the road just leaves me more time to be a writer.

Janis Ian

At the end of the day, if you don't have a record contract, a studio or a guitar, you can still write songs. You're still an artist. That's something no one can take away.

Janis Ian

I want to do some fiction writing, I've had some pretty good luck with short stories, I'd like to do a couple of larger things.

Janis Ian

It's neat to have finally reached a point where I can accept what I was and what I am.

Janis Ian

I think one of the reasons musicians keep doing what they do and writers keep doing what they do, is that we're totally unsuited for anything else. And I for one am much too lazy.

Janis Ian

I feel I was born with the music coming to me, and that's not something to be wasted.

Janis Ian

I know just enough Japanese to get by if I get lost and greet an audience properly, just from having a lot of Japanese friends and being there over the years.

Janis Ian

I've always been an avid reader. If I don't have a book in the car, I'll stop and pick one up just to have something to read. I don't even remember learning to read.

Janis Ian

I played for anybody and everybody from the time I started playing guitar, when I was 10 or 11.

Janis Ian

I gave guitar lessons. I tried to join bands. My mom always said it was obvious that nothing was going to stop me.

Janis Ian

When people used to call me a political writer, it was kind of confusing because I was always much more interested in the social end of things which hinges on the political, but it isn't really part of it.

Janis Ian