I started out to be a person on the street, just like everybody else. I didn't start out to be a singer. But I got sort of swept up in this singing thing, and after I got involved in it it got really important to me if I was good or not.
Interpretation
Janis Joplin reflects on her unexpected journey to stardom and the importance of self-improvement.
In this quote, Janis Joplin shares her humble beginnings and how her passion for singing evolved from a casual interest into a significant part of her identity. It illustrates the idea that success can often come unexpectedly and how one's dedication to mastery can become a central pursuit in life.
In practice
In a motivational speech to students about pursuing their dreams and passions.
I gotta go on doin' it the way I see it...I got no choice but to take it like I see it. I'm here to have a party while I'm on this earth...I'm gettin' it now, today. I don't even know where I'm gonna be twenty years from now, so I'm just gonna keep on rockin', cause if I start saving up bits and pieces of me...man, there ain't gonna be nothing left for Janis.
When I sing, I feel like when you're first in love. It's more than sex. It's that point two people can get to they call love, when you really touch someone for the first time, but it's gigantic, multiplied by the whole audience. I feel chills.
Like most girls I'm always really self-conscious about do I look fat, if my legs are short, if I'm weird shaped, but when I go on stage, man, it never occurs to me. I think I look beautiful.
I won't quit to become someone's old lady.
Audiences like their blues singers to be miserable.
You can feel all things at once, so why not wear all things at once?
So many good things have happened to me in the game of baseball. When I do allow myself a chance to think about it, it's almost like a storybook career. You feel so blessed to have been able to compete this long.
It's always an honor to be ranked high, but whatever is said about you, you take it and then take a realistic look at yourself and who you are.
The most important decision I've made in business? The choices of people I have around me. When I first started I brought everybody with me, my homies from the neighborhood, criminals. I just said, 'Come on everybody, we made it.' Then I had to realize we didn't make it. I made it.
In our business, things look like a failure until they're not. It's pretty binary transitions.
Starting and growing a business is as much about the innovation, drive and determination of the people who do it as it is about the product they sell.
With the Supremes I made so much money so fast all I wanted to do was buy clothes and pretty things. Now I'm comfortable with money and it's comfortable with me.
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