77 Quotes by Janis Ian

A friend of mine once told me 'For people like us, the meaning is the search for the meaning.

So remember those who win the gameLose the love they sought to gainIn debitures of quality and dubious integrityTheir small-town eyes will gape at youIn dull surprise when payment dueExceeds accounts received at seventeen

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.

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.

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.

I had a vague idea of the song's impact in the '60s, but that was tempered by the hate mail and threats I was receiving. It was only about ten years ago, when I finally put it back in my show because so many people were asking for it, that I understood 'Society's Child' real impact.

At the end of the day, all you can hope for is to go on. The older I get, the more I realize that just keeping on keeping on is what life's all about.

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.

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