144 Quotes by Joan Baez

I was writing "Diamonds and Rust' and it had nothing to do with what it turned out to be. I don't remember what it is, but I think I was writing a song. It was literally interrupted by a phone call, and it just took another curve and it came out to be what it was.

If you don't have music, you have silence. There is power in both.

We're not really pacifists, we're nonviolent soldiers.

It [my vocal] didn't sound like what I wanted to hear; the vibrato isn't what I liked anymore. So I got myself to an ear, nose and throat guy who does a lot of work with singers, and I was hoping there was a big wart on my vocal cords or something and they could scrape it off and I could have the voice I wanted. But he said, "No, for 71, that's your voice."

As long as one keeps searching, the answers will come.

To sing is to love and affirm, to fly and to soar, to coast into the hearts of the people who listen to tell them that life is to live, that love is there, that nothing is a promise, but that beauty exists, and must be hunted for and found.

Only you and I can help the sun rise each coming morning. If we don't, it may drench itself out in sorrow.

I’ve been obsessed with stopping people from blowing each other’s brains out since I was ten.

People say I’m such a pessimist, but I always was. It never stopped me from doing what I had to do. I would say I’m a realist.