Joan Baez Quotes (23 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Joan Baez: 23 quotes 18 likes

Famous Joan Baez Quotes

“You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now.”

Joan Baez

Daybreak http://books.google.com/books?id=Imte1JcsQ64C&q=%22You+don't+get+to+choose+how+you're+going+to+die+Or+when+You+can+only+decide+how+you're+going+to+live+Now%22&pg=PA135#v=onepage (1968)
Variant or paraphrase: You can't decide how you're going to die. Or when. What you can decide is how you're going to live now.

“Well you burst on the scene
Already a legend
The unwashed phenomenon
The original vagabond
You strayed into my arms
And there you stayed
Temporarily lost at sea
The Madonna was yours for free
Yes the girl on the half-shell
Would keep you unharmed”

Joan Baez

Diamonds & Rust
Diamonds & Rust (1975)

“Yes, your father and Bartolo
They have fallen
And yesterday they fought and fell
But in the quest for joy and freedom
And in the struggle of this life you'll find
That there is love and sometimes more
Yes, in the struggle you will find
That you can love and be loved also

Forgive me all who are my friends
I am with you
I beg of you, do not cry”

Joan Baez

"The Ballad of Sacco and Vanzetti, Part Three"
Sacco e Vanzetti (1971)

“True he was a vocal miracle
But that's only secondary
It's the soul of the monarch butterfly
That I find a little bit scary”

Joan Baez

Caruso
Gulf Winds (1976)

“Here's to you, Nicola and Bart
Rest forever here in our hearts
The last and final moment is yours
That agony is your triumph”

Joan Baez

Here's to You
Sacco e Vanzetti (1971)

“Blessed are the persecuted
And blessed are the pure in heart
Blessed are the merciful
And blessed are the ones who mourn”

Joan Baez

"The Ballad of Sacco and Vanzetti, Part One"
Sacco e Vanzetti (1971)

Joan Baez Quotes about love

“Some Vietnam veterans have told me what they did over there when they were animals. They have been giving testimony about it to the public, to juries, to judges. Some of the juries cry, and so do some of the judges.
One Ex-Marine has a face like a Puerto Rican angel and a body count of 390. That means he and his unit killed 390 people in a variety of hideous ways, and the angel got to go count the dead bodies for the record.
And now he and a lot of his buddies are trying to make up for what we made them do. We paid the taxes that bought the war that hired the men and dropped the fire that burned the huts and killed the people who then were the bodies that Scott counted. It's a rotten thing to brainwash someone into doing the dirty part of killing while we stay at home. It's a rotten thing to pretend the war is coming to an end when it's only taken to the air. And in 1972 if you don't fight against a rotten thing you become a part of it.
What I'm asking you to do is take some risks. Stop paying war taxes, refuse the armed forces, organize against the air war, support the strikes and boycotts of farmers, workers and poor people, analyze the flag salute, give up the nation state, share your money, refuse to hate, be willing to work … in short, sisters and brothers, arm up with love and come from the shadows.”

Joan Baez

Text notes on Come From The Shadows (1972)

“Against us is the law
With its immensity of strength and power
Against us is the law!
Police know how to make a man
A guilty or an innocent
Against us is the power of police!
The shameless lies that men have told
Will ever more be paid in gold
Against us is the power of the gold!
Against us is racial hatred
And the simple fact that we are poor

My father dear, I am a prisoner
Don't be ashamed to tell my crime
The crime of love and brotherhood
And only silence is shame”

Joan Baez

"The Ballad of Sacco and Vanzetti, Part Two"
Sacco e Vanzetti (1971)

“Rebellion, revolution don't need dollars
They need this instead
Imagination, suffering, light and love
And care for every human being
You never steal, you never kill
You are a part of hope and life
The revolution goes from man to man
And heart to heart
And I sense when I look at the stars
That we are children of life
Death is small”

Joan Baez

"The Ballad of Sacco and Vanzetti, Part Two"
Sacco e Vanzetti (1971)

“Now you're telling me
You're not nostalgic
Then give me another word for it
You who are so good with words
And at keeping things vague
Because I need some of that vagueness now
It's all come back too clearly
Yes I loved you dearly
And if you're offering me diamonds and rust
I've already paid”

Joan Baez

Diamonds & Rust
Diamonds & Rust (1975)

Joan Baez Quotes

“With the precision of a hummingbird's heart
Was the lord of the monarch butterflies
One-time ruler of the world of art”

Joan Baez

Caruso
Gulf Winds (1976)

World , Art , Time , Heart

“All of us alive are survivors, but how many of us transcend survival?”

Joan Baez

And A Voice to Sing With : A Memoir (2012), p. 322

“Bangladesh, Bangladesh
When the sun sinks in the west
Die a million people of the Bangladesh”

Joan Baez

Joan Baez, in the Song for Bangladesh (1971)

People , Sun

“We're the children of the 80's, haven't we grown
We're tender as a lotus and we're tougher than stone
And the age of our innocence is somewhere in the garden”

Joan Baez

Children of the 80's (1980)

Children , Age

“Some of us may offer a surprise
Recently have you looked in our eyes
Maybe we're your conscience in disguise”

Joan Baez

Children of the 80's (1980)

“Miracles bowl me over
And often will they do so
Now I think I was asleep till I heard
The voice of the great Caruso

Bring infinity home
Let me embrace it one more time
Make it the lilies of the field
Or Caruso in his prime”

Joan Baez

Caruso
Gulf Winds (1976)

Home , Thinking , Time

“We are the warriors of the sun
The golden boys and the golden girls
For a better world”

Joan Baez

Children of the 80's (1980)

World , Girl , Boy , Sun

“The only thing that's been a worse flop than the organization of nonviolence has been the organization of violence.”

Joan Baez

Daybreak http://books.google.com/books?&id=ngoIAQAAMAAJ&q=%22the+only+thing+that%27s+been+a+worse+flop+than+the+organization+of+nonviolence+has+been+the+organization+of+violence%22 (1968)

“I went to jail for 11 days for disturbing the peace; I was trying to disturb the war.”

Joan Baez

Pop Chronicles, Show 19 - Blowin' in the Wind: Pop discovers folk music http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc19769/m1/, interview recorded 12.3.1967 http://www.library.unt.edu/resolveuid/24bc6899959ba29ac6feca22c5ad8ed9

War , Peace

“We both know what memories can bring
They bring diamonds and rust”

Joan Baez

Diamonds & Rust
Diamonds & Rust (1975)

Memory

“Perhaps he's just a vehicle
To bear us to the hills of Truth
That's Truth spelled with a great big T
And peddled in the mystic's booth
There are oh so many miracles
That the western sky exposes
Why go looking for lilacs
When you're lying in a bed of roses?”

Joan Baez

Caruso
Gulf Winds (1976)

Truth , Lying

“If we survive this century it will only be because you and I refuse to become Nazis.”

Joan Baez

Joan Baez, SF Chronicle, 16 January 1973, reprinted as the epigraph of the book Bohemia: the protoculture then and now by Richard Miller (Nelson-Hall, Chicago, 1977)