Joan Baez Quotes

My father was a physicist and also an activist. My first public protest was with my dad at Stanford. I came by all that honestly.

- Joan Baez

We were raised with that discussion about violence and non-violence, and we all pretty much came up on the side of non-violence. That became my foundation with politics and my livelihood.

- Joan Baez

I have hope in people, in individuals. Because you don't know what's going to rise from the ruins.

- Joan Baez

The hardest song to write is a protest song, a topical song with meaning.

- Joan Baez

The only thing that's been a worse flop than the organization of non-violence has been the organization of violence.

- Joan Baez

Nonviolence is a flop. The only bigger flop is violence.

- Joan Baez

During the 'ballad' years for me, the politics was latent; I was just falling in love with the ballads and my boyfriend. And there was the beauty of the songs.

- Joan Baez

It seems to me that those songs that have been any good, I have nothing much to do with the writing of them. The words have just crawled down my sleeve and come out on the page.

- Joan Baez

Hypothetical questions get hypothetical answers.

- Joan Baez

Action is the antidote to despair.

- Joan Baez

My dread is for my show to be a nostalgia act. So the key to it is how do we keep it fresh?

- Joan Baez

You may not know it, but at the far end of despair, there is a white clearing where one is almost happy.

- Joan Baez

I didn't go through the routine of singing in small clubs and doing open mics and working so hard the way a lot of people do and did. It was just an overnight kind of thing.

- Joan Baez

If people have to put labels on me, I'd prefer the first label to be human being, the second label to be pacifist, and the third to be folk singer.

- Joan Baez

Someone had to change the world. And obviously I was the one for the job.

- Joan Baez

I spend a lot of time with Buddhists. I'm not a Buddhist, but their relationship with death interests me.

- Joan Baez

I'm lucky to have met so many people who have been involved in peace and who have been peace prize winners.

- Joan Baez

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.

- Joan Baez

I think music has the power to transform people, and in doing so, it has the power to transform situations - some large and some small.

- Joan Baez

The longer you practice nonviolence and the meditative qualities of it that you will need, the more likely you are to do something intelligent in any situation.

- Joan Baez

That's all nonviolence is - organized love.

- Joan Baez

Instead of getting hard ourselves and trying to compete, women should try and give their best qualities to men - bring them softness, teach them how to cry.

- Joan Baez

I see a young man playing 'Plaisir d'Amour' on guitar. I knew I didn't want to go to college; I was already playing a ukulele, and after I saw that, I was hooked. All I wanted to do was play guitar and sing.

- Joan Baez

I've never had a humble opinion. If you've got an opinion, why be humble about it?

- Joan Baez

The easiest kind of relationship for me is with ten thousand people. The hardest is with one.

- Joan Baez

As we know, forgiveness of oneself is the hardest of all the forgivenesses.

- Joan Baez

Mostly what I listen to when I turn on my little iPod is opera.

- Joan Baez

The foundation of my beliefs is the same as it was when I was 10. Non-violence.

- Joan Baez

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

If it's natural to kill, how come men have to go into training to learn how?

- Joan Baez

I've never been an optimist.

- Joan Baez