But now it's just another show, you leave em laughing when you go. And if you care, don't let them know, don't give yourself away.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the performative nature of life and the importance of keeping one's true feelings concealed.
In this quote, Joni Mitchell captures the essence of life's performances, suggesting that even in moments of joy and laughter, there exists a deeper struggle or complexity that remains hidden. The idea of leaving an audience with laughter while concealing one's true self illustrates the duality of human experience, where personal authenticity often clashes with social expectations.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a speech about the importance of authenticity in the arts.
There's a man who's been out sailing In a decade full of dreams And he takes her to a schooner And he treats her like a queen Bearing beads from California With their amber stones and green He has called her from the harbor He has kissed her with his freedom He has heard her off to starboard In the breaking and the breathing Of the water weeds While she was busy being free
Unlike some of my peers, I haven't really hit a writer's block. When I hit a block I just paint, which is an old crop rotation trick.
This is a nation that has lost the ability to be self-critical, and that makes a lie out of the freedoms.
You wake up one day and suddenly realize that your youth is behind you, even though you're still young at heart.
I have an aversion to being mislabeled. Here's a label I'd accept: I'm an 'individual.' I'm someone who can't follow, and doesn't want to lead.
What I do is unusual: chordal movements that have never been used before, changing keys and modalities mid-song.
When I first started writing plays I couldn't write good dialogue because I didn't respect how black people talked. I thought that in order to make art out of their dialogue I had to change it, make it into something different. Once I learned to value and respect my characters, I could really hear them. I let them start talking.
Authors are far closer to the truths enfolded in mystery than ordinary people, because of that very audacity of imagination which irritates their plodding critics. As only those who dare to make mistakes succeed greatly, only those who shake free the wings of their imagination brush, once in a way, the secrets of the great pale world. If such writers go wrong, it is not for the mere brains to tell them so
I have fallen in love with the imagination. And if you fall in love with the imagination, you understand that it is a free spirit. It will go anywhere, and it can do anything.
As film makers or any artiste that put work out there, what you are doing on your level is that you are putting consciousness out into the world.
It doesn't matter if you use a box camera or you use a Leica; the important thing is what motivates you when you are photographing.
Toward his critics, the artist harbors a defensive ace: knowledge that the future will erase the present.
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