“It would never be enough to say simply that I loved Janis. She meant much more to me than that. When I was born, Janis was six years old. She took me under her wing as soon as I was able to hobble after her. On the wall of the bedroom we shared, Mother hung pictures of two girls giggling and telling stories to each other. That is how I remember my early years, intertwined with my constant companion and interpreter of the world, my elder sister. She helped me with everything and took me everywhere. In turn, I idolized her. “ - From the book Love, Jams “She believed that no matter who you are – race, dress, pimply face, whatever – everybody deserves equal respect and love…People make her out as a tragic figure because she died of drugs. They forget being around Janis was having a good time. She was a very upbeat, exciting person. She was always fun, a memory I have of her from the earliest days in the family.”
“That’s the thing about her letters. They’re really fresh and spontaneous, not sifted through the gray curtain of her death… When you read her letters, she’s alive and she’s fun. They bring you back into the moment.” - Interview for the Denver Post “I have finally come to the realization that the sister I knew, the memories I have are mine, they’re inside me and it’s my relationship with her. That’s different than the woman who is a social icon. The fans that have a relationship with her – she speaks somewhere deep within them – that their relationship with her is just as powerful and just as meaningful to them, and I don’t think those have to necessarily be the same thing. So I look at it as…after her death Janis developed a second career. The second career is being a social icon and a social icon’s job essentially is to reflect back to people some aspects of that person’s personality which society wants to use collectively at a certain point in time. So she’s not a whole person, that’s not what an icon is; they’re a caricature of just portions of a person’s personality”