Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I feel an extraordinary amount of sympathy for anybody working at a major label right now because their lives are over.
Those who can ask without shame are viewing themselves in collaboration with-rather than in competition with-the world.
I had very literal parents and I wanted to survive with metaphor and art, and there was a real sense of shame around it.
I think I've always felt as a band and as a musician and a music business person, I've always felt like an outsider, period.
I draw the line at letting people into my songwriting cave. To me, that's where the alchemy happens and where the mystery is.
When you're afraid of someone's judgment, you can't connect with them. You're too preoccupied with the task of impressing them.
The pattern's laid out on the bed With dozens of colors of thread But you've got the needle I guess that's the point in the end
For most of human history, musicians, artists, they've been part of the community — connectors and openers, not untouchable stars.
If you come across an American artist right now who has no political opinions or is afraid of talking politics, be very concerned.
You know, there are so many snarky angry critics out there who are just sort of looking to tear down whoever is getting talked about.
Our nature is to desperately want to believe and to take what we believe is the quickest path there even against our better judgment.
I don't feel at home in New Orleans. I don't feel at home in Austin or L.A. And I just felt immediately at home in northern Australia.
The challenge is to just focus on what's actually happening, focus on the people who get it, and focus on the people who are listening.
I maintain couchsurfing and crowdsurfing are basically the same thing — you're falling into the audience and you're trusting each other.
I make the music that I want to make and make the show that I want to make. If you like it, you come. If you don't like it, you don't have to.
I have a handful of really close relationships in my life and I depend on those people heavily to carry me through and to help me stay steady.
The perfect tools aren't going to help us if we can't face each other and give and receive fearlessly, but more important, to ask without shame.
I've always been a creative workaholic. I have never had a period of my life where I didn't have at least half a dozen projects going on at once.
I remember being a teenager and being really impressed by "let's sit around and b*tch" people, and I have so little time for those people nowadays.
On many days, harder than the act of making the art itself is the act of sharing it and living in a culture that you know is built to tear you down.
Everyone I know shares toothbrushes. Everyone I know sleeps on each other's floor. Everyone I know uses what they've got and shares what they've got.
I think to say that meditation is helpful to artists is true and it's great, but it's also essentially helpful to any kind of process of, just, life.
I feel like I've gotten to the point in my career and in my life where I can allow myself to write whatever comes into my head and not judge it too harshly.
It is terrifying to people when women step up and start owning the story that they have not owned. And I'm seeing so much of this, and it is a seismic shift.
There's no blueprint; getting married doesn't make you boring, having kids doesn't make you boring, having money doesn't necessarily have to make you boring.
Collecting the dots. Then connecting them. And then sharing the connections with those around you. This is how a creative human works. Collecting, connecting, sharing.
I think people have been obsessed with the wrong question, which is how do we make people pay for music? What if we started asking, how do we let people pay for music?
I don't think of myself as particularly cursed or blessed. I think I got dealt a set of cards, and I'm playing with them, sometimes in heels, sometimes in combat boots.
The challenge in my life really is keeping the balance between feeling creatively energized and fulfilled without feeling overwhelmed and like Im in the middle of a battlefield.
In some way, my fundamental feeling about music is that it's impossible to put a price tag on it. Human beings made music before they made a lot of other things, including tools.
The challenge in my life really is keeping the balance between feeling creatively energized and fulfilled without feeling overwhelmed and like I'm in the middle of a battlefield.
Bands like Nirvana had theatrical sensibilities, playing with image, challenging assumptions people were making about them, the apex being Kurt Cobain in a dress to make a point.
When you're an artist, nobody ever tells you or hits you with the magic wand of legitimacy. You have to hit your own head with your own handmade wand. And you feel stupid doing it.
People had this idea about becoming rock stars packing stadiums instead of having the goal of becoming what musicians used to be in terms of how they would perform and connect people.
I think one of the greatest gifts you can give to someone is just access to the possibility of freedom that you don't have to be totally depressed and enslaved by your own environment.
I firmly believe in music being as free as possible. Unlocked. Shared and spread. In order for artists to survive and create, their audiences need to step up and directly support them.
The minute I spend any energy defending myself, explaining myself, or in the worst case scenario, trying to please those who are criticizing me, I will, you know, just fall off a cliff.
In both the art and the business worlds, the difference between the amateurs and the professionals is simple: The professionals know they're winging it. The amateurs pretend they're not.
One thing about being a performer is you're not just doing an intellectual job behind a desk; you're out there performing and being looked at, being assessed for really superficial stuff.
In other words, let's give our young women the right weapons to fight with as they charge naked into battle, instead of ordering them to get back in the house and put some goddamn clothes on.
I kind of rely on my artist friends to make my physical music worth buying by having them all come together and create beautiful artwork that everyone is gonna want to own to support my record.
We can only connect the dots we collect, which makes everything you write about you... your connections are the thread that you weave into the cloth that becomes the story that only you can tell.
Neil Gaiman swooped into my life though another friend, Jason Webley, who knew we were fans of each other's work and introduced us via email. Neil and I, like me and Ben, just hit it off instantly.
Asking for help with shame says: You have the power over me. Asking with condescension says: I have the power over you. But asking for help with gratitude says: We have the power to help each other.
I think a good role model has to be sexy. Real, empowered, self-possessed women are sexy. When you're really in control of your choices, your mood, your body, and your opinions, people find you sexy.
I think being a woman in any business that's dominated by men, you have your garden variety pros and cons, where you learn how to focus and harness your various powers and weaknesses for better or for good.
You tour and you work hard and you take care of your fans and very real things lead to other real things. There's never been some fantastic fluke or break in my career, it has all been very slow and steady.
I think it's so important to have a practice, because the consciousness isn't perfection or enlightenment or any of that bullshit. The consciousness is, "Oh, I'm walking down the street and I'm doing nothing."
If you stuck me in a room and gave me art-making tools but told me no one would ever see the results, I don't think I'd have much desire to make art. What I do comes from a deep desire to be seen and to see others.
My number-one goal is to never feel like I'm strictly defining myself. The minute I feel like I'm doing that as anything - as theatrical, as feminist, as songwriter - I feel like the minute I name it, I'm stuck in a box.