Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I can spend a lot of time on the internet as a substitute for TV. This is part of the reason why I'm not a good girlfriend - you can't sit down with me and watch a movie. I hate being strapped down to stay with something.
When you're famous weird things will happen that end up hurting your feelings. I'll get a letter from somebody I knew a while ago and I'll be really touched. Then I'll turn over the envelope and their business card falls out.
I only write when I'm angry or sad, so because that's when I just have to write... If I'm having a good time and I'm happy and things are going really well, why would I want to stop what I'm doing to go and write at the piano?
When you're surrounded by all these people, it can be even lonelier than when you're by yourself. You can be in a huge crowd, but if you don't feel like you can trust anybody or talk to anybody, you feel like you're really alone.
I don't mind making a fool of myself. I felt like people would be accepting of that because, to me, that seems like an interesting way to do a show. I've always thought that it's interesting to watch people work things out on stage.
I like the idea of the idler wheel - it just sits in between things, but it makes such a big difference in the way that the machine is working. That concept has always been something that has interested me, but I didn't really know why.
This world is bullshit. And you shouldn't model your life — wait a second — you shouldn't model your life about what you think that we think is cool and what we're wearing and what we're saying and everything. Go with yourself. Go with yourself.
I lie in an early bed thinking late thoughts, waiting for the black to replace my blue. I do not struggle in your web because it was my aim to get caught. But daddy long legs I feel that I'm finally growing weary of waiting to be consumed by you.
He goes along just as a water lily Gentle on the surface of his thoughts his body floats Unweighed down by passion or intensity Yet unaware of the depth upon which he coasts And he finds a home in me For what misfortune sows, he knows my touch will reap
But I honestly don't read critics. My dad reads absolutely everything ever written about me. He calls me up to read ecstatic reviews, but I always insist that I can't hear them. If you give value to the good reviews, you have to give value to the criticism.
I was told so many times when I was a kid, 'I can't be friends with you, you're too intense, you're too sad all the time.' I really thought that when I made the first album that everyone would understand me, all the people who weren't my friends would become my friends.
It pisses me off to think we're conditioned to push away bad feelings and think anything that's uncomfortable is to be avoided. When things are really bad nowadays, I recognize the value in it because it's me filling my quota- it's going to make my joy more intense later.
I got a lot of problems, but I'm really good at intuiting what I need to do to be happy with whatever I create. I know when to stop myself, I know when to start, I know when to leave something alone. I guess I just kind of indulge that completely, and so I just take my time.
Life is all about the friendship and the love and the music. It sounds silly, but it is. I want to have that experience as much as I can as an adult, not as a kid doing something that people are telling her she has to do. If anyone gets in my way, I'm going to get them out of my way.
How can you go wrong with two people in love? If a good boy loves a good girl, good. If a good boy loves another good boy, good. And if a good girl loves the goodness in good boys and good girls, then all you have is more goodness, and goodness has nothing to do with sexual orientation.
I just tend to do things to myself that I don't realize I'm doing. Sometimes I bite my lip so that it splits and hurts, and yet I can't stop. And sometimes I'd play shows on the last run, I'd scratch my neck while I was singing, and I'd horrified to see these red streaks of blood after.
I really don't think anything I do is a mistake. It could be if I didn't learn from it. But in the long run, no matter what I do for the rest of my life, I'll know I did something wonderful by saying what I felt. That's what I said at the awards there: "Go with yourself." And that's what I did.
My problem was that I felt ashamed of feeling sad or angry. Now, I don't hide my vulnerability in my lyrics. There's no way I was going to get raped and not get something out of it. I learned about power and hope and forgiveness. I like who I am now and I wouldn't be who I am if that hadn't happened.
You know, the age thing really bugs me. Do people have more of a right to not like what I say because I'm 19? I'm up here because of what I write. Obviously, I must know something, or I wouldn't have been nominated for Best New Artist. Sometimes it's like, "You're right. My mother wrote these songs."
One of my friends said to me, "Oh yeah, of course you aren't writing." So I was like, "The next time you see me, I'm gonna have a new song." I wrote "Criminal" in 45 minutes when everyone else went to lunch because I had to have a hit. I can force myself to do the work, but only if someone is right up behind me.
I had really bad obsessive-compulsive disorder. At its worst, I was compelled to leave my house at three o'clock in the morning and go out in the alley because I just knew that the paper-towel roll I threw in the recycling bin was uncomfortable, like it was lying the wrong way, and I would be down in the garbage.
My favorite thing is drums. I have a very, very big memory - and I don't have many big memories - of going to see the movie Tap, with Gregory Hines. During one scene, he's in jail, and there's some water dripping down, and he starts tap dancing. I just like that feeling of: "I'm in charge, I can do whatever I want."
I think I'm better at live shows than I used to be because I'm way more comfortable with the uncomfortable pauses between songs. Now, rather than trying to talk or do a costume change, I'll use those moments for myself. I listen to what other people are playing, or just rest, or dance, even though I don't know how to.
I'm such an incredibly, stupidly sensitive person that everything that happens to me, I experience it really intensely. I feel everything very deeply. And when you feel things deeply and you think about things a lot and you think about how you feel, you learn a lot about yourself. And when you know yourself, you know life.
I've done things that can be made fun of. It's not such a bad thing. If I'm going to end up a role model, then I'd rather not end up being the kind of role model that pretends to be perfect, and pretends that she always has the right thing to say. I'm a product of role models that didn't make me feel like I was as good as them.
It's weird not having companionship and not having somebody to talk to. I have two goldfish in my hotel room. They said, "If you would like companionship, we can bring you a goldfish." I was like, "Bring me a goldfish!" I have two because when I needed the water changed they brought another one. I was like, "Don't take Desmond!"
I don't want to be one of those people who claim to hate labels, but it's true. I even feel that we've got it all wrong with the whole gay/straight thing. There is a spectrum. Everybody is completely different. Some people are way over on this side of the spectrum, some are on the other side, and some are crossed in certain ways.
For many years, I was a really heavy drinker, but people don't know about that because I'm by myself all the time. Recently, I didn't drink for eight or nine months, and I learned that alcohol was quadrupling the embarrassing moments - those moments when you're drunk and you say something you remember the next morning and feel embarrassed about.
My whole life, people have been saying, "Why are you so angry?" and I didn't know what the hell they were talking about. After I saw myself at the MTV Awards, I realized, Wow, I do kind of come off a bit intense. I wasn't upset at MTV at all - I didn't mean to come off that way. But I think it's good if I appeared a bit angry. People are too complacent.
I'd say that I've been reclusive the last 34 years. That was my big thing as a kid, staying home from school. I've trained myself to be psychosomatically sick a lot. Anytime I go out, it is just something to deal with, even walking to the grocery store. If I'm supposed to go from one place to another place that isn't that comfortable, I usually don't go.
I just don't really listen to music. I'm probably missing out, but I don't want to know what everybody else is doing. Nobody is strong enough to not be influenced. And I don't mean influenced by copying - I'd be influenced because I wouldn't want to do what someone else is doing. I want to be able to do whatever I feel like doing and not worry about anything.
At my lowest moments, I think of people who come to shows. I still get very sad and sometimes I feel like I have no friends, but when that happens now, I'll think of people whose names or faces I don't know - they're my friends and they love me. I've got them. It really does save me. I still feel awkward, but that's the one thing I can grab onto at my lowest points.
"The way I feel about music -- any song, any style -- is that there is no right and wrong, only true and false. If the music and lyrics are conceived out of honesty and if the production of the song goes along with its original message, then what has been expressed is art, regardless of what anyone's opinion is of it. So things are a lots impler if you just tell the truth.
I don't want to make this sound negative at all, but in the best way possible I freaking give up. I give up. You can't try and make your life perfect. I'm just trying to have a good time, and I'm just trying to appreciate the things that I have around me. I give up on the 'dream' dream. I think that it's all a dream. I think it's all wonderful and terrible. And I give up in the nicest way.
There are lots of poster children for angst. But there aren't many poster children for cool angst. Everybody thinks it's cool if you're the bad girl. But what about the people who are really not feeling that great? Why can't I get up in front of millions of people, as a person who represents my generation, and tell them that I'm angry? Who puts these limits on what my personality should be in public?
I really, really enjoy fitting words together - but I only enjoy it when it's easy, when it sort of rolls along by itself. I never erase anything [and] I hardly ever write anything down... The song will be finished before I write it down... I won't write a song unless it serves me in some way, unless I feel I have to write the song to make myself feel better. If you're not overflowing with something, there's nothing to give.
When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He'll Win the Whole Thing 'Fore He Enters the Ring There's No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand and Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights and If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where to Land and If You Fall It Won't Matter, Cuz You'll Know That You're Right
I might sound crazy about this but, years ago, my mom told me: "We almost died when you were born. Both of us." I was a Caesarean baby, and the doctor who delivered me later told me, "I opened your mother up, and you were right there. It freaked me out because everything was broken and out-there." I've thought about it a lot - could this have something to do with the fact that I'm only happy when I'm at home and alone? Maybe I was just freaking out for two weeks before I was born, feeling really insecure.
When I watch TV, and TCM isn't on, I just switch channels and look at all the information about everything. The internet is perfect for that, which is why I didn't really want to get a computer in the first place. I thought, "If I have a computer and know about this whole Google thing, I am not going to be able to sit still for a second; I'm going to think about something and then have to look it up." I have never bought myself a computer or a phone, but guys in my life have bought them for me, for whatever reason. So now I have them.
Through the media, we've establishes this standard of what every human being should look up to: somebody who always looks right; who always has the right light on their face; never has bags under their eyes; never says anything inappropriate. Somebody who always somehow turns out perfect. I hate the fact that celebrities are supposedly a higher class of human being. That's the way I felt growing up, and that's the way I think a lot of people feel. So now that I'm in this position, I want to change things. I want to be like the patron saint of reality.
I volunteered at UCLA's occupational therapy ward, where there are lots of kids with autism and emotional problems. I just wanted to prove to myself that I could not break down and cry at everything, and that I could just help somebody else. The one thing I really remember was that when we would take them out of the hospital for a walk around campus, they would freak out the most when we were waiting for the elevator. I remember the guy at the elevator said to himself, "Transitions are the hardest." And I said to myself, "Transitions are always the hardest."
When I was a kid--10, 11, 12, 13--the thing I wanted most in the world was a best friend. I wanted to be important to people; to have people that understood me. I wanted to just be close to somebody. And back then, a thought would go through my head almost constantly: "There's never gonna be a room someplace where there's a group of people sitting around, having fun, hanging out, where one of them goes, 'You know what would be great? We should call Fiona. Yeah, that would be good.' That'll never happen. There's nothing interesting about me." I just felt like I was a sad little boring thing.