Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I have a lot of very close girlfriends and sisters - I'm from an all female family. My father often quips that even the cat was neutered!
A lot of people these days are not music lovers - they just want to be famous which is a very different thing to what I grew up believing in.
A lot of my friends are artists or musicians or single parent families and I'm totally aware of how difficult it is for them to make ends meet.
My solo album is dead and buried. We had the funeral. It was sad and I cried a lot but it made such a beautiful corpse that we had an open casket.
I was always embarrassed because my dad wore a suit and my mother wore flat pumps and a cozy jumper while my friends' parents were punks or hippies.
When somebody asks me a question, I try to be as straightforward about it as possible. I try not to overthink what I'm going to say in an interview.
Here's the tragedy of the modern record business: It's radio. If you're not on radio, nobody really is going to hear you or see you or care about you.
Ps. I am pretty certain Beyonce doesn't need you fighting any battles on her account. Seems like she's got everything covered perfectly well on her own.
I couldn't feel good about myself hanging out in Armani clothes when my girlfriend can't even pay her heating bill. I'd feel foul and I'd be embarrassed.
I think it's about time the world embraced its geekiness and stopped trying to be cool. It's just...you have way more fun as a geek than as a cool person.
Possibly because I grew up not feeling very confident about my own physical appearance, I developed internal devices so that I could integrate into society.
A lot of celebrities just want money, fame, power, fancy cars, houses all over the world and have people BOW DOWN to them. To me, that's frightful behaviour.
I think it's a great thing to have failed in life and then pulled yourself up by the boot straps and actually done something, because then you appreciate it more.
Obviously, from the experience you get from making videos, you understand where the camera is and how some of the actual technicalities work and so on and so forth.
Starbucks is my main fix and it's usually you people working in there - sometimes they're actually shaking. It just makes me feel horrendous because I've been in that situation.
At the end of the day, though, the band members have to be strong. It's down to the individuals in the unit. Listen to me, I'm talking like I'm in the army and this is my squadron.
Pop music seems to be the way radio programming has chosen to support female artists. They have chosen not to support a more provocative voice from women, which I find disappointing.
It's really difficult to navigate attention and stardom and celebrity status and still try to maintain yourself and hold onto your intelligence and integrity. It's really challenging.
You have to watch all sides of your advancement, you have to make sure people's bodies and minds are healthy and their morale is cool before you can really go out and play great music.
I refuse to step inside the ring and fight like a gladiator against my own. I'm not playing that game. Any woman who has survived a year or more of making music has my undying respect.
There's nothing I've done that I feel a lot of regret over because I stuck to my guns, even when it got uncomfortable - and it will get uncomfortable because you're going up against the wall.
It's unhealthy for people to never express any kind of negativity or doubt. To have balance, you need to address that side of your thoughts as well as the positive. Otherwise, you tend toward crazy.
I want to hear from the creature who isn't blessed with unbelievable good looks and incredible genes. I want to hear from the geek girl, the forgotten girl, the invisible girl and the miserable girl.
I'm 45 years old. I used to be a club girl, but that's not my world anymore. That doesn't mean I can't make music that excites. I think it's inspiring to see an artist you grew up with take another crack.
I'm fairly in control and I don't like to flirt particularly. I mean, obviously if I meet someone who I think is hot, of course I'll want to flirt with him, But in general I don't use it in day-to-day life.
Until we command the exact same salary as every male counterpart, I feel a political desire to stand by other women. If we don't stand together, that equality will never be fully realized, and that bothers me.
The sensation of never feeling good enough or pretty enough will always be there. It's a constant dialogue, and you just learn to be more powerful than that other voice. When you hear it come up, you shut it down.
People in day-to-day life tend to skim the surface of things and be polite and careful, and that's not the language I speak. I like talking about feelings, fears and memories, anguish and joy, and I find it in music.
In the '90s, the radio was still alive with all different kinds of points of view, and I think that's why people are longing for that time. It was the first time that alternative music broke through to the mainstream.
I think women in pop have been declawed and defanged, and they're just meant to look pretty and sing pretty. You don't really hear a female perspective on the radio, because so many of the songs are being written by men.
I was a redhead and a middle child; both can make you feel excluded. It's like fighting to be included, in the swim of things. After a while you start to develop a bit of a victim mentality, which isn't great for a happy life.
I wouldn't say that cutting was pleasurable, but there is a sense of euphoria that follows cutting yourself. The quick pinch of pain and the sight of blood snaps you back to the surface and you start to appreciate being alive.
And then there's all these other creeps that surround your band and suck off you like leeches and try to manipulate you and your business. You have to watch like a hawk. I'm always ready to fight. I see it very much as a battle.
I am not a sexy woman, I'm not beautiful, I'm not a sex kitten, I don't flirt with people, yet I've been tagged more of sex symbol than women who truly are and I that's solely because I don't reveal too much: people are curious.
It is so hard for musicians when they step into acting is they're not coming in as a blank slate, they're coming in with a real set idea of who they are, where they're coming from, what their politics are, what their tastes are.
How you present yourself is nobody's business but your own. The stylists have an opinion. The hair people have an opinion. The fans and the management have opinions. Ultimately, you have to trust that you are the safe-keeper of yourself.
I'd never imagined myself in a band. So the fact that I've had such a long career without really naturally pursuing it is really astounding. It's taken me a long time to accept what I do for a living and actually feel like I have anything of value to add to the equation.
Being a musician makes you very - musicians in general tend to be quite sensitive, I think, to the environment around them, which helps when you are trying to interact with others on screen, to be aware, to be sensitive, and to try to understand what's going on in the scene.
Dear Kanye West. It is YOU who is so busy disrespecting artistry. You disrespect your own remarkable talents and more importantly you disrespect the talent, hard work and tenacity of all artists when you go so rudely and savagely after such an accomplished and humble artist like BECK.
Being a singer, being a performer, you have tricks, somehow, to calm yourself when things feel a little overwhelming. I don't do breathing exercises, per se, but I definitely have to have a sort of internal word with myself before things got completely out of hand and I fainted on the floor.
I think a lot of people in their lives feel like they don't fit in, even if it looks like they do. People feel like outsiders even if others think we, the lives we live, have everything. If they are popular or they have everything they are supposed to have. Even then, people still don't feel quite included.
It's a torturous time when you learn almost everything you really have to know about survival. The important thing to remember when you are living through it, however, is that you have absolutely no idea quite how smart and strong and beautiful the pain will make you. So go forth and suffer...you'll rule the world.
Here am I. I'm 38. My career's probably never been better. And I've made a decision which may or may not impact on it - I refuse to hide my experience and my age, as if it's something I should be ashamed of. I'm alive. I know lots of people who've never been lucky enough to get to this stage in their life. And I'm not gonna hide it for anybody.
Even to survive and have everyone in good health now is really precious. Bands half our age don't even get that lucky sometimes. It's good to practice gratitude, as they say. I used to be so ungracious, I wasn't even aware that I should be feeling grateful! Now I actually try and put it into my daily thought: Be grateful. It's not always so easy.
I had taken some of my solo music into the record label. They didn't really care for the direction I was moving in and I found it really disheartening. They wanted a pop hit, which I understand in terms of making money. I get that. But what they were going to ask of me was something I wasn't prepared to deliver and I felt kind of trapped. I just stopped writing. I just stopped. It was stifling.
I get female groupies, but I don't get male groupies. I have women who offer to sleep with me all the time. But not men. They're all talk and nay action -- as we'd say in Scotland. If I go anywhere near most of our male following, they are freaked. Absolutely freaked. I think my height has got a lot to do with it. I'm really tall. I'm five-eight, and with heels, I'm six foot, so people are like. 'Whoa, Amazon!' People are a wee taken aback by that 'cause I think people expect me to be small.