Top 287 Quotes & Sayings by Alanis Morissette - Page 2

I'm a liability to them - I'm a woman, I'm empowered, I'm an artist. I've had executives who can't come to my shows they're so scared of me. I've been a thorn in many people's sides just by existing.

I saw music as a way to entertain people and take them away from their daily lives and put smiles on their faces, as opposed to what I see it being now, which is a way for me to actually communicate, and a way for me to tap into my subconscious.

I love songs that are very autobiographical.

Typically I go in the studio and whatever I'm contemplating that day will wind up being a song. I don't come in with lyrics... I just go in and let it happen.

Anything I do has to be directly related to my music. If it isn't, I don't really see a point to it.

And ultimately the people who produce my records, they know that they're here to serve the purpose of me expressing who I am at this period of time and augmenting that or pulling it forward and I love that process.

To me the biggest irony of this lifetime that I'm living is that for someone who thrives in the public eye in the creative ways that I do, I actually don't enjoy being in the public eye.

I felt like I was making a record under the radar, and that is my favorite way to do anything.

Music will always be a part of my life. I love music and I don't care how many units I sell.

The whole celebrity thing is not something I'm overly interested in. I don't pop up at parties. It's just not my thing.

I didn't have high self-esteem when I was a teen-ager, as I think most teen-agers don't.

When I start writing songs and it turns into an overly belabored intellectual process, I just throw it out.

Over the last couple of years, I've really worked toward balancing my life out more, having a little bit more time with friends, family and my boyfriend. There was a period of time when they were way down the list. It was all about music and touring and if everything fell by the wayside, so be it.

I live with some of my best friends from high school, very commune-like, in my house. It's my hippie way of life.

I think some people think I'm a smarty-pants. Some people think I'm intense, some people think I'm super-esoteric and nuts.

I could write six songs in one day with everything that's going on.

Unless I really loved it and felt really passionate about it, I would just kind of abort the song and start a new one.

I'll be writing songs till I die. There's just no question.

My three addictions of choice are food, love and work.

I think some fans want everything to stay they same because they want to stay the same.

But I love to entertain. My vocation is to accrue all these experiences, to write about them, to get them out of my system, to not get sick, and then to share them publicly.

I was left to painstakingly deal with the aftermath of my avoidance later in life, in therapy or through the lyrics of my songs.

In my opinion, I think sarcasm and humor in a song, without turning it into a novelty song, is really charming.

Well, as a kid I did not get Shakespeare. I just never understood it.

As long as I can say what it is that I need to say, then I'll fit whatever I'm trying to say around a melody.

They're different kinds of challenges depending upon what phase of life I'm in.

In LA, where I live, it's all about perfectionism. Beauty is now defined by your bones sticking out of your decolletage. For that to be the standard is really perilous for women.

Down the road, I'll probably have a kid or two or three. And there will probably be political events or spiritual things to comment on, and humor.

I'll keep evolving and put that into my songs.

My own approach has always been to push intense emotions down and attempt to deal with them later.

I try to keep a low profile in general. Not with my art, but just as a person.

I see the whole concept of Generation X implies that everyone has lost hope.

I grew up in a very masculine environment. So I was around a lot of men, my brothers and their friends. There was just a lot of guys around.

What I try to keep in mind is that there are going to be a lot of articles that are going to be misrepresentative of what I'm about as a person and as a writer.

I happen to be lucky in that I knew what I wanted to do as far as a career since I was nine years old.

I thought the more famous I became, the more friendships I would have, but the opposite was true.

I'm really clear about what my life mission is now. There's no more depression or lethargy, and I feel like I've returned to the athlete I once was. I'm integrating all the parts of me - jock, musician, writer, poet, philosopher - and becoming stronger as a result.

The more vulnerable and the more confused the song is, the equal and opposite effect is how I feel after having written it.

America's a very traumatized society.

If I could sell 500 million records every time, it would be great. But I've also had the luxury experience of having it when I was a teenager, in a very kind of model version of it.

My brother says that I was writing songs about fate while he was off playing soccer. Now I tell him he's 33 and being a professional while I'm playing soccer with my friends. Ha!

When I was younger, I was terrified to express anger because it would often kick-start a horrible reaction in the men in my life. So I bit my tongue. I was left to painstakingly deal with the aftermath of my avoidance later in life, in therapy or through the lyrics of my songs.

My greatest environments in which I can grow, or grow up, is in personal romantic relationships with a man.

But once I acclimated and really used fame for what it was offering me as a tool to serve my life purpose of inspiring and contributing, then it started to get fun again.

And I always laugh at that, because I think I've always been doing what I want to do since Day 1.

I remember thinking during those times that I wanted to write in a way where there are no rules.

Breakups are a horrible thing for almost everybody I know. For someone who is a love addict, it's debilitating.

I started playing piano when I was 6. And I knew that wanted to be involved in that form of expression, whether it was through music, or acting, or dancing, or painting, or writing.

Beauty is now defined by your bones sticking out of your decolletage. For that to be the standard is really perilous for women.

The thing I always default to is that I'll always be here to write songs.

Europe seems a little softer, but in America it's harsh. In L.A., where I live, it's all about perfectionism.

In the past, I had workaholic issues.

With songwriting I spend a lot of time living life, accruing all these experiences, journaling, and then by the time I get to the studio I'm teeming with the drive to write.

I guess what people forget sometimes is that when I write songs, I write them sometimes in about 20 minutes.

I was taught from a young age that I had to serve, so that turned into me thinking I had to save the planet.

Making a movie requires 20 to 500 people to make and a lot of money and the stakes are a lot higher.

At one point, I was just perceived as only being angry, but now I'm being perceived as angry, peaceful, and spiritual.

I get angry at myself for staying in relationships way too long.

I was motivated by just thinking that if you had all this external success that everyone would love you and everything would be peaceful and wonderful.

I was always such a people-watcher. I would sit on street corners alone and watch people and make up stories about them in my head. Then, all of a sudden, I was the one being watched.