Top 51 Quotes & Sayings by Emily Haines

[When] you're a writer, you know that a lot of times you have to sneak up on yourself in order to achieve what you want to achieve, and sometimes you don't even know what it is until you've done it.

I like the idea that you would participate in mainstream culture, especially for young girls and young kids who are looking for an alternative. It's not that I'm superior, but I know that my heart is in it more than people who get into music for other reasons.

The writing process is very much like being in a dark tunnel, and you don't really know what you will end up with until you have created it.

The architecture of the song, if it's built properly, can withstand all kinds of things.

Life is passing you by as you speak, you're on a path and you're all on the same path toward death.

I have an identity crisis which is not resolved because I'm a dual citizen. My whole family is American, and I was born in India but I was raised in Canada.

For as long as I can remember, I have written songs because I wanted to, because I was experiencing something that couldn't be described except through a sound.

I am really inspired by writers, and weirdly - respect music journalists, which I think makes me the exception amongst most musicians. I think it's a craft. I think it's been really neglected - sadly. I think about the days of the great legendary rock critics. Who's going to become that when magazines and newspapers don't pay anyone properly or don't seem to respect the history or research that is required?

Oftentimes the most produced and synth-tastic songs are the ones that end up sounding the best acoustic.

We don't have T-shirts with my face, but there I can see the beginnings, especially young girls seeing me as sort of a icon in that way. And in that regard I'm more than happy to step in.

I don't really write journals and stuff and then adapt them to music, it's completely within the form of the song. My great obsession and basically the bane of my existence is caring probably too much about every word, but it's too late to change my career path.

Until the day we die, our lives are unwritten, which is sometimes a terrifying thought.

You don't want to be conscious of everything.

Lots of people take the option of not activating their own life, of really letting it happen.

I like the idea of interviews where you just talk about stuff instead of where it's my chance to talk to my public through something else.

I love to read about music and about art, but I don't try and take things about mythology or guidelines as to how I'm to behave as an artist. It's the realm of intellectual debate. Actually, more and more my direction is trying to get further away from being self-conscious of what the parameters are of the mainstream, where it intersects with the underground.

The things that I've seen where people are trying to change the definition of what a band has to be, those are the things that end up being inspiring.

In my imaginary utopian world there would be a greater allegiance between music writers and musicians.

You feel like you're trying to show off your cool by mentioning the five bands that you know are great and the five books that will reflect well on you. I can't do it. I should take the time to but I don't want to take the time to do that.

It's very hard to separate what is a conscious decision and what's not.

I do like touring but my life sort of starts to fall apart under it after a certain point. So you just have to stop. And it's hard to.

I see how 14-year old girls react to me and I think I'm a good role model. Rockstar maybe not, but I'm willing to play with it for a little while, until my hair gets gray.

I think if I were living in a utopian world, then it wouldn't be political commentary; it would be about daffodils.

Of course there are influences, of course there are things that are inspiring, but it's weird to think that I'm trying to keep a mental inventory of them and report them clearly to whomever might ask.

It's a strange life... you really don't know how you will impact people or how things will play out.

It bothers me that no one has the patience to deal with someone who is just sad.

That's the main work that I've done in my life - really wanting to get past that gender trap where there's a certain nudity in poetry. It's not about showing my soul, it's about observations.

The complete self-absorption, and childish indulgence and disregard, and having to feel as though everything you're doing is so people can live vicariously through you, so you have to pursue more and more unpleasant pastimes in order to satisfy the armchair people. That's a kind of scary existence.

I'm a chick for sure.

I think that every band is different, and in fact that's one of the biggest problems with the old-school music industry is that... one band would be successful according to a certain approach, and then every other band in the label gets sent down the same tube.

I really love traveling, I love playing.

Generally I try to read anything but indie rock journalism or anything about music at all, especially in the summer.

This is the thing I've noticed is that the greater the distance between you and any ordinary task is the measurement of how much rockstar potential you have.

Being alive and understanding that and making the decision to actually live take a lot of courage.

In Canada there's an extensive grant system that really allows people to make their work without having to suffer that much, and I'm staring to come around on that, that maybe people don't have to suffer. Maybe you can just not be unhappy and make beautiful music in Canada, maybe that's ok.

I have an identity crisis which is not resolved because I'm a dual citizen. My whole family is American, and I was born in India but I was raised in Canada. But all my extended family is American, I've held an American passport and I've spent my whole adult life in between New York and LA. So I feel like an American... and I also feel like a Canadian! I wish more people were dual citizens and then I wouldn't feel like such a freak.

I just write what comes to me. I didn't sit down and say ok, here is my statement. It's just a song that has a shout out.

I always felt like I had to leave Canada, which I think is a common perspective - feeling as if you have to leave because otherwise you'll be too soft, and that objective reality exists in America. And I'm starting to feel like that doesn't have to be the case.

Sometimes it's better to live through someone's work than the person themselves, and to realise that every human being is flawed, but through art they can be perfect.

The nature of making music and making art, what motivates me is that it's interesting. It's interesting to listen, to really listen to other people's point-of-view. Take in their work. Listen to the way they sing. Listen to the way they write lyrics. What they are trying to express.

I think every musician is different, every artist is different, and in a perfect world people would be able to pursue their own path and have the inspiration and the drive to, and the energy and dedication to take their path to its fruition. I don't really believe in formulas.

I mean that's really depressing man. Of course, the kids are freaking out. They watch cartoons and sit in front of the television and their parents are just probably yuppies who focus their entire lives around the child. The child has no sense of context, no sense of what world they are inhabiting-just like this Disnified bag of Cheerios reality. Don't give them a @#$%& pill! God! Take them out on a canoe already! You know what I mean?

There are lots of people in the world whose existence doesn't revolve around American culture.

I try not to focus on the gender issue too much but I think you have to acknowledge it in order for it to go away.

I think more like Charlie Chaplin than like Jennifer Anniston.

Believe in the power of songs.

It's not my fault that people are perverts.

Certain audiences get the double meaning and some of the references and ironies, but there's definitely been shows where I feel like I'm not doing it well enough for it to come across as anything other than "oh, she's hot and she's dancing."

[When I happen to] read interviews where people are such pros and they come out looking so good, [it comes off as] a little smug or something.

But its crazy - like ten percent a year increase of children taking fucking anti-depressants. Pre-schoolers are like, the most prescribed. That makes me so mad!

I think a sexual energy is a positive energy.