Top 136 Quotes & Sayings by Sharon Van Etten

I hate the term 'emo.' It turned into this genre of music, when all music, if you connect with it, is emotional.

I think there are times in a lot of people's pasts where they've unintentionally fallen in love with really damaged people. You go out with someone who's a mess so you can feel less of a mess.

Writing songs helped me figure out how to communicate with other people. I finally figured out that if I could express something in a song, I could probably express it in my real life, too.

I didn't have my first band until I was, like, 30.

I don't want to bury anything in poetry.

I've always been really shy. I was always afraid of any kind of confrontation.

In 2015, I told my band that I was taking a break so I could focus on my home life, go back to school, and try to remember what it was like to feel like a human being again.

I love being domestic: making coffee, just putting on a record, and just sitting, not doing anything. It's so great.

I love traveling. I love meeting people. I love performing, but it's hard to be gone and to not have a real life and to just get the emotional love that you need from the people you're traveling with.

Half of my anxiety is about whether people are going to like me.

My career is based off of me talking about my emotions.

I guess I usually write when I'm in a really intense headspace, because it's my form of self-therapy.

Every time I re-perform a song, I gain some perspective.

When I can write a song in a way where I feel like other people can relate to it, and I can take it past being cathartic just for me, that's when I know I can share it. Otherwise, I'd just feel like it's selfish.

I love how small the world is.

I'm getting bored performing the same songs over and over. Songwriting comes and goes.

I work a lot with sounds based on stream of consciousness. I like the way it sounds, then I turn it into something that makes more sense.

The dilemma I have is that everything I do at work is all about me, and at what point is that selfish? I'm just talking and singing about myself, or I'm standing on a stage and hoping that everybody likes me. Obviously, it's also about the music and feeling and connecting; I know it's deeper than that.

I'm nervous performing because it's such a weird thing to do, standing on stage demanding people's attention.

Moving to New York City and doing what I do, social anxiety is a really ridiculous kind of curse to have. But I met people along the way who deal with it - performers as well - and they are learning to deal with it daily and deal with it in different ways.

I started playing, and people responded to it and connected with it and now, I don't even know what I'm really connecting with anymore or if I'm helping people. Now it's more of a business.

I don't like to hold back. Especially with who I am and what I do, it's all me. Everything's my name; it's what I do. It's how I feel. It's what I think.

Sadness isn't an emotion that most cool bands want to talk about.

I totally lucked out by meeting a lot of amazing people. I guess it stems from going to shows and being confident enough to meet people and be able to talk to them like a normal person rather than have my head down all the time.

I hate putting negative energy out into the world. But it's either inside or out. I mean, it's either get an ulcer or have a fight.

Just getting older, you stop caring what other people think, but also, you know who you are, and you know what you want.

My friends actually used to call me the 'Female Conor Oberst.' I got to open up with him once, and I told him about that, and he thought it was hilarious.

I have a day job Monday to Friday. I work at a record label in Brooklyn called Ba Da Bing. It's a great indie label and I listen to music all day. I meet people online and find out about the cool new music blogs.

One day when I have a band I will have a band name, but since it's just me I feel it should just be my name. For me it doesn't make much sense since the music is from me and about me. I haven't ever been in a band.

Singing a song like 'Your Love Is Killing Me,' people are worried about me. My mother called me, like, 'What's going on with you? Are you alright? I thought you were doing fine.' And I'm like, 'I am doing fine. It's just, this is what I do.'

The only thing that's helped me get through some really hard times was just being able to write and express - it's very cathartic for me. I'm hoping that, by writing and performing for other people, it affects them the same way.

Honestly, live is my favorite way of performing. Every show is a completely different energy.

On first listen, it's nice to just soak up the sound without thinking about what it means. It's like a relationship. Records I've had for years mean more to me now than they did years ago.

I'm a late bloomer in music.

I'm trying to learn how to cook.

You'd better have something good to say if you've got a roomful of people who've paid to see you.

I was pretty troubled for a long time. And I didn't know that. As a kid, I never talked about my emotions. My mom gave me a journal, but I didn't know what it meant. I just wrote all the time, not even thinking about it. But it also made me feel better.

I'm not a down-in-the-dumps person. I think some people assume that I am because of the music I write.

'The Boatman's Call' is amazing; it's an album of love songs, really beautiful.

I'm a really strong person. I've no regrets in my life.

When I write, it's to heal. It's my own self-therapy so that I don't actually feel sad all of the time.

I have a hard time not wearing my heart on my sleeve and answering people honestly. You know, my friends warn me that I should be more guarded 'cause sometimes I am too honest and open, but it's also just who I am.

I'm a lot more secure than I used to be.

I don't think I'll ever feel perfectly balanced, but I feel like I'm figuring it out, and I'm surrounded by really wonderful people that want to see me succeed and be happy. Life is wild.

I'm still learning how to be comfortable touring. I haven't found that balance yet.

I was without my own place for nearly two years. It's such a cliche to be a homeless musician in New York, but luckily, I had amazing friends who let me stay with them. I visited my parents a lot. It's not like I was sleeping in my car, though I might have done that once... But it was by choice!

I wasn't a very good salesman.

I overthink everything. I'm just like, 'Wait, why do they want to hear me?' I start doubting myself. Other times, I'll just get so emotional during a song. Sometimes I'll cry while I'm singing. It's so weird. I'm such a baby.

I realized that there's this fine line between being personal and being general and being alienating.

I try to focus on the melodies and try to make everything else minimal. The melody and the lyrics are most important to me.

I always write from a personal place - whether it be about my friends or myself or a story that I heard.

I'm a sucker for a love song!

My goal is to become a therapist by the time I'm 50.

I have this red cardigan that my friend Coco gave me that has holes for thumbs. It's my cozy sweater. I wear it a lot.

I started writing for myself when I didn't know how to understand how I was feeling, and I didn't know how to talk to people about it, so I would break into the subconscious to try and understand what I was going through.

Everything will be okay. I have a sticker on my laptop that says that.

My mom used to ask me when I was gonna write a happy song. I still tell her that it's when I start to write really happy-sounding songs that everyone needs to start worrying.

The studio is a time when you can do anything that you want to. You have that freedom.

I'm really out of touch with myself emotionally. I've always had a hard time talking about how I feel.

'Imperfiction' will forever be one of my favorite records and moments in time.