Top 369 Quotes & Sayings by Tori Amos - Page 3

I had a very strict upbringing with my dad and was very close to my mum, who was extremely loving.

My ears are huge. If there's ever a problem with a plane I'm on, they could just put me on the wing and I'll land the sucker.

When we get in a routine we can become zombie-like and shut down.

My father was strict, but he recognised my ability and got a lot of flak from the church for supporting me.

The key things are about power and about growing up and realizing as you grow up that there are consequences for the choices you make, especially when you get seduced by power.

I have never smoked and have always drunk a lot of water, but cleanse, tone and moisturise every day? No way!

I'm a mother, and that's really important. Today, the mother and the musician can sit next to each other. Even when the musician is out there in full swing, the mother doesn't get switched off.

I can see how the young girls really get hurt when their moms are critical, or vice versa when they're overly critical of their moms. It can be so painful.

My father was a minister and so rock music was banned in our house.

I produce the records. I don't hand over control to some really expensive producer who then talks to the record company and then tries to bend me to their will - for commercial purposes.

I've worked with many powerful men in the music industry.

To me glamour isn't about being sparkly.

I like involved projects. I'm driven by the idea of characters and the song-cycle form is similar to a musical.

I don't feel I'm as good a mum as my mum was.

My mother says I was two-and-a-half when I started playing. My father was a minister, and when he went to church in the morning, she would put on Fats Waller, Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole and Cole Porter records. I'd crawl up on the piano stool, sit on a phone book and play.

I was very close to my mother as the youngest of three. She was my playmate.

A lot of songs are derivative of each other. Sometimes you need to take a departure from what you do to something that's slightly different in order to get inspiration.

I'm a hard worker. I get my hands dirty.

If you think a child is going to be your accessory... it's not like a micro pig. It's not about putting them in front of the television. You need to read to them at night.

Even if everything else is downplayed, I'll wear good shoes.

People assume that all artists make for terrible business people, but I'm in complete charge of my own career.

I would love to compose something for dance before I kick the bucket, and I'm not closed-minded about the dance, or the dance company. I would really just love to collaborate on that.

I have built my world through Native American mythology.

For a song cycle to work, you have to feel these things when you hear them and you either have an emotional reaction to it or you don't. The plotline is something that gets woven together in the back-story.

Romance is important to me, and to have a romance with your husband takes a bit of doing. The key is to make sure your partner misses you. That means you have to take yourself away.

Things go wrong all the time; you can't be precious about it.

When one doesn't want the limelight, but is also creative in developing whatever it is they are, then you can have two equal people that aren't competing against each other. I think when you are in the same field, it's difficult to leave it outside and not compete. Then when the doors are closed; that pervades everything.

I started playing the piano when I was about two and got a scholarship to the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore when I was five. But I left when I was 11.

My brother was a fantastic cheerleader for my development as a musician. He was almost 10 years older than me and would really push me to develop as a songwriter.

Some people say, I'd give anything to be 30 again. Well, I really wouldn't. I didn't enjoy being 30.

I don't choose to analyze what I have done and I think that is the right choice, because then I won't be spending my time creating.

I would love to compose something for dance before I kick the bucket, and I'm not closed-minded about the dance, or the dance company.

There's a side to this industry that nurtures divas who can't write. It's a big business.

My parents think I'm better under pressure.

Not everybody wants to have the same career. I think what's difficult is when you have two people that do something very, very similar and they both, say, want the limelight. That's very tricky.

Women shouldn’t deny their dark side. Sometimes those demons are frightening and sometimes they’re beautiful. You’ll have to approach them. Drink a glass of wine with them, take them for a walk on the beach, examine yourself.

You have to really respect your path, or you will lose your mind.

So, you can make me come, that doesn't make you Jesus.

In life, sometimes everything falls into place, and sometimes everything just falls to pieces. The key is to begin creating with these fallen pieces. By improvising, you'll create something magical that might be the best thing you've ever accomplished

I call that god the Little G. Because the god that we've been worshipping is not to me the Supreme Creator. Anybody who needs to control and make people feel ashamed. . .It's like, 'I send my only begotten son. . .' Well you know, that concept of sending a son where we as women could, like, breastfeed him and give him milk, but he's not gonna soil his dinky with us? What's that all about?

If you really want a challenge, just deal with yourself.

The sense of loss is such a tricky one, because we always feel like our worth is tied up into stuff that we have, not that our worth can grow with things we are willing to lose.

I don't want to sit on the sidelines and not value the gift of being here. Instead of the idea of time ticking away, the grains of sand running out, I try to think of time as giving me another grain of sand, another gift. So time passing is an accumulation, rather than a diminishing.

The only way out is to go so far in.

It's about realizing, painfully, you've kept that voice inside yourself, locked away from even yourself. And you step back and see that your jailer has changed faces. You realize you've become your own jailer.

The music is the magic carpet that other things take naps on.

It took the love of a good man [to heal]. When I was reverting back into my, let's say, perversions, he would say: 'Let's go get an ice cream. I am not going to enable you. If you can only come as a wanton woman for hire, because you feel dirty and shamed, then no. Women are goddesses.' And I know that and I believe that. I chose a man who believed that, too.

Inspiration quite frequently arrives as a surprise. The key is being open to it.

Girls you've gotta know when it's time to turn the page.

If you sing to the mermaids, they come when you're drowning.

I think that people who can't believe in faeries aren't worth knowing. I just think that alternate realities make you a good writer. If your work is any more than one dimension, you believe in faeries.

I realized that what was most important to me was following my own path, and not the one laid down for me by others.

We can all choose to become our potential, not just talk about it or dream about it. But daily, make a shift whereby we begin living and being our potential. With each day, that potential can expand because we are open to learning something every day.

People think I'm nuts because I can sit in a room and be happy by myself.

I see the dream and I see the nightmare, and I believe you can't have the dream without the nightmare.

Sometimes you are forced to defend your beliefs. Sometimes you are forced to look at relationships that aren't positive anymore. There are times when I have had to make peace with the fact that I am at war. And sometimes you have to fight those who do not want love to conquer all.

Though I can't change what happened, I can choose how to react. And I don't want to spend the rest of my life being bitter and locked up.

The romantic myth of the artist says that you are the Source. I have no illusion about that. Native Americans don't believe they are the Source. They have access to the Source. Endless access. But don't get confused.

You really do kind of learn a lot about a person when you watch and listen to the songs that mean something to them.

You're just an empty cage girl, if you kill the bird.