A Quote by Michelle Zauner

I'd always struggled with being a very depressed and anxious person in high school. If I had let that kind of dark moment consume me, I wouldn't be able to climb out of it. So I became a bit of a shark.
I never went to school for that. In high school we had photography, which was great. That was another moment of discovery. I had a great teacher - I can't even remember her name now. I ended up going to boarding school for my last high school years and they had a dark room there. Of course there was curfew; you were supposed to be in bed at a certain time. But I would sneak out and sneak into the dark room and work all night.
When I first got to the White House, I was super anxious all the time about not knowing the answer to every question. And Obama was actually the person who let me be me. He was like, "Alyssa's not the person who wears the Ann Taylor suit. She's not the kind of person who always says the exact right thing." And I'm a bit of a wild animal. I brought a different perspective and I was a little bit more irreverent and casual.
I'm an anxious person in general, but something about being pregnant and awaiting the release of my first book, The Monsters Of Templeton, made me into an insane anxious person. I didn't sleep at night. I ended up sleeping all day. In a strange way I felt like the world was going to end. I found myself so deeply depressed at times that I started to read about happiness, and that took me into books about idealism and utopianism. Reading books about people who tried to build utopian societies of different kinds gave me a kind of lift.
I struggled with kind of fighting with the inner illnesses within myself where my psychological madness and I have always kind of struggled with different disorders and mental things and so the biggest thing that I was kind of always ashamed of or being embarrassed of was kind of that.
I became an electrician after high school. But I always had this thing in me to write. But it was always a little shameful. To say you were a poet was saying you were kind of crazy, and I carried that around for a long time. I still kind of carry that. And I think it might be true, actually.
When I went into high school, I don't know why - because I've been performing since I was little - but I think it was just the pressure of being somewhere so different, and I already stood out because I had an accent, and everyone always wanted you to talk, that I kind of shied away from singing a bit.
School was rough for me. I was a good student in middle school, but high school wasn't so fun. I still pulled through, though! I excelled in art, fashion, history and English literature - anything creative. Math and science I struggled a bit more in.
I had a bad knee injury when I was about seventeen. I wasn't able to climb for about six months. It was kind of like a transformative time for me, because it was really hard for me not to be able to climb. It forced me to appreciate things without just climbing.
In middle school and high school, I had straight A's, and I graduated at the top of my year. On the flip side of that, I struggled with very severe performance anxiety.
I've been blessed with the athleticism that I've got. I've worked a little bit to try and fine-tune certain aspects - my pace, leap, timing - to make it work on the football pitch, but I always had it in my armoury being able to jump high. I was always good at long jump back in the day at school - nobody could ever beat me.
Yeah, I mean, climbing's always been a massive hobby of mine up until, kind of, recent times when I've had family, but no, it's been a driving passion in my life and, uh, I've always wanted to climb the Matterhorn. It was the mountain that, sort of, inspired me to climb, as a youngster. So, it was great to be able to get to do it.
I think the idea of being on stage and playing for people, and being able to inject a little bit of joy into their lives is a really exciting concept for me. That's definitely why I make music. It's never been for any kind of materialistic reasons, so that thought of being able to be up on stage, and being able to give something to someone in a moment of need for them - that gets me up in the morning; that really excites me.
I'm always working out; I did ice hockey in high school, but I'm not a dance person. I mean, this was horrible, but I had a dance double in my high-school musical.
I'm a very anxious person, and it's hard for me to be in the moment. Improv demands that you be in the moment.
I read recently that all of us can be defined in adult life by the way others perceived us in high school. I know [people] who had the popular, good-looking path in high school; they tend not to do so well. It was a little bit too easy for them, where for those of us who struggled in every sense, perhaps our determination and self-reliance and discipline were reinforced by that.
I really had a rough time in middle school. Middle school to me was the way most people explain high school. Then in high school I had a blast. I basically did everything that you would do in high school or in college, so it really wasn't a difficult thing to pull out.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!