Alanis Morissette Quotes

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

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

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.

What part of our history's reinvented and under rug swept? What part of your memory is selective and tends to forget?

Love is thick and it swallows me whole.

I think it's child abuse to have someone in the public eye too young. Society basically values wealth and fame and power at the cost of well-being. In the case of a child, it's at the cost of someone's natural development. It's already hard enough to develop.

Every time I scratch my nails down someone else's back, I hope you feel it.

I love to get to the underbelly of why people are up in arms about anything. Really, what I see is a big shadow in the West, in America especially, and everyone's afraid of looking stupid. But the truth is, I'm a genius and I'm stupid at the same time.

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 don't believe in bad. I believe in relativity. The only way we can know what we call good is if there's also something we call bad.

Who I am inside determines how I feel about my body instead of the other way around

Well life has a funny way of sneaking up on you When you think everything's okay and everything's going right And life has a funny way of helping you out when You think everything's gone wrong and everything blows up In your face

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

You live, you learn, you love, you learn, you cry, you learn, you lose, you learn, you bleed, you learn, you scream, you learn

The whole idea of emotions being something we can't escape as humans, but that deep suffering that comes from resisting them, we can move out of that just by not resisting anymore. But it takes a really brave warrior soul to sit there in these emotions that admittedly don't feel good in the body.

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.

Long hair is a security blanket for me. I cut it short a few years ago and I really never want to do that again. When I do cut it, I cut it myself.

Women are so powerful they're scary, and the incentive to squash this has been going on for so long that some of us actually believe we're subordinate.

Courage and willingness to just go for it, whether it is a conversation or a spontaneous trip or trying new things that are scary - it is a really attractive quality.

Freedom lies at the heart of my willingness to lose everything

All I can promise myself and everyone else is that this record is a snapshot of thisperiod in my life. It will be that by default.

I'm a bit of an alchemist sorceress. I've collected probably 1500 oils from around the planet over the last ten years. I'm kind of obsessed with the sensuality of it.

Peace of mind for five minutes, that's what I crave.

I listen to my records and I think, 'Wow,
these are really great appetizers. I haven't
even considered what I'm going to order
for the full entree meal yet.'

I'm saying what a lot of people would want to say but are too embarrassed.

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

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.

There's cleanliness to how I eat now. I'm much more in tune with my body, so now that I'm so in tune based on having become a semivegan, I can tell what foods affect energy levels. I can tell when I've been eating particularly high nutrient foods or I can tell when my glycemic levels are all over the place.

I'm lost, but I'm hopeful.

What an amazing and sacred place [Israel] to end the tour

I'd rather talk to people about their personal spiritual practices or what they believe love is. I'm born to do that. Could I enter into the political realm and dive into that? Sure, but I don't think I would want to do that.

Looking for approval or blaming others or feeling like a victim. Whenever I feel myself doing that I try to stop and see myself as someone who's a creator in more ways than just what the word typically means.

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.

I was 9 when I wrote 'Fate Stay with Me.' It was this fictional song about romance gone wrong.

It's a joke to think that anyone is one thing. We're all such complex creatures. But if I'm going to be a poster child for anything, anger's a gorgeous emotion. It gets a bad rap, but it can make great changes happen.

Oh these little rejections how they add up quickly, one small sideways look and I feel so ungood. Somewhere along the way I think I gave you the power to make me feel the way I thought only my father could.

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.

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.

Variety is important when it comes to exercise. I don't do anything that bores me to tears.

I am what I am Are you what you are or What?

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 highly recommend getting older! There's less tendency to people-please.

I could get away with not taking care of myself as a bachelorette but as a mom I can't.

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

I've been really enjoying writing articles and writing music and music for movies.

The ego is a fascinating monster.

A brave action is often followed by grief. Do not let my resistance to grief stop the brave action.

Typically, I would run away from conflict and write about it - that was easier than staying and dealing face-to-face with humans; that's terrifying for me.

You live, you learn.

It's when someone has an agenda of their own for the record that it doesn't work for me.

These precious illusions in my head did not let me down when I was defenseless, and parting with them is like parting with invisible best friends.

I would not have discredited every one of their compliments. It was your approval I wanted, your congratulations.

I'm consumed by the chill of solitary.

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 see my body as an instrument, rather than an ornament.

We live, in North America in general, if I'm given the indulgence of selling us down the river, in a culture of fear of this connective sense of spirit.

In my life, anyway, anytime that I judge something to be rigidly right or wrong, it comes from fear.

I started making music because I could.

America's a very traumatized society.

When I'm off the road, my husband and I recharge our batteries. It's a day of deep rest and connection with the spiritual, and that can be anything - going for a walk in nature, being in silence, burning incense.

I wish people could achieve what they think would bring them happiness in order for them to realize that that's not really what happiness is.

The more I know the less tortured I am.

What I wouldn't give to find a soul mate, someone else to catch this drift.

My son was five months old, and I built a makeshift studio in my living room so that I could do the attachment parenting approach and write the record at the same time. That was fortuitous, that we could build that in the house.

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

I started writting songs when I was really little because there were things I could say through songs that I couldn't verbalize any other way. Writting was something I had to do.

I think there is no better way to invite a human being to view their body differently than by inviting them to be an athlete, by revering one's body as an instrument rather than just an ornament.

I think a beautiful quality that's a biological, hormonal imperative for women, whether they have children or not, is that we're built to be empathic. For me, it was finally being maternal in an appropriate way instead of trying to mommy ex-boyfriends.

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.

So many boys, so little time ...

I have not an ounce of regret. Every link is so valuable in forming the chain that is my life. Who I am today is because of those links, and I wouldn't change any of them.

I think the Bible is hugely patriarchal. There are so many sexist comments and homophobic comments and comments that are not in keeping with nurturing and loving the human spirit.

Part of being famous is offering up this blank screen upon which people can project everything, and it's a sacred act, putting yourself out there, in a way that lots of celebrities aren't steeled for; they're not prepared for the degree to which people define them.

Most of the songs are, in a roundabout way, actually addressed to myself, there's a certain aspect of the songs that's very confessional, very unadulterated ... It was a very unfettered, spiritual experience.

As an artist, there's a sweet, jump-starting quality to [marijuana] for me. I've often felt telepathic and receptive to inexplicable messages my whole life. I can stave those off when I'm not high. When I'm high - well, they come in and there's less of a veil, so to speak. So if ever I need some clarity, or a quantum leap in my own consciousness, or a quantum leap in terms of writing something or getting an answer, it's a quick way for me to get it.

I'm sorry to myself, for treating me worse than I would anybody else.

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

I'm doing it because I choose it. And if it's not working, I can make a change.

When I pray, I'm just talking to what some people might call our higher selves: God, myself, my intuition, my heart. Whatever that is, that's where I go.

What influenced me was Tori Amos, who was unapologetic about expressing anger through music, and Sinead O'Connor. Those two in particular were really moving for me, and very inspiring, before I wrote 'Jagged Little Pill.'

I do feel blessed to be in the public eye so I can share what I believe. But I think it would be extremely disappointing if I were to count on it to provide happiness. I've come to realize that any time I do that, the fulfillment is short-lived at best.

We'll love you just the way you are if you're perfect.

When people ask me who I'd want to have dinner with, dead or alive, I always say, 'John Lennon.' I just feel that he was an artist who was, in his own way, committed to wholeness and authenticity in a not dissimilar way that I am years later.

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

Soon I'll grow up, and I won't even flinch at your name.

I have as much rage as you have, I have as much pain as you do, I've lived as much hell as you have, and I've kept mine bubbling under for you.

My yearn for home is broadened
Patriotism expanded
By callings from beyond
So I pack my things
Nothing precious
All things sacred

What's that line from TS Eliot? To arrive at the place where you started, but to know it for the first time. I'm able to write about a breakup from a different place. Same brokenness. Same rock-bottom. But a little more informed, now I'm older. Thank God for growing up.

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

And what it all comes down to is that I haven't got it all figured out just yet.

I hear you're losing weight again, Mary Jane. Do you ever wonder who you're losing it for?

Your choice of armor was your intellect.

Let's grease the wheel over tea, let's discuss things in confidence. Let's be outspoken, let's be ridiculous, let's solve the world's problems.

It's not just the 'Grammys' that I've pulled out of. I also pulled out of the English awards as well. The reason that I wanted to pull out was because I believe very much that the music industry as a whole is mainly concerned with material success.

A good man often appears gauche simply because he does not take advantage of the myriad mean little chances of making himself look stylish. Preferring truth to form, he is not constantly at work upon the facade of his appearance.

There is consequence of our forgetting who we are. Forgetting that we're able to create our environment, from our health to economy to war. Something can be done about everything we perceive as bad, if we so choose. If we are aware of the concept of compassion.

When someone has a very urgent response, I think it just means that it's triggering something in them that they may not necessarily want to think or talk about - which I see as a positive thing.

I love songs that are very autobiographical.

I want to walk through life instead of being dragged through it.