Liz Phair Quotes

I mean, I kind of remember ... I'm 36 now, so it's kind of hard for me to relate to what it was like when I was 25, or 24, but I do remember a period in time when that's how I defined who I was, by the music I listened to and the movies I went to.

No matter how I do this, my best songs have profanity in them.

I've lost touch with a lot of that boutique-type music just because of my age, and raising my son and the multiple jobs I have at this point.

I'm really happy with my life now, but there's a lot of stuff I feel very sad about in ways I can't even control.

It's important to have people who will say to you that you're really off the beaten track.

I don't know why it surprises people that I surprise them.

I am a feminist, and I define myself: Be yourself, because if you can get away with it, that is the ultimate feminist act.

I don't think you can spend too much time as an artist believing what other people think.

I'm known for being annoyingly gender-focused. It's always been my platform.

Women's bodies are used to sell anything and everything because it works, it grabs people's attention, and advertisers aren't going to stop using something that works.

Music is sound. It's a wave. It's going out and coming back, and it's bouncing off.

I'm competitive, so I don't like to feel marginalized by the people who sell a lot of records.

I'm just out of touch with new music in general, and I only know about it if I'm hanging out with someone that knows about it, or I catch it on YouTube.

I love stretching myself musically.

I think good art happens on that edge between comfortable and in a lot of pain, you know what I mean?

Lana Del Rey seems to be bothering everybody because she allegedly 'remade' herself from a folk singing, girl-next-door type into an electro-urban kitty cat on the prowl (of course I like her), and they feel she is inauthentic.

The other day I was reading a blog and I linked over to Streisand's Web site, and it was amazing politically. She's so insightful and incisive. And she also says whatever she wants.

I'm working on a proper rock record, a good, old-school rock record. Finally.

No. You know what really bugs me about my videos? When they can't figure out what to do, they just have me change clothes five times.

Everything that people lob at you who don't know you, it all hurts. When you're doing something as simple as making music, which really, theoretically, shouldn't hurt anyone - I mean, it's a song! Step back for five seconds and laugh.

I was trying to break out of the suburbs, and when I did break out, I don't think I took my whole self with me - I think I played a role of being too cool and hip.

You been around enough to see that if you think you're it, you better check with me.

I'm very cerebral. I like to think things through.

I have my head screwed on right. I haven't been this way in a long time.

My career has been riddled with controversy, which I never fully understand.

It was a source of shame for my family that I was in rock and roll, which is so blue-collar. It just isn't done. And I felt it, too.

So how does Liz Phair feel about Lana Del Rey? Well, as a recording artist, I've been hated, I've been ridiculed, and conversely, hailed as the second coming. All that matters in the end is that I've been heard.

I'm always champing at the bit to try everything new. It's a terrible quality that I have.

I am just like you and everyone else. I am trying to live my life as best I can.

I wear clothes that most people in the Midwest would probably deem inappropriate at my age. And I rock a bikini all summer long. I know that it's not normal, but I just don't care. I live once.

I remember even getting kicked out of a bar once because I was too loud and obnoxious.

I just want to hear the true voices of women self-expressing - smart ones, stupid ones, ugly ones, beautiful ones, good ones, bad ones, fat ones, thin ones, all of it - until the profound silence that has resounded throughout history is filled with a healthy chorus coming from our side of the aisle.

After my first record came out, I read everything. I was so amazed that I was in the press.

I prefer to be reclusive and private about my creation and then, once I'm finished, present it to people.

I don't know; it just seemed like the cooler guys are playing Xbox. At least the ones I know.

The license said you had to stick around until I was dead, but if you're tired of looking at my face I guess I already am.

It makes sense - you wanna gather a lot of people together, and Vegas really does that well. New York can, but you know the hassles. I've lived there. It's an entirely different beast.

I have that thrill-seeking mentality, so when people want to know why my incarnations keep changing, or why I'll do something different than I did before, it's that same impulse.

Now, in music, it seems more like the popular crowd suppresses anyone who is different.

Like, I kind of developed my musical style in a vacuum. Even though I listen to a lot of stuff, the way I wrote was in my bedroom, really privately. It's still the way I write, actually.

Just to prove i was right that it's harder to be friends than lovers and you shouldn't try and mix the two, cause if you do and then you're still unhappy, then you know that the problem is you.

And, you know, I still haven't been contacted by Mick Jagger, either!

Women artists need to break barriers in order for women's experience to be valuable.

Am I coasting on some early success? Yeah. It was a good lucky break for me. But I would rather earn my way back again than simply conform to what people are expecting.

People hang their hopes on you fitting into their CD collection in way that they have made a space for, but I'm playing a longer game than that.

It's nice to be liked, but it's better by far to get paid.

There's nothing wrong at all with women wanting to be women.

When I was young, I used to need other people's albums and I got very involved with their music and it meant a lot to me.

There's even more stuff that I'd like to release, but I'm scared to, that's really, um, nerdy ... not nerdy in a good way. Like, silly.

I would argue that the uncomfortable feelings she elicits are simply the by-product of watching a woman wanting and taking like a man.

Well, if you've got a one-in-a-million girl don't let her get away; cause the next one-in-a-million girl is a million girls away ...

Isn't this the best part of breakin' up? Finding someone else you can't get enough of. Someone who wants to be with you, too.

When you love what you do, you're happy just doing it!

That's what music is to me. Like, stuff that I really like to play loud. And I've got my quiet CDs, too, that I listen to around the house, but if you can't go there, then ... Everyone gets so upset with me, I can't win.

What does it mean when something changes how it's always been?

I can't say I don't get nervous, but I really kind of enjoy performing now.

I'm really happy to be a mom, and I'm proud of the phase I'm in.

I don't always trust my own instincts. It would be nice if someone else would tell me what I should do with my life!

It seems to me like the Internet allows you to break that structure a little bit. You know, here's your CD that's going into stores, here's your EP that you offer online, here's a subscription for songs you recorded on the road, here's your live stuff streaming.

Madonna is the speedboat, and the rest of us are just the Go-Gos on water skis.

All parents gush about what it's like to be a parent. I love it.

I can feel it in my bones: I'm gonna spend my whole life alone.

I ended up becoming so self-conscious that my songs stopped being about my life and started being about what people thought of my music. And that was really bad.

I probably had some impact, because everyone keeps telling me that I did. I like to feel like I'm coming out with something to try to make room for other young women to make their art.

Yeah, I like to be the maker of the art. And I like and want the money. But I don't really dig being famous.

Love is nothing, nothing, nothing like they say.

You're really creative when you're in an environment that you don't know how to handle. So collaborating was like that for me. I think that was one of the reasons why I knew I was gonna get a challenging reaction.

I just don't fit into the box.

It's about the journey and the process. I do things because I love doing them, or trying them.

I try to see interviewing as performance art, and just take it as it comes.