Lykke Li Quotes

It's in every person's life, around 27 to 29 years old, the stars and the planets align themselves to exactly the way they were when you were born. You're faced with yourself. There's no running away.

I want people to have a good time. It's boring only to hear singer/songwriters spilling their guts.

And you seek pain like it is pleasure
Like a work of art
When I'm your painting, I'm your treasure
Purest of them all
And call it love or call it murder
Kill me quietly
Close the door then take it further
Where no man has been

Touring is really about being on edge the whole time - you're like a racing horse: you've just got to be on. You've got to pull it together.

The music that I listen to is very minimalistic. I listen to a lot of old blues that is just guitar and vocals.

I'm interested in a lot of different sounds and types of music.

If anything, I want to be seen as a singer-songwriter rather than a pop artist.

I'm going to be like Benjamin Button; I'm just going to grow younger. I will probably be happy, fat, with kids and looking back and thinking, 'I was such a angry young woman.'

Do you have to have emotional turmoil to create music? I'm not sure because I've never been without it

I felt such a deep connection with dolphins. I felt like they were the only ones who understood me.

I always strive for freedom: freedom of thought and expression.

When I was very little, I was into Michael Jackson. At six or seven, it was Madonna, but she's not what she used to be. I've been into everything from Edith Piaf to Joe Strummer to the Velvet Underground to Suicide to A Tribe Called Quest to African music.

Music and fashion are a sign of the times and a reflection of what people want and need at this very day and age.

I don't live anywhere. I have always dreamed of moving out of my country because Sweden is boring.

I do it live on tape with a band. It's not like I'm doing electronic music with a laptop.

I honestly kind of hate shopping. My favorite places to shop are rich old lady consignment stores.

I don't want to break someone's heart, but you can't control that. A broken heart happens; that's inevitable.

I'll always be in some type of turmoil. So what I've tried to do is just surrender to that.

I'm more old school: I want to be like Keith Richards on stage. It's not interesting to see straight-from-runway clothes slapped on an artist. It's more interesting when you see people who have their own style.

My favourite festival experience is a show at midnight with the moon blazing and a crowd full of open hearts ready to dance.

I don't feel Swedish. In fact, my father tells me to get out of here as soon as I can.

The problem is, when I talk about heartbreak or whatever, people want to melt it down to some break-up of a relationship, but it's not about that. If you're a sensitive person, just stepping outside can be heartbreaking.

You can't stay in the desert, you go nuts after 24 hours.

I'm a very melancholic kind of person. I don't know why; I think certain people are born a certain way.

Mum is a photographer, and Dad does world music and plays almost every instrument except for drums.

I was a total floral hippie as a child so when I finally could make my own choices, I've been living in different black suit jackets and been really drawn to masculine clothes.

My favorite thing in the world is to have just a big dinner with friends and just sit and talk about their life and their difficulties and all of that.

My whole art is based on escaping life and reality, which might not the best tendency to have when you're trying to be a good person in general. But people can escape into my world easily - artists are supposed to create a keyhole that people can look into.

I dove into the craziness and did things that maybe I would think twice about when I get older.

I was inspired by [Michelangelo] Antonioni's Red Desert - very big and moody.

I'm a really restless person; I'm tired of the way I sounded or looked yesterday. So it's hard to hang onto this image of me as this young Swedish female in this world.

People comment on how you look; it's so unnecessary. I just wanted people to listen to what I have to say instead of focusing on anything else.

I hate the fact you always feel like you have to be going somewhere, like the end destination is to be finished, or to be happy. But the truth is a lot of us are completely lost, and we don't know, and that is also a state of mind, to not know who you are and where you're going.

I wanted to create something really aggressive and psychedelic

I feel it's so important to have strong women around you.

I used to get really sick. I would go to the doctor with all these ailments, and they would tell me I needed to be at home. I didn't even really understand what that meant because since I was a baby, I've always been moving, moving, and then touring.

I'm looking forward to some peace and quiet. I fantasize about having a home, which I've kind of never had.

When I play, I'm so in the moment that I can't really remember what happened afterwards. It's a rare experience for a thinking person like me.

I was 21 and homeless - such a broken, lost woman.

I believe life's too short for compromises and bad fitting jeans

I am such a complex person. I have so many different layers of my personality to choose from. I am super-sensitive, and I am super-strong.

I remember watching films in my teenage years, and you'd be in love with Leonardo DiCaprio, and then a song would come on. You'd love that song forever; it changed your life.

I'm a vagabond. I live out of one suitcase. I feel very comfortable in black. I feel very uncomfortable in anything else than black.

I know that I'm dealing with some kind of wound through my music.

It's important that the way you dress tells a story and reveals something about you and your philosophy.

You can become quite blase, and also, I have no sense of home; I don't have roots. I've never had that feeling that someone else is going to take care of me, ever. I don't trust people.

Because you're a woman, the music industry puts you in another corner. I want to be fighting with the men. I want to be amongst the men, topless, throwing things onstage.
Pitchfork: Whe

I don't necessarily love all the collaborations that I've done; the more I work with other people, the more I realize that I want to work with myself.

It's amazing, coconut oil. I use it as a moisturizer. I put it in my hair when I want a kind of greasy look. I take off my makeup with it. I put a little bit in my coffee. I have coconut oil with everything.

The first thing you do when you get off tour is let off some steam and, you know, have some type of big breakdown.

It's not a very sane thing to try to be great all the time. You want to make something magical; you want to make something wonderful; you want to give to everybody; you want to heal people; you want to still be inspired. That's not easy.

The profession I have keeps dragging me into drama and taking me away from baking, flowering and gardening.

I'm always looking for silhouettes that seem 'invisible' to the eye, as in that it's so well-tailored to your body that you won't even notice what you're wearing. It needs to be dramatic in a subtle way.

If you take the hard facts of a failed relationship, it's pretty grim. But if you make an album out of it, and if the violins represent all the tears, you create something magical out of something very normal.

I don't think Neil Young has a beautiful voice, but it's something that grabs you, and the songs are so good.

I was going on this desert adventure with some friends and we were like, "How amazing would it be to just drag all these mirrors out there?" A lot of times I do things as an impulse and find out my inspirations afterward. Even with songs and lyrics, it can take me years to find out what I was actually trying to do.

Driving, for me, means power and freedom. The feeling that I can go anywhere I want at any time is exhilarating.

The thing is, if you're in this world, you have to do things for yourself, not for others, because everyone will judge you for anything.

I was totally romanticizing the idea of Los Angeles when the Doors, Joni Mitchell, and Neil Young were hanging out there.

If you're being ignored, that's a good time to concentrate on finding yourself and creating your own mystery.

It's a very proactive thing to be dealing with your darkness and getting it out of your system. So it doesn't have to be in your system.

I want to get my music out there. I enjoy playing shows; I just don't enjoy airports. I want to be more creative, but it's hard to get into that zone on tour.

Most things in life come as a surprise.

I struggle with myself every day - I am a lonesome person. I talk to my family - and I connect to some people deeply along the way - but I am a restless soul. Singing is the most immediate relief.

Being on tour really takes a toll, so you have to find ways to stay healthy.

I went to 11 different schools. It was a fantastic adventure, but I was incredibly sensitive and needed a bit more stability.

I've always been a person that is searching for truth and always wants to go further, deeper.

Sometimes when I write songs, I don't know what they're about, and it just suddenly comes to me.

I think everything in life comes in threes: heartbreak and all that. You've got to do the full round in order to learn.

A lot of times females are in charge because they kind of have the pussy power. If they say, "I'm you're prostitute," then they mean, "I'm the power."

The first tape I got was Madonna's 'Immaculate Collection.' I'm inspired by the way she started from nothing and didn't have a big musical talent, but had a big dream.

The key to a good life is finding things that you want to master.

Life is greater when I'm dealing with something than when I'm just dreaming away.

It's the ultimate task to do something stripped back, so you're not hiding behind anything.

I'm not so interested in being indie just for the sake of being indie.

I would want to create an amphitheater outside of California where I would play everyday, and then people would have to come to me. I would create all this crazy stage decor and film it. Or I would just stay inside my home and do films. I would be like the modern Maya Deren.

I don't love all hip-hop, but I do relate to stuff like early Nas, 2Pac, Biggie, and MF Doom because they're also trying to escape a scenario.

It's not about being a sex prostitute. It's about this power play in the war of the sexes. It's a rat race, like, "I'm in charge," "No, I'm in charge."

I want to do a stripped-down album. That style is actually where my heart is - storytelling and just letting the voice and the lyrics talk for themselves. I still want to write the perfect song and sing it in the most honest, undressed way. But I feel like I have to gather more experiences and more layers in my voice. I have to live more to be able to tell this tale. So I'm saving my folk record. I have a feeling nobody will understand it.

I knew I wanted to be an artist, but I never took music lessons. I was just playing around in front of the mirror and being silly, then suddenly I started making songs.

Where I've been hasn't influenced my music. It's more what I listen to. You can find music everywhere, so moving hasn't really influenced my music, more me as a person.

Little Bit

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

Hands down, I'm too proud for love
But with eyes shut it's you I'm thinking of
But how we move from A to B?
It can't be up to me 'cause you don't know
Eye to eye, thigh to thigh, I let go

I think I'm a little bit, little bit
A little bit in love With you
But only if you're a little bit, little bit
Little bit in l-l-l-l love for me, oh, oh

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

And for you I keep my legs apart
And forget about my tainted heart
And I will never ever be the first
To say it but still I, you know I, I, I

I would do it
Push a button, pull a trigger
Climb a mountain, jump off a cliff
'Cause you know, baby

I love you, love you a little bit
I would do it, I would say it
I would mean it and we could do it
It was you and I and I only

I think I'm a little bit, little bit
A little bit in love for you
But only if you're a little, little bit
Little bit in l-l-love for me

I think I'm a little bit, little bit
A little bit in love for you
But only if you're a little, little bit
Little bit in l-l-love for me, oh

Come here, stay with me
Stroke me by the hair
'Cause I would give anything, anythi

After you've been wounded a few times, it's hard to let somebody get that deep again.