Marianne Faithfull Quotes

When you are 18, 19, 20, you're used to being photographed all the time, in a certain way. So, the narcissism becomes almost out of control. And the way that young women are photographed, they become addicted to this feedback of the image.

I went to the big Picasso retrospective at the Tate in the sixties, and I think I went to an Andy Warhol retrospective at the Tate in the sixties, too. My mother was very good at taking me to things like that. We lived in Reading, but we went on these cultural trips to London.

I'm interested in time, fame, death, beauty, truth, all those things.

I've got quite a good brain and all that, which I've never had to use in singing at all.

I live a very nice life. I have a wonderful time. But it's not lived drawing on a full level. I'm relaxed, cool, and enjoying it.

The equipment you've got really dictates what you're going to do. When I started touring, there were no monitors, so I had to take the sound from the hall, and of course it was on a delay, so I would sing, and then I would hear it back, but later. It was very weird.

I thought I wanted to go to drama school or university, and that would have been a completely different life. But what got me was the sound, and hearing it. Hearing everything so loud, I loved that back in the studio. I loved that from the very beginning.

When you lose your reputation at 19, you lose everything.

I've made a contribution to my time and my generation through being myself, not through what I shared with the Rolling Stones. It's very bad for me and very dangerous to see myself as someone who had an influence on this song or that song. It immediately puts me in the position where my worth is dependent on how much of my soul I shared with Mick Jagger, and it's just not valid. You can use the gossip you've heard. You're not getting it from me.

Well, I really didn't enjoy some of the movies I did when I was young.

I was told that I had very likely been clinically depressed for a long, long time, probably since I was 15, or even 14. It explained, to me at least, a lot of my behaviour over the years.

My happiness is very fragile.

I love the Stones, but I've gone to a lot of gigs.

The Ballad of Lucy Jordan
The morning sun touched lightly on the eyes of Lucy Jordan
In a white suburban bedroom in a white suburban town
As she lay there 'neath the covers dreaming of a thousand lovers
Till the world turned to orange and the room went spinning round.

At the age of thirty-seven she realised she'd never
Ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair.
So she let the phone keep ringing and she sat there softly singing
Little nursery rhymes she'd memorised in her daddy's easy chair.

Her husband, he's off to work and the kids are off to school,
And there are, oh, so many ways for her to spend the day.
She could clean the house for hours or rearrange the flowers
Or run naked through the shady street screaming all the way.

At the age of thirty-seven she realised she'd never
Ride through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in her hair
So she let the phone keep ringing as she sat there softly singing
Pretty nursery rhymes she'd memorised in her daddy's easy chair.

The evening sun touched gently on the eyes of Lucy Jordan
On the roof top where she climbed when all the laughter grew too loud
And she bowed and curtsied to the man who reached and offered her his hand,
And he led her down to the long white car that waited past the crowd.

At the age of thirty-seven she knew she'd found forever
As she rode along t

I do yoga. I do tai chi. I do a lot to keep my body and my spirit together so I can work.

Working with David Bowie was very interesting, but I couldn't surrender to it. I should have let him produce a record for me, but I'm very perverse in some ways. He's brilliant, but the entourage were rather daunting.

Rebellion is the only thing that keeps you alive!

There are so many myths out there about Marianne Faithfull, I had to, um, detach. But I can turn it on because Marianne Faithfull is really an attitude, you know.

Feminism is the best thing to come out of the '60's.

I don't like the compression on compact discs. It's lacking in air, and it's lacking in majesty.

The really explicit phrase is doors of perception.

Never apologize, never explain - didn't we always say that? Well, I haven't and I don't.

I know for a fact that Heaven and Hell are here on Earth.

When I found out my mother wanted me to marry a rich man, I instantly didn't want any rich man.

I think I'm really powerful. They'll smash me, probably.

I do take care of myself; I get my nails done, and I have a skin doctor, but that's it. I'm clean and groomed.

I am not frightened of much, but I wouldn't like to get ill.

I wish people didn't just think of me in the '60s. I'm not any era.

I'd love to play a musician in a film.

My father belonged to a commune, and the food was ghastly. My idea of food hell is the salad cream they'd pour all over bits of lettuce, cucumber and tomato. It was just disgusting.

I have always been attracted to the bleaker aspects of life. I love drama.

I never saw myself as beautiful. I can look back and see it now, but then? Never.

I'm alive today, I'm well, I'm working, I'm still creative. What more can I say, really?

The way I choose to show my feelings is through my songs.

Of course I have regrets; I'm not stupid.

To be diagnosed with cancer was a frightening thing, and my first reaction was sheer panic, but I was really fortunate that the cancer was caught at such an early stage that I didn't need chemo or radiotherapy. But I know that cancer is a chronic condition, and once you've had it, you're on the list, because it can come back.

I want to see my grandchildren grow up. I want to be there for my friends. I want to be able to love the person in my life. I want to work. I want to do something I've never done, which is save money. I've never bought anything. I have nothing.

The only time I ever really consider retiring is when I get fed up with the press. Which is often.

I took drugs because we all took drugs.

I got my interest in Lotte Lenya and the Brecht-Weill canon from my parents. And I love classical music - I got that from my parents. I love Cole Porter - that I got from my dad.

I've learnt to accept what has happened to my voice, I suppose, but I do wish it didn't sound quite so rough.

I'm a Capricorn, and they flower late.

I think drugs were used by me as a way of suppressing my natural spirit.

I do have a strong sense of God. It's impossible to explain what I mean when I say that, of course.

I focus on the individual and not seeing this great big monster, 'the press.'

I'm not sure yet what my higher mission is, but I have a feeling it might be great. Before, I thought my mission was death, but now my mission is life.

There is a land that I can go to
When I have time to rest.
All the people I love are there
And those who love me best.

I was anorexic in the '60s and '70s, although it wasn't called anorexia then. I thought people would be nicer to me if I looked very small and delicate, so food wasn't high on my agenda. But it is now.

I come from a very left wing Socialist family, anti-war and anti-empire.

Maybe the most that you can expect from a relationship that goes bad is to come out of it with a few good songs.

Sometimes you just have to get a shock to grow up and wake up, and I've had lots of shocks because it's as though I don't learn the lessons, so something new comes and hits me.

France has been very good for me. It has given me a very worldly-cool attitude.

I've done everything I want to do and gone everywhere I want to go.

I never like photos of myself in the beginning. I live with them for three months, put them in a drawer, take them out and look again. I hate the way I look, but of course it's really not that bad.