Michelle Shocked Quotes

Mainstream media would convince you that there's commercial culture and that's all - but this other music is still here.

Punk is just as much a form of folk music as anything is!

I can't tell you where I'm going ... but I can tell you where I come from.

My grandmother had a Miss Margaret's School of Dance to teach tap and ballet to kids, but I never studied it. I was raised a Mormon and they're dancing fools. It's the only vice they have - dancing.

We've come a long way, we've come a long way and we never even left L.A.

I'm a perfectionist, which I think is a mistake.

I try to look at this music career thing as the means to an end. And really, at the end of it, I see myself on a sailboat, sailing off the edge of the world.

Writing and singing does give me some kind of release from the demons of my past, it is a therapy of sorts, but to be honest, my marriage played a more important role in the acceptance of myself than performance has ever done.

I'm one of the few that comes from this vantage point: I never tried to get a record deal.

I was in a prayer meeting yesterday. You gotta appreciate how scared, how scares folks on that side of the equation are. From their vantage point
I really shouldnt say their
cause its mine too, we are nearly at the end of time and from our vantage point, were going to be I think maybe Chinese Water torture is going to be the means the method, once Prop 8 gets instated and once preachers are held at gunpoint and forced to marry the homosexuals, Im pretty sure that that will be the signal for Jesus to come on back.

At one time I was a nihilistic punk with a mohican and a ring in my nose. I think in the course of time I'll find a middle ground, but I also carry that sense of responsibility. I'm in a position to defeat stereotypes.

Making music should not be left to the professionals.

Their lives ran in circles so small They thought they'd seen it all

I think people have to choose between living with contradictions or painting themselves into a corner. I have a lot of contradictions.

I regard myself as a true American musician, and I play every style that is my heritage.

If I'm going to be held captive by social media, I'm going to use it against itself.

When I grow up I want to be an old woman.

People might say I'm difficult, but did you ever hear anyone describe a label as 'difficult'? By nature, artists should challenge. When they call you difficult, it is a reflection of the imbalance of power.

Ideals are not something I can control. It's not logic that convinces me of something, it's what my heart says. My heart has a way of involving me in things, which can only be good for the music.

I think the word soul has gotta come into it. Music that's created just for consuming lacks that soul, that swing, that feeling.

I believe in the power of music. I believe in it absolutely. It's never failed me. Never.

"What the hell'd you let them break your spirit for?" You know, their lives ran in circles so small. Ah, they thought they'd seen it all. And they could not make a place for a girl who'd seen the ocean.

Music is not a commodity, it's a resource.

I resent like hell that I was maybe eighteen before I ever heard the 'L' word. It would have made all the difference for me had I grown up knowing that the reason I didn't fit in was because they hadn't told me there were more categories to fit into.

I'm too shy, really to be able to hang out with my heroes for too long.

I accepted a change in my life. I didn't choose that change and those are the best changes to make.

They sign a bunch of women, and they call it a movement. I don't like the way women in music have been identified as women first and musicians second.