Sinead O'Connor Quotes

You also said in Rolling Stone that your look is based on mine. The look I chose, I chose on purpose at a time when my record company were encouraging me to do what you have done. I felt I would rather be judged on my talent and not my looks. I am happy that I made that choice, not least because I do not find myself on the proverbial rag heap now that I am almost 47 yrs of age.. which unfortunately many female artists who have based their image around their sexuality, end up on when they reach middle age.

It's been seven hours and fifteen days, since you took your love away.

I had developed manic depression [bipolar disorder] ... and the main symptoms the constant voice in the head telling you to kill yourself.

I'm not going to be singing songs that I made in the past. I closed the door on that incarnation of Sinead O'Connor.

I understand that we are actually complicated people but we are also dreadfully simple.

As a parent, I don't really want my child to know about all this horrible violence that people seem to be wanting to tell them every time they go to buy some candy.

I have no shame around the fact that I can be shot into suicidal feelings by certain people's treatment of me. I am no different to any other person, I therefore act as I believe any other person should be free to.

I think there's a lot that's beautiful about religion and very inspiring, obviously, but I do think that God needs to be rescued from religion actually.

I have also Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and I wouldn't have survived that if not for music. So I think for me, music was a soothing thing and it was also a place where you could say all the stuff that you couldn't say anywhere else.

I was getting a lot of pressure from people in show business about my being overweight because of medication, I was on 200 mg of amitriptiline. When I said this to my doctor, for some reason she took me completely off medication and she didn't really supervise properly.

I don't want to go shoving what I believe down anyone's throat. Whatever I believe about Jesus is a personal thing, but it doesn't exclude all the others.

Women are to be valued for so much more than their sexuality

There's a difference between, you know, God loves unconditionally in my feeling and religion loves conditionally. Religion spends an awful lot of time dictating who God can love and can't love.

You must not try to be too pure, you must fly closer to the sea.

What pisses me off is when I've got seven or eight record company fat pig men sitting there telling me what to wear.

I guess there's a song for absolutely everything that could possibly happen to a person.

Fame is a curse ... it was the worst phase of my life, which I thank God I'll never have to go through again.

What I'm interested in is the protection of children from violence, and they are exposed to violence every single day in the form of, as it's called, the news. Then you wonder why the children are running around, doing the things in the streets, doing the things that they've seen the adults doing in the so-called news.

We have a tradition of passing our history orally and singing a lot of it and writing songs about it and there's kind of a calling in Irish voices when they're singing in their Irish accent.

The important thing about "brave" is, it doesn't mean you're not terrified.

Islam - a religion horribly misrepresented by terrorists, which is like the IRA saying they represented Irish people. Islam is a BEAUTIFUL religion. would make you cry it's so beautiful ... and gentle.

I am someone who really does believe very strongly in the Holy Spirit. I feel I'm someone who, since I was a very, very small child, of being engaged in a very strong relationship with the Holy Spirit.

Suicide doesn't solve your problems. It only makes them infinitely, un-countably worse.

I think people who come from abuse and/or people who have mental illnesses, have terrible self-esteem problems.

The sexuality is being sold to the artists as power when in fact it's not; it's a way of hypnotizing their audience.

It should be a crime to abandon your child, and it's not. It would be wonderful if it could be criminalized.

Protection of children from violence and abuse has always been my main activity or campaign.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm now in the business of making spiritual records and using my voice for that purpose.

Songs are like ropes that you can kind of hang on to or pull yourself up on.

I don't want any man to have control over me.

Nobody gets between me and my microphone.

I know that I have done many things to give you reason not to listen to me

I think a lot of artists go waving their Grammies around thanking God for their Grammy, but when it comes to a pitch battle in the street for the honor of God, none of them is anywhere to be found.

In my belief, there's one spirit. I prefer to call it the Holy Spirit. I don't think it matters if you call it God or Allah or Jesus or Fred or David or too early in the morning or whatever.

I grew up in a situation of extreme abuse, but there was no chance to talk about it, so music became the escape if you like.

People always complain, 'you never invited me to your wedding', but I prefer casual weddings.

The music business is a place where the artists are all treated like we're working for the people who are working for us. That can obviously be exaggerated when you're a female.

My kids really are my center. They create a beautiful chaos. It's always a nice chaos with them.

Forgiveness is the most important thing. We all have to forgive what was done to us - the Irish people have to forgive. The African people. The Jewish people. We all have to forgive and understand the only way to stop the cycle of hate and abuse is not to allow yourself to get caught in it.

We can love religion as we need rituals, but The Holy Spirit is a bird, free to fly and land where it likes. We don't actually need 'religion' in order to have a relationship with The Holy Spirit. Too many wars an violence over religion.We need to see it's all the same spirit and we are part of that spirit so we shouldn't be fighting over what name we call it. It's a free bird.

I find that as a female boss in the music industry, it's difficult to actually be treated as if you actually are the boss and to have people act on your instructions and take you seriously. Like you call up people who are working for you and say, "I'd like to see such-and-such document," and they tell you that you don't need it. Then you have to spend time convincing them that it doesn't matter whether they think you need it or not, they're supposed to hand it to you.

I'm a very good dishwasher. I'm a terrible cook. I'm an awful cook.

I've been married three times, really I should only have been married once.

To say what you feel is to dig your own grave.

Maybe it was mean, but I really don't think so. You asked for the truth and I told you.

If there was acceptance of the mentally ill in the Catholic Church, the entire Curia would resign!

The irony is that musical artists have enormous public voices, but behind the scenes we're voiceless, actually.

When I kissed you, you didn't mind. I thought I tasted of too many cigarettes, but you tasted like wine.

When you're young, you don't really know quite what you're aiming at. You're very impulsive and acting on impulse, which is very important and valuable. But you're kind of swimming in a blind sea. When you get older, you have more of a sense of direction.

At some point the entire population of the earth is gonna have to look back at the kind of essence of spirituality which is basically caring about each other.

I seek no longer to be a 'famous' person, and instead I wish to live a 'normal' life.

When you have mental illness you don't have a plaster or a cast or a crutch, that let everyone know that you have the illness, so people expect the same of you as from anyone else and when you are different they give you a hard time and they think you're being difficult or they think you're being a pain in the ass and they're horrible to you. You spend your life in Ireland trying to hide that you have a mental illness.

I'm a great cleaner. I'm actually kind of addicted to cleaning. I could clean anything.

There is a God. God exists.

I suppose is very cathartic to do a show to the masses and you get to make magic in a manner that you can't do in regular life, but I suppose that self esteem effect is one of the most powerful.

I suppose the danger when you have a job that involves writing is you can be a bit isolated.

It's OK to assert yourself. Obviously, as a woman, I do experience the consequence of asserting yourself - you're not supposed to assert yourself.

I love the Holy Spirit. I can't stand to see it being disrespected. It's been there for me at times when I really needed it. Therefore, I have a duty to stand for it is how I feel.

I'm on fire when I'm singing, I'm completely in character, I use my sense memories, and every syllable of it is meant. It's a very special thing.

I really believe that God and religion is two different things.

It's so hard to retain what your purpose is - or to even realize what it is.

I think people think they're not brave if they're frightened, and that's not true at all.

If you were the boss of a company and some of the employees of your company were known to sexually abuse children, you would fire them instantly.

I only feel better because people aren't being so abusive to me about my weight.

I think that music has been a great help to me and this has been confirmed by every psychiatrist I have seen. I would probably be dead if not for music.

I don't feel like me unless I have my hair shaved. So even when I'm an old lady, I'm going to have it.

It was the case in the 70s and 80s that people believed music could change the world. But now people aren't making music because they want to change the world; they're making music because they want to just make a ton of money.

Until everyone in this country over 35 has passed away, the theocracy will still be alive. And I am not actually of the theocracy, and that could bother people. I think I've probably taken a bit of flak for that, as well as being an arsehole occasionally, obviously.

Minors should not be exposed to what is going on in the so-called news.

Every pore of you is crying and you don't even understand why or what. I actually kind of died and got born again as a result of taking the meds and having a chance to, you know, build a life.

Generally I don't listen to sad songs if I'm sad. I listen to happy songs.

God is something that needs rescuing from religion.