Tori Amos Quotes

Neil says "Hi" by the way... ~ Tori Amos

For years I've gathered various books, sources. When I was little it might have been Tolkien, and so I would have just four books around me. I couldn't afford many books at the time, so I'd have what I had. Maybe I'd tear out ten or twenty pictures from magazines because I couldn't afford art books. I would check out library books and try to keep them as long as I could, but I couldn't jot my notes in them. For any particular song, I can't tell you the books that were on the floor, the photographs on the floor. I don't let anybody keep a record of that. Those are the secret ingredients. ~ Tori Amos

Let's be honest. You let yourself be pulled in because it felt good to be wanted, needed. But then it went too far, as projected images always do. If it's not a real image, but one that has been projected on to you, then you can keep up the masquerade for only so long before the mask cracks and the paint on the mask peels away. ~ Tori Amos

There certainly are situations where I feel not empowered or uninspired. Particularly when the person's agenda is to intimidate through abusing their position or their authority. When I am present and in a nonreactive state, then I can become like snake and slide through their "intimidation net" back into the creative plane. When I am in a reactive state, I usually regret responding, because usually all that happens is that the intimidator feels righteously vindicated. ~ Tori Amos

Over the last few hours I've allowed myself to feel defeated, and just like she said if you allow yourself to feel the way you really feel, maybe you won't be afraid of that feeling anymore. ~ Tori Amos

It's fun to write your set list 20 minutes before and keep the crew very much on their toes. ~ Tori Amos

I love the classic crooners, but I got that from my mother - she worked in a record store. ~ Tori Amos

The world that we all knew before, could wake up in feeling safe ... now it seems that everything has been turned upside down. ~ Tori Amos

Cornwall is one of the most beautiful places, with great people - there's not a great downside to it. ~ Tori Amos

I said
she's gone
but I'm alive, I'm alive
I'm coming in the graveyard
to sing you to sleep now ~ Tori Amos

When you stop putting yourself on the line, and you don't touch your own heart, how do you expect to touch other people? ~ Tori Amos

There is value in everybody's gift. No matter how hard to find or strange it is. ~ Tori Amos

Sometimes those demons are frightening and sometimes they're beautiful. ~ Tori Amos

On some of my darkest days, Lucifer's the one who comes and gives me an ice cream. ~ Tori Amos

You decide whether you look at your reality or live pretending these feelings don't exist. ~ Tori Amos

After a while, though, you realize that a whole slew of young singer-songwriter piano players are getting compared to you. That's when you feel the passage of time is occurring. ~ Tori Amos

Music is always a reflection of what's going on in the hearts and minds of the culture. ~ Tori Amos

I had a very strict upbringing with my dad and was very close to my mum, who was extremely loving. ~ Tori Amos

Sometimes you are forced to defend your beliefs. Sometimes you are forced to look at relationships that aren't positive anymore. There are times when I have had to make peace with the fact that I am at war. And sometimes you have to fight those who do not want love to conquer all. ~ Tori Amos

I produce the records. I don't hand over control to some really expensive producer who then talks to the record company and then tries to bend me to their will - for commercial purposes. ~ Tori Amos

I don't think that many performers necessarily want to see their audience empowered. I think a lot of performers, no different from priests, need the hierarchy. Modern, celebrity-driven entertainment turns the stage into an altar, and so many celebrities refuse to be removed from those altars once they manage to ascend. They will not be taken down - the Goddess is offended ... As a storyteller in the old tradition, you held an important place at the circle. Your position was fluid, not necessarily permanent, but it demanded that you respected the others witnessing your performance as much as they respected you. All storytellers, all troubadours worth their salt knew their myths. ~ Tori Amos

When you've got the virgin and the whore sitting next to each other, they're likely to judge each other harshly.
~ Tori Amos

If you can't create physical life, you find a life force. If that's in music, that's in music. I started to find this deep, primitive rhythm, and I started to move to it. And I held hands with sorrow, and I danced with her, and we giggled a bit. ~ Tori Amos

Sometimes you need to take a departure from what you do to something that's slightly different in order to get inspiration. ~ Tori Amos

Anything a wife should do, I'm terrible at. Anything a mistress should do, I'll try. ~ Tori Amos

If I was writing songs just for me I'd only play them in my living room, alone. ~ Tori Amos

When I went on this trip I had a sexual/spiritual experience with a creature named Lucifer. ~ Tori Amos

There are older men with younger women but you don't see a lot of older women with younger men. There are some women who have been able to do it but not often. ~ Tori Amos

Your apocalypse was fab. ~ Tori Amos

I was very close to my mother as the youngest of three. She was my playmate. ~ Tori Amos

Somebody will come backstage and go, 'You saved me.' And I will have to say, 'Stop right there. You saved yourself.' ~ Tori Amos

Sometimes I breathe you in and I know you know. ~ Tori Amos

I'm an acquired taste. I'm anchovies. If I was potato chips I could go more places. ~ Tori Amos

Finding people in your life as sounding boards who can be neutral and clear is worth nurturing. ~ Tori Amos

I think you need to have people around you whose standard is high and who don't accept anything less. ~ Tori Amos

What do you plan to do with all your freedom? ~ Tori Amos

Gimme peace, love, and a hard cock! ~ Tori Amos

I have a great relationship with my mother-in-law. We're both Leos, we understand each other. ~ Tori Amos

You don't leave people who can't defend themselves. ~ Tori Amos

I felt sidelined by the industry, by the preoccupation with finding something newer, younger. ~ Tori Amos

I can play the flute. Music was my favourite A-level, and I used to love composing my and stylising my voice to sound like 90's singing sensation Tori Amos. ~ Erin O'Connor

Some people hide more than others, and it does intrigue me. ~ Tori Amos

Men have periods too, they just don't bleed. ~ Tori Amos

Girls you've gotta know when it's time to turn the page. ~ Tori Amos

215. "In the Springtime of his voodoo, he was going to show me spring."~ ~ Tori Amos

You don't have to justify anything. Being pissed off is absolutely ok. ~ Tori Amos

I'm not like a poker player. I'm not into bluff. My way is to look someone in the eye and tell them the way I'm intending to go. My cards are always on the table. ~ Tori Amos

The way I see it, the men that I'm with, whoever they are, it's like look, you have to accept the fact that I like ice cream, and I know it shows up on my hips but if you can't accept that, then leave. Go away, toodles. It is non-negotiable. ~ Tori Amos

When you're in your 20s, there's maybe a little room for you to not be at the top of your artistic game, if you look good on a magazine cover. When you're not on the cover of the magazines anymore, then you realize that the work has to be great. ~ Tori Amos

I'm standing naked before you. Don't you want more than sex? ~ Tori Amos

My brother was a fantastic cheerleader for my development as a musician. He was almost 10 years older than me and would really push me to develop as a songwriter. ~ Tori Amos

And if there is a way to find you, I will find you. but will you find me if Neil makes me a tree ~ Tori Amos

An ounce of breast milk is even more potent than the finest tequila. ~ Tori Amos

Guys would sleep with a bicycle if it had the right color lip gloss on. They have no shame. They're like bull elks in a field. ~ Tori Amos

I am the worst influence. If you can't handle your vices, then I am the Devil. ~ Tori Amos

A lot of the carols were not as you hear them now. ~ Tori Amos

She told me once there is a part of her in everyone, though Neil believes I'm more Delirium than Tori, and Death taught me to accept that, you know, wear your butterflies with pride. ~ Tori Amos

My father was a minister and so rock music was banned in our house. ~ Tori Amos

If you can surrender your protection devices, in order to track the potentially raw and perhaps elusive emotions that are the song's DNA, then that is creative vulnerability, which is ultimately hugely empowering. ~ Tori Amos

I don't kid around. ~ Tori Amos

This is very simple in the world of chicks: some are hoochies, some are not, and some should never try to be. It's no different from the idea of sports. Now, I can go on my little rowing machine for four times a week, twenty-two minutes a time, and I can feel as if I flirt with the sporting world. Similar to the idea that a woman can put on something cuter for her man, for those moments, and flirt with garments that a hoochie woman might be pushing. But never for one moment should you get confused. My little rowing machine and I cannot consider ourselves athletes. Wearing the same garment does not a hoochie woman make. So if you are a true hoochie woman, may garments below the navel always be in your future. If you are not, then please don't throw away your cotton zippy jacket. ~ Tori Amos

When interviews are good, the conversation can be amazing. Sometimes I've had conversations with journalists that I've never had with anybody else. ~ Tori Amos

Being in your forties - any woman who isn't there yet, I just have to say to you: Euphoria is coming to you. ~ Tori Amos

Life is fleeting. It is to be enjoyed. ~ Tori Amos

Tell me you're crazy, maybe then I'll understand. ~ Tori Amos

I'm a conduit for telling people's stories. It's a privilege. ~ Tori Amos

I wanted to marry Lucifer ... I don't consider Lucifer an evil force ... I feel his presence with his music. I feel like he comes and sits on my piano ... ~ Tori Amos

I have so many different personalities in me and I still feel lonely. ~ Tori Amos

I want to be an integrated woman. ~ Tori Amos

I know that mess spelled backwards is ssem and I felt much better armed with that information. ~ Tori Amos

Music has an alchemical quality. And there's more than one voice on the piano. You have two hands. One can be playing a celestial melody while the other is doing quite the opposite. The joining of the profane and the sacred, or the passionate and the compassionate, happens right there on the keyboard. ~ Tori Amos

I've been looking for a savior in these dirty streets, looking for a savior beneath these dirty sheets. ~ Tori Amos

Not everybody wants to have the same career. I think what's difficult is when you have two people that do something very, very similar and they both, say, want the limelight. That's very tricky. ~ Tori Amos

Her entire life has been devoted to healing the deepest, most invasive unseeable scar that one can ever have. ~ Tori Amos

Those of you who are strong need to be there for those who have lost someone today. We have to be here for each other right now. ~ Tori Amos

The only way out is to go so far in ... ~ Tori Amos

I have built my world through Native American mythology. ~ Tori Amos

The music is the magic carpet that other things take naps on. ~ Tori Amos

I think there are pieces of me you've never seen. ~ Tori Amos

I'm really into moderation. Too much of anything will harm you in the end. Too much sugar. Too much pasta. I'm into drugs as a teaching tool, which is why I only take hallucinogenics. I mean, it's not like I've never done cocaine, but, on the whole, if I can't see dancing elephants then I'm not interested. ~ Tori Amos

I am finding that vulnerability gives me great strength, because you're not hiding anymore. It's really about being a pioneer for myself, going into the places where I am not being taught. I have to teach myself. ~ Tori Amos

When they say take from my body, I think I'll take from mine instead. Getting off, getting off while they're all down stairs. ~ Tori Amos

So close to touching freedom, then I hear the guards call my name ~ Tori Amos

There are things that I refuse to deal with except through my music ... because I don't trust humanity that much, and I don't know if I trust me that much. But I trust the songs. ~ Tori Amos

There is a time and a place for things. Sometimes one needs to put a filter on oneself. That can be a good thing. ~ Tori Amos

The romantic myth of the artist says that you are the Source. I have no illusion about that. Native Americans don't believe they are the Source. They have access to the Source. Endless access. But don't get confused. ~ Tori Amos

I wanted to marry Lucifer. I feel his presence in my music. ~ Tori Amos

I'm a classic emerald green Sixties Jaguar that nobody can own, but my husband is allowed to drive. ~ Tori Amos

I like involved projects. ~ Tori Amos

Carbon made only wants to be unmade. ~ Tori Amos

People assume that all artists make for terrible business people, but I'm in complete charge of my own career. ~ Tori Amos

I know now that my avatar all along has been closer to Lisa Simpson than anyone else. ~ Tori Amos

I like cosy, intimate houses. ~ Tori Amos

I realized that what was most important to me was following my own path, and not the one laid down for me by others. ~ Tori Amos

Dance with the sufis, celebrate your top ten in the charts of pain. ~ Tori Amos

I think you have to know who you are. Get to know the monster that lives in your soul. Dive deep into your soul and explore it. I don't want to renounce my dark side. The truth has always held an enormous interest for me. ~ Tori Amos

They say you were something in those formative years. ~ Tori Amos

We don't often see our own stories. Good artists are the ones that whisper our own stories back to us. ~ Tori Amos

I don't know if the average person really has faith in Washington anymore. ~ Tori Amos

I don't want to give too much ink to foolish men. ~ Tori Amos