Tori Amos Quotes

1. In our minds, love and lust are really separated. It's hard to find someone that can be kind and you can trust enough to leave your kids with, and isn't afraid to throw her man up against the wall and lick him from head to toe.

2. Some people are afraid of what they might find if they try to analyze themselves too much, but you have to crawl into your wounds to discover where your fears are. Once the bleeding starts, the cleansing can begin.

3. Healing takes courage, and we all have courage, even if we have to dig a little to find it.

4. Some of the most wonderful people are the ones who don't fit into boxes.

5. Give me life, give me pain, give me myself again.

6. I have so many different personalities in me and I still feel lonely.

7. I know I'm an acquired taste - I'm anchovies. And not everybody wants those hairy little things.

8. I usually get myself into situations that cause sparks. I mean I'm a girl that likes the storms. I love feeling alive, I love walking out in the cold in my bare feet and feeling the ice on my toes.

9. For the most part, pianos are female to me. Sometimes they're dykes, and they're always good fun.

10. Our generation has an incredible amount of realism, yet at the same time it loves to complain and not really change. Because, if it does change, then it won't have anything to complain about.

11. Many people lock a part of themselves away. It's a bit sacred.

12. The violence between women is unbelievable. Women try to make each other crawl so that their knees are bleeding.

13. Sometimes you have to do what you don't like to get to where you want to be.

14. There's room for everybody on the planet to be creative and conscious if you are your own person. If you're trying to be like somebody else, then there is isn't.

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. I'm a musician first, a food-lover second, a dirty mouth with feet, and a girl last time I checked.

18. Musically, I always allow myself to jump off of cliffs. At least that's what it feels like to me. Whether that's what it actually sounds like might depend on what the listener brings to the songs.

19. People out there must be told about the self-loathing that follows rape and how it's the greatest breakage in divine law to mutilate themselves, as I have done.

20. What girls do to each other is beyond description. No chinese torture comes close.

21. You know that saying, bad things don't happen to good people? That's a lie.

22. Girls you've gotta know when it's time to turn the page.

23. If they keep crashing stuff into the moon, the moon's gonna get pissed off, and the tides'll change, and all the women'll start PMS-ing together. Then you guys are going to f... regret it.

24. I don't see myself as weird, I just see myself as honest.

25. If you really want a challenge, just deal with yourself.

26. On bad days I talk to Death constantly, not about suicide because honestly that's not dramatic enough. Most of us love the stage and suicide is definitely your last performance and being addicted to the stage, suicide was never an option - plus people get to look you over and stare at your fatty bits and you can't cross your legs to give that flattering thigh angle and that's depressing. So we talk. She says things no one else seems to come up with, like let's have a hotdog and then it's like nothing's impossible. 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. And when I do accept that, I know Death is somewhere inside of me. She was the kind of girl all the girls wanted to be, I believe, because of her acceptance of "what is." She keeps reminding me there is change in the "what is" but change cannot be made till you accept the "what is".

27. I see the dream and I see the nightmare, and I believe you can't have the dream without the nightmare.

28. The truth lies in between the 1st and the 40th drink.

29. Get off the cross, we need the wood.

30. I'm too wacky for most weirdos. Who am I to judge?

31. The sense of loss is such a tricky one, because we always feel like our worth is tied up into stuff that we have, not that our worth can grow with things we are willing to lose.

32. Sometimes I breathe you in and I know you know.

33. Most people would rather be sheep than stand on their own with antlers on.

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

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

36. I think that people who can't believe in fairies aren't worth knowing.

37. A guitarist or a drummer can get a cold and still play; I get a cold and sound like a wet mitten trying to sing you a love song. Charming.

38. 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.

39. Healing for me is being able to sit next to the butcher and say "Yes, I’m sitting next to the butcher now," instead of saying "there is no butcher".

40. 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.

41. I'm the queen of the nerds.

42. If all I can say is I'm not in this swamp, I'm not in this swamp then there is not a rope in front of me and there is not an alligator behind me and there is not a girl sitting at the edge eating a hot dog and if I believe that, then dying would be the only answer because then Death couldn't come and say Peachy to me anymore and after all she has a brother who believes in hope.

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

44. It's hard to hide a hundred girls in your hair.

45. The Apocalypse is not something out there that will eradicate everything on planet Earth. That would be far too simple. The Apocalypse is in each and every one of us. It takes courage to fight the beast.

46. From the ancient Inanna forcing herself to the underworld to visit her sister, Ereshkigal - passing through the seven gates of the underworld and then being hung on a hook, rotting - where she had to look at her sister, and her sister had to look at her. Both needed to see inside themselves, to see inside their own shadows. To come to terms with who they really were, not who they thought they were.

47. Years go by will I still be waiting for somebody else to understand... sometimes I hear my voice and it's been here, silent all these years...

48. Pretty is never beautiful.

49. The dark side is not something most people think is inside them. 

50. Every place you land in life has a reason and a lesson.

51. There is value in everybody’s gift. No matter how hard it is to find or how strange it is.

52. I love being a hermit.

53. It’s about realizing, painfully, you’ve kept that voice inside yourself, locked away from even yourself. And you step back and see that your jailer has changed faces. You realize you’ve become your own jailer.

54. You just get so tired of your work being rejected. It was about belonging. It was a time when my individuality wasn’t working for me - or so they said - so I cut it out. Then you realize that you’re not guaranteed anything else but your individuality. You know you can at least wake up with that and your self-respect.

55. The truth is that anybody who exercises power, whether it is a partner, a government, or a religion, only wishes that the others remain fools.

56. I was kind of in a place where I needed to find my own fire, because in truth I had been stealing a bit of fire from some of the men in my life. Wonderful things happen when your life falls apart, your personal life, when soul mates come and go. At the time I wanted to roast these boys over the fire, but now I see it quite differently; in a sense it’s given me freedom.

57. There are only a few people who really, really know me. The friendship with them is almost holy. To be there when the other needs you, that’s what it is about. 

58. For many years, I shut down that place inside myself that needed to rage, cry, ask questions, and basically just express herself.

59. I’m a winter girl; I like coming out when things are desolate and everybody’s ready to slit their wrists.

60. For thousands of years women were not the creative forces, not the Da Vincis, not the Mozarts, just the muses. You really didn’t get a lot of lightning rods that were the women. You don’t hear about the great sonatas written by the great female composers. And of course, they were out there somewhere, but there wasn’t a place for acknowledgment. Now the dam is broken. It was pent up for so long and now there’s a deluge. Suddenly women are the creative forces that we wanted to be for thousands of years.

61. One day you will open your eyes and see her. (from the sleeve of "Strange Little Girls")

62. She forgets him utterly and forever. (ditto)

63. All your tomorrows start here. (ditto)

64. I’ll tell you something that I’m very aware of: my work doesn’t relate to the masses. My work is really for the elite. And when I say elite, I mean the mental elite.

65. I can smell a rat real quick when someone tries to tell me their way is the way. And see, I don’t think my way is the way for everybody.

66. You just can’t expect someone to see it your way. How are we going to be open if we’re not able to see different perspectives?

67. You have to remember that I love the nerd. I have a really deep place in my heart because I was one. Not that I’m not one now, but I really understand people who excel in one area but might not feel good when they walk in a room. 

68. I love being in a skirt and boots. It goes back to the librarian-principal look. I like the idea of carrying books around in a skirt.

69. The way I see it, the men that I’m with, whoever they are, it’s like, look, you have to accept 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. 

70. I believe in eating. I think women especially have this fear of eating, and I think there is a whole euphoric plane you can rise to when you have a good meal. You sit down and with every bite you honestly just say thank you.

71. I played the percussion of Cruel in the shower on my excess fat. It sounded really good - it made me feel good when I’d have that next bag of potato chips. I’d say "Look, Cruel sounds great in the shower. You eat those chips, girl!"

72. All creators go through a period where they’re dry and don’t know how to get that plane ticket back to the creative source. Where is that waterfall? At a certain point you say: "I’ll take a rivulet." And you find a place.

73. I don’t know what a shrink would call me. I don’t want to know. 

74. I loved chasing Mexicans; I’d get off on it! They were kind of cute. They thought I was just ready to check into an asylum.

75. America is the policeman of the world, of course. They point their finger at everybody, but don’t see what happens in our backyards. Our children are killing each other on the streets.

76. I went to Hawaii when I was at my lowest. I was desperately trying to find passion. I had five minutes of wanting to push them (past lovers) over the edge…If anybody said they’ve never thought about just roasting their lover, they’re a liar. 

77. I just try to strip myself, peel myself like an onion. At different layers I discover stuff. 

78. Adolescence is ... the cruelest place on Earth. It can really be heartless. 

79. There are bitches in third grade. The playground is the biggest war zone in the world.

80. The only thing that bothers me is when women are being cruel to other women. They become that way when their inner self is wounded. They’re almost inaccessible. You can always seduce a man but a woman will try to break that force. A woman who’s harsh is like an animal that kills, like a predator. 

81. Whenever a relationship of mine is falling apart I hear this song, usually on the radio. The relationship’s falling apart and I’m contemplating doing something very naughty and on it comes going: "I will always love you, whatever words I say" and I get all sad and weepy and want to get back together with the person I’m with. There’s something about this song. I wish some guy had written it for me. I write all these songs for guys. God, I sound all pouty. I don’t mean to whine, I hate whiners. But no one’s ever written anything for me. They just go: "Write me something, babe." (on her appreciation of The Cure’s "Lovesong")

82. For a woman to be able to say what that says, with that kind of addiction and yet that kind of grace, is just not done. (on her appreciation of Joni Mitchell’s "Case of You")

83. I love chasing the dark. That which is hidden. I like licking it like an ice cream.

84. I was burned for a witch in another life I’m sure. 

85. I don’t want to be buried. My Grandmother was convinced I should be burned as a witch and I think that’s probably right, that’s how I should go. I think fire is cleansing and beautiful. So I definitely want to be cremated and not put in a confined space. 

86. Sometimes, anger is appropriate.

87. I believe in freedom of speech, but if you’re saying stuff just to shock people, and if you don’t believe in it? Then that is what I have an issue with. 

88. This country has Thanksgiving, does the little Disney Pocahontas bullshit, and they don’t really think about, you know, there were 500 (Native American) nations. Every inch of this land belonged to a people. It was genocide. It happened. 

89. I always believe you have to go to the venom for the antidote.

90. I have been surprised, excited and pleasantly shocked by these comics that are extensions of the songs that I have loved and therefore welcome these amazing stories of pictures and words because they are uncompromisingly inspiring. It shows you thought is a powerful, formidable essence and can have a breathtaking domino effect. (Comic Book Tattoo)

91. That is some funky-fresh, pop lockin' shit. (MTV Music Awards, in response to a dance done by Beck; spoken in an unenthusastic monotone while reading from writing on her hand, and clearly fed to her by writers.)

92. If I saw someone destroy a piano I'd f... kill 'em. Wouldn't think twice. (It's) Just defending your best friend! (French television interview, 1992)

93. The most influential journeys I have had have been with Ayahuasca, the vine from the Amazon, the combination of that and mushrooms. They give me the trots and such! It's very much a medicine woman, medicine man's journey drug, where you go inside. It's not a social thing. It's an internal experience. I experiment with things that are usually an internal experience, because that's just what excites me. And yes, it does sometimes give me visions. But my intention when I am doing it is very different than recreational. I don't do it recreationally. I do it to go do inner work, and I'm very clear before I do it what I'm searching for. That way, there's no abuse suffered and I don't rely on it. It's just one more tool that I use sometimes.  (Interview, 9/11/94, for Internet by Michael Pearce)

94. Yeah, there was a period in the late '80s where I was working with different shaman. Myself and a friend, Beene, would take ayahuasca - but it wouldn't be in the liquid form, it would be a freeze-dried pill - and mushrooms. Some of those trips were eighteen hours long and I'll never forget, once I ended up sitting by the bush trying to ask the flowers why they didn't like me. It's like, Why can't I be your friend? I was crawling out of my skin at that time. In my twenties I was really... I was just losing my mind. (Q - May 1998)

95. Men have periods, too... they just don't bleed. 

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