Top 40 Marina and the Diamonds Quotes

I really do want people to listen to the music more than watch what I wear. There’s time for that later. I’ve got the rest of my life to dress up and look nice.

I love pop music because you can really see what’s currently happening in society.

Success, I’ve come to realise, is fleeting so you shouldn’t value it too much.

You have to be your biggest believer.

I didn’t even listen to any music until I was 19, really. I just wanted to be famous. But I didn’t say it to anyone because I was really embarrassed at the thought.

That’s when you know you really fit with someone – when you can just sit there and not do anything. Kind of ignoring each other.

I thought for a long time that I was going to be a pop artist. It was around 18-19 that I started to make that a reality. I just knew that this was my destiny.

I feel weird without lipstick. Even after the first time I wore a really neon pink or a really bright red, I felt really strange without it there. My lips are a main feature, so I feel naked without them.

I love natural beauty, and I think it’s your best look, but I think makeup as an artist is so transformative.

I’ve always been interested in how fast-moving our identity is and that I’ve never been able to pin down who I truly am. That inspires me to write, because I feel like that cements me a bit, in that I find my identity in being an artist.

I think celebrity culture and sexuality in pop music is really important, but I want there to be an alternative for people.

I quite like dark humor.

Love is really my nemesis. I never really allowed myself to indulge in such basic things because I was so motivated and thought that if I did I wouldn’t succeed.

I’m masquerading as an innocent pop star.

I’m not really part of that ‘L.A. thing’ or that celebrity culture. I’m more like someone who observes it, and I can’t ever imagine being like that.

I actually quite like promo, which is quite odd for an artist, but recording’s not the easiest thing.

What I hate is that not many people admit to having a big ego, but you have to – and there’s nothing wrong with it.

My dad’s quite a conservative person, and he brought me up to be very questioning of the commercial world. He looked down on pop culture. I definitely got the impression that pop was evil and that Britney Spears was evil.

I don’t think I’m an instantaneous act the whole world will love in one second – but that’s how I’ve felt about bands I love.

I’m a very, very disciplined person.

Even when I see a beautiful woman, I think, ‘Aw, her life must be amazing.’ Everyone does it. That’s human nature to believe that beauty is everything.

I do have a memo all the time because I need to be guided by something in my life. I’m not religious and I don’t have idols, so something has to drive me.

There’s no one particular road that will lead you to success. I think everybody will find it differently.

Blonde symbolises sexuality and power – it holds very different connotations. The archetypal star has always been blonde.

I’m just waiting for the moment where it’s accepted that women are just as sexual as men without women having to be overtly sexy just to prove how ‘liberated’ they are.

I am very curvy, so the vintage stores suit me better than most designers. I just can’t seem to give up crisps, or make my boobs shrink for that matter. Alas, I will never fit a size zero.

Rejection is a universally embarrassing topic and ‘Electra Heart’ is my response to that. It is a frank album.

I turned off my Google alerts in 2009 as I learnt that following yourself on the Internet very quickly becomes unhealthy.

I felt connected with Madonna from a very young age. I think I share a lot of qualities from her personality. I really respect her.

Lots of narcissistic people have helped lots of other people with their music. That’s such a narcissistic thing to say! Ha ha!

I want to provoke people with thoughts, not by taking my clothes off. It’s time to move on from Stripperville.

I don’t just want to sing about simplistic things all the time. It’s good to have a mix of songs that have a real depth, and that provoke and challenge people, and then songs that are fun and people can enjoy.

I could draw up a list of about 30 artists who I apparently sound like. From Lady Gaga, to Katy Perry to Lana Del Rey. I don’t know if it’s because I’m versatile or because production affects how people judge music. I can’t wait for a time I can just be classed as myself.

I was always very creative. I was always into acting and dancing when I was younger.

Hollywood infected my brain and I really valued the wrong things in life, but I changed dramatically.

Actually, I think that a lot of the interviews and acoustic sessions and other things that artists fill their time with are really pointless and suck the energy out of the artist.

When you are with the wrong person, who doesn’t really love you, all you want is to be adored. It makes you more inward and needy. Gross.

I think some people just have an innate musical ability, and I’m lucky enough to be one of those people.

I often take things I find in vintage crawls and hand them to a very good seamstress, who then replicates them and makes a more robust version in different colors, with a pocket for my mic pack.

You know what, if you compromise and do stuff that’s not becoming to you as an artist, that’s your fault.