Top 50 Beth Ditto Quotes

When I was a kid, Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O’Donnell were mere blips on the gaydar; and they were both still in the closet.

You know, either I’m too fat or I’m flavour of the month. I don’t feel either, but maybe I’m both, who knows?

I was overcome by the Holy Ghost one time, but in a Baptist way. I was six or seven, and I was saved. I just cried and cried. It was joy!

I’m constantly thinking about what I’ll do next. I never count on music being a career of longevity. I mean, longevity is key, and I hope that it lasts, but you just don’t know, because it’s not in your hands, you don’t make the decision.

As with most phobias, the fear of flying does make some sense, but if ever there was a fear worth quashing then this is it. After all, life is short, and there’s a great big world to explore out there.

I certainly know first hand the waste one lady can create through her primping routine, because I am a victim of fashion: to me a day without makeup and a bouffant to match is a day wasted. I love it all – whether it’s fancy, cheap or, I’m ashamed to say, even if it’s bad for the environment.

There is no rule in the pink-triangle guide to coming out that you must wear a rainbow flag cap and organise a full band parade.

I believe I owe all the best parts of my adulthood to embracing my imperfections and showcasing them.

I’m passionate about color. My best friend and I sit and look at Pantone books for fun.

I knew that if I wanted to stop being a pushover I had to get comfortable with small rejections myself. That took some work, but because of it I can now say ‘no’ to other people with a clear conscience.

ABBA was a direct influence on me.

For my group of friends is Lady Gaga eye-opening? No. She’s a less dangerous version of what was so cool about pop culture in the ’80s. Back then it was so gay and so punk in so many ways.

I work really well under pressure but I really hate doing things on a timeframe.

I was born fat and have always been, which was just fine and even healthy and cute until I turned ten or so. Puberty hit like a hurricane and brought a new set of rules. All of a sudden it was my fault I was chubby.

High school wasn’t so bad though because, by then, I had worked out that there were far more nerdy kids and poor kids than there were rich, popular kids, so, at the very least, we had them outnumbered.

As a kid, I was always mad – just noticing the women at Thanksgiving, running around the kitchen, while the men were watching football. For one, I don’t want to cook, and for two, I hate football. I was stuck in the middle.

Even talking, I’m super-loud. I could never have that kind of meek, little wispy whimsical lavender and lace voice. It comes from my body. There’s no way I can fight it.

Girls are taught to sing high and pretty, like Antony, not low and from the guts like Nina Simone. But we’re slowly trying to change that. There are so many things we’re not told growing up, and it’s our true feminist responsibility to take the truth to the people who need to hear it.

I love sad songs. They say so much. I love country music but even the happy songs sound really sad.

I’m a great believer in karma, and the vengeance that it serves up to those who are deliberately mean is generally enough for me.

In moments when I question if I should be having kids, I think of all those phone calls from my sister-in-law, in which, 3,000 miles away, I hear my nephews screaming for her attention. I tell her I have to go because I am packing to leave for Europe, and her tone flatlines: ‘That must be nice.’

Why wear pants when you can wear a muumuu?

Do I ever think Gossip will be really massive in America? No, I don’t think it’ll happen – and that’s fine. It’s kind of nice because I get to experience everything at once. I get to come home and it not be weird, like in Paris or something. It is nice to be completely anonymous.

My mother told me Homer Ditto was not my father. Nope. Mom had had a fling with some other guy who was my dad. Some dude who didn’t stick around too long who Mom was happy to get rid of. She chose Homer, and Homer chose me, so he lent me his name even though I didn’t have his blood.

You live in this shadow that you’re going to burn in Hell until you’re saved. And I still worry about it a little. I don’t believe in Heaven, but I do still fear Hell.

Aretha Franklin was a teenage mom, a musician who came from an incredibly Christian background, but there was a lot of love, which is really inspiring in a feminist way.

I’m naturally a mousy blonde, so I dye my hair, and my eyebrows would disappear if I didn’t get through at least a pencil a month.

I was born to be married. I just feel comfortable there. I love the idea of being partnered for ever. I love my girlfriend, we’ve been best friends since I was 18. There’s not a thing we haven’t been through except for marriage… We’ve had talks about what we would name our kids since we were in our 20s.

I’m a feminist, of course, and I feel as if I’m very politically correct, although I do question what’s P.C. and what’s not – I don’t just accept what I’m told.

I have no control over what people think of me but I have 100% control of what I think of myself, and that is so important. And not just about your body, but so many ways of confidence. You’re constantly learning how to be confident, aren’t you?

I have a lot of feminist idols. My favorite thing about growing up in Arkansas – well, not favorite but something I’ve always felt grateful for – was that I really had to dig for what I could. There was no Internet. There wasn’t tons of feminist literature floating around.

A beautiful plant is like having a friend around the house.

Growing up as a chubby kid with a ton of imaginary friends and a Cyndi Lauper obsession, I learned about rejection early on and was constantly trying to avoid it.

I was always being told off at school. The teachers would say: ‘Everyone’s talking, but you’re the one I can hear.’

I’ve belched a lot more since I had gall bladder surgery. I don’t know why.

‘Get a Job’ is about all the rich kids we knew when we were younger, kids who never had jobs but always had money for partying or getting their hair done.

I have been 130 lbs. as well as 215 lbs. I have had blond, strawberry blond, green, pink and purple hair, and none of that has ever exempted me from having lewd comments flung at me in the street.

My size has helped make me an amazing performer too. The cliche of the Funny Fat Friend: I absolutely was that character – I am that character… It’s a complicated bag of tools I acquired, and I’ve put them all to work onstage.

If you have a therapist who agrees with your every word, then your brain isn’t getting proper exercise.

There is no shame like poor shame. It can make you warm and charming, bitter and resentful, all at once.

Portland is a place where you can find a community as a feminist, a vegan or a fat activist. Artists, musicians, knitters, and filmmakers can all meet like-minded souls. It’s proved the perfect place for me and all my punk friends.

I love Adele so much and it’s honestly not because we’re both big.

I think it’s really cool that there are people like Adele on the cover of ‘Vogue’ and ‘Rolling Stone,’ and like I think it’s really important that people are talking about your body, because if they don’t, then you’ll never be able to break that barrier.

When I am made fun of in the press I just remember those days when I’d come home to find that the water had been turned off because my mother couldn’t afford the bill. Suddenly, everything feels easier.

This archaic idea – that a woman who is unmarried and childless at 30 is somehow unnatural – will probably always exist, and, like most social standards, it is ridiculous.

Some makeup companies have really good recycling policies, and it’s worth finding out whether your favourites are among them. With MAC, for instance, you can take any of your old makeup containers into its shops, and the sweetest deal is that, once you’ve racked up six containers, you get a free lipstick or lip gloss.

Olympia was a town crawling with music. I was new to the whole punk scene. The culture shock continued; Olympia had bagels! We didn’t have bagels in Arkansas. You could order vegetarian food all over town! It was so crazy to me – a place with so many vegetarians, the restaurants made special dishes for them?

I thought to be feminine was to give in to straight culture, or the beauty standard, but in my heart I had a flair for fashion and style. They were passions I kept secret because I didn’t understand I could love clothes and hair and makeup and still like girls.

I can take care of a house, and some people I meet, I think, ‘You don’t even know how to make a bed.’

I’m 90% performer, 10% musician. I’ve always said that Gossip are a band I would go see, not a band I would listen to.