Top 60 Sharon Van Etten Quotes

Writing songs helped me figure out how to communicate with other people. I finally figured out that if I could express something in a song, I could probably express it in my real life, too.

Half of my anxiety is about whether people are going to like me.

I’m a really strong person. I’ve no regrets in my life.

I started playing, and people responded to it and connected with it and now, I don’t even know what I’m really connecting with anymore or if I’m helping people. Now it’s more of a business.

My mom is a history teacher, so we’d go on all these historic trips as kids around Halloween, because it was kind of creepy.

When I first started making music, it was where I went when I couldn’t express myself, when I wasn’t able to connect with other people, when I couldn’t talk about what I was going through.

My friends actually used to call me the ‘Female Conor Oberst.’ I got to open up with him once, and I told him about that, and he thought it was hilarious.

I think there are times in a lot of people’s pasts where they’ve unintentionally fallen in love with really damaged people. You go out with someone who’s a mess so you can feel less of a mess.

I only work with people that are mysteries.

I used to hyperventilate, but I don’t do that anymore.

I’m a total goofball.

I have a day job Monday to Friday. I work at a record label in Brooklyn called Ba Da Bing. It’s a great indie label and I listen to music all day. I meet people online and find out about the cool new music blogs.

I’m getting bored performing the same songs over and over. Songwriting comes and goes.

The dilemma I have is that everything I do at work is all about me, and at what point is that selfish? I’m just talking and singing about myself, or I’m standing on a stage and hoping that everybody likes me. Obviously, it’s also about the music and feeling and connecting; I know it’s deeper than that.

Sometimes music should just be about you sitting on your bedroom floor, or in the back of the car, singing along stupidly. Evan Dando’s music was all about that for me.

It’s really hard to watch yourself.

Singing a song like ‘Your Love Is Killing Me,’ people are worried about me. My mother called me, like, ‘What’s going on with you? Are you alright? I thought you were doing fine.’ And I’m like, ‘I am doing fine. It’s just, this is what I do.’

When I write, it’s to heal. It’s my own self-therapy so that I don’t actually feel sad all of the time.

Sadness isn’t an emotion that most cool bands want to talk about.

I’m a sucker for a love song!

I have a lot of alter-egos: I would love to be a back-up singer for someone someday. I have an electronic side-project. I have a ’90s grunge side project; I have a piano project… I have this industrial, goth-electronic song, super creepy sounding, just really dark and dreary.

My goal is to become a therapist by the time I’m 50.

As a kid, you put musicians on a pedestal – well, I did. The more you meet bands, and the more you hang around them, you can have normal conversations.

I believe my songs are strong enough to stand on their own – even way back then when they were recorded badly and minimally.

When I can write a song in a way where I feel like other people can relate to it, and I can take it past being cathartic just for me, that’s when I know I can share it. Otherwise, I’d just feel like it’s selfish.

In my teenage years, there was a lot of angst going on.

I wanna grow and develop as an artist, and I feel like different kinds of collaborations can only help me in that way.

Honestly, live is my favorite way of performing. Every show is a completely different energy.

Just getting older, you stop caring what other people think, but also, you know who you are, and you know what you want.

Everyone has their down days. Unfortunately, that’s when I am the most prolific.

I feel like I’m getting better at being a writer.

I’ve always been really shy. I was always afraid of any kind of confrontation.

‘The Boatman’s Call’ is amazing; it’s an album of love songs, really beautiful.

I like having a home. I like having a place to return to.

I think, in general, I find writing to be very therapeutic and singing in itself to be really therapeutic.

I have a hard time not wearing my heart on my sleeve and answering people honestly. You know, my friends warn me that I should be more guarded ’cause sometimes I am too honest and open, but it’s also just who I am.

I hate putting negative energy out into the world. But it’s either inside or out. I mean, it’s either get an ulcer or have a fight.

I hate the term ’emo.’ It turned into this genre of music, when all music, if you connect with it, is emotional.

In 2015, I told my band that I was taking a break so I could focus on my home life, go back to school, and try to remember what it was like to feel like a human being again.

I was pretty troubled for a long time. And I didn’t know that. As a kid, I never talked about my emotions. My mom gave me a journal, but I didn’t know what it meant. I just wrote all the time, not even thinking about it. But it also made me feel better.

I’m not a down-in-the-dumps person. I think some people assume that I am because of the music I write.

I’m a late bloomer in music.

I guess I usually write when I’m in a really intense headspace, because it’s my form of self-therapy.

I totally lucked out by meeting a lot of amazing people. I guess it stems from going to shows and being confident enough to meet people and be able to talk to them like a normal person rather than have my head down all the time.

I was in musicals. and I was in the choir when I was younger. Before I started writing my own songs, I thought I wanted to be on Broadway, but it was nothing I ever really pursued.

I always had a hard time communicating my emotions. I’d retreat into my bedroom and listen to music. And when you’re a teenager, you’re dealing with all these hormones. It’s like, ‘What are these?’

Most musicians are normal people who want to hang out and are really down to earth.

I hit ‘record’ whenever I’m going through a really hard time. I don’t listen to it for a couple of days, so I have some perspective. If it’s too personal to share, and I feel like would alienate the listeners, then I usually don’t share that stuff.

I get things out of my system through my songs, but, because they can be about so many different things, it takes me a while to get through them emotionally.

I only write when I’m in a dark place. I hit ‘record’ and get it out, writing and playing my guitar at the same time.

I was so broken when I did the first record. I was living in my parents’ basement, I didn’t know anyone. I was broken-hearted and writing this really dark record. I was at the bottom of a well.

I’m trying to learn how to cook.

My mom used to ask me when I was gonna write a happy song. I still tell her that it’s when I start to write really happy-sounding songs that everyone needs to start worrying.

In some ways, being on the road is like summer camp. There’s a camaraderie, but I’m also learning how to be more of a leader.

Everything will be okay. I have a sticker on my laptop that says that.

I didn’t start writing with band arrangements until I was working on ‘Tramp.’

Every time I re-perform a song, I gain some perspective.

I am my therapist, and I analyze what’s happening and if I’m being hurt in the process. The result is songs that are very emotional, very deep, although I try to write them generally so they won’t alienate the listener.

It’s not onstage as often anymore, but whenever I got anxious, I used to talk a lot more, and I wouldn’t even know what I was saying… it was so bad. If I just talk myself through something, even if it’s just talking about nothing, it usually gets me out of it.

I realized that there’s this fine line between being personal and being general and being alienating.