Top 77 Alanis Morissette Quotes

Anything I do has to be directly related to my music. If it isn’t, I don’t really see a point to it.

Ageism works in both directions. As a teenager in the public eye, people would talk condescendingly to me. When you get older there’s this feeling that you have to start carving up your face and body. Right now I’m in the middle ground – I think women in their thirties are taken seriously.

The fear of this delicate and fierce feminine has more to do with our fear of being vulnerable again, getting hurt again, than it does by our actual distaste for the beauty of the feminine and Her qualities.

I could write six songs in one day with everything that’s going on.

I think there is no better way to invite a human being to view their body differently than by inviting them to be an athlete, by revering one’s body as an instrument rather than just an ornament.

There were a lot of people who were a little afraid of the rage or blaming stance I was taking, and find what I am doing now more refreshing.

Down the road, I’ll probably have a kid or two or three. And there will probably be political events or spiritual things to comment on, and humor.

I’ve always been really opinionated, and mixed with being really open hearted, open to people shifting what I think all the time, but I like to speak with conviction.

I saw music as a way to entertain people and take them away from their daily lives and put smiles on their faces, as opposed to what I see it being now, which is a way for me to actually communicate, and a way for me to tap into my subconscious.

I’m clearly most well known for my music. Eventually, ultimately, I’ll be writing books. I’m still writing articles now. I just consider myself a writer.

What influenced me was Tori Amos, who was unapologetic about expressing anger through music, and Sinead O’Connor. Those two in particular were really moving for me, and very inspiring, before I wrote ‘Jagged Little Pill.’

I think it’s irresponsible when celebrities imply they’re doing it all themselves. My son has aunties and uncles around all the time, and my husband is my hero. He’s really full-on. I couldn’t do it any other way.

I think some fans want everything to stay they same because they want to stay the same.

I’ll be writing records until I’m dead, whether people like it or not! I can’t not write; if I don’t, then I get really depressed. I’ll keep going, I promise!

In my opinion, I think sarcasm and humor in a song, without turning it into a novelty song, is really charming.

There were websites erected to figure out how to kill Alanis. I just do not need to see this; it’s not good for anybody.

I don’t want to offend people and I don’t want to be mean, but social commentary and comedy for me are part and parcel. I think the greatest social activists are comedians.

In the past, I had workaholic issues.

I’m doing it because I choose it. And if it’s not working, I can make a change.

Unless I really loved it and felt really passionate about it, I would just kind of abort the song and start a new one.

I was motivated by just thinking that if you had all this external success that everyone would love you and everything would be peaceful and wonderful.

Breakups are a horrible thing for almost everybody I know. For someone who is a love addict, it’s debilitating.

My parents offered me the idea of ceilinglessness. There was no limit in terms of what was possible; no messages sent to me to say that I couldn’t do anything.

I couldn’t be touring unless my husband was on the road with me, taking care of our son while I’m onstage and doing interviews.

To me the biggest irony of this lifetime that I’m living is that for someone who thrives in the public eye in the creative ways that I do, I actually don’t enjoy being in the public eye.

I love songs that are very autobiographical.

I think quite spiritually of myself. I feel like I’m here to support the human evolution.

I like to make pasta with puttanesca sauce and arugula salad.

We live, in North America in general, if I’m given the indulgence of selling us down the river, in a culture of fear of this connective sense of spirit.

A lot of preconceived notions that I had about fame and status and money and joy and pain, and all of these things that I thought I knew, I didn’t.

My greatest achievement is being able to write records that are real snapshots of what’s going on in my life. I won’t repeat myself for the sake of commerce, or to please other people.

There’s cleanliness to how I eat now. I’m much more in tune with my body, so now that I’m so in tune based on having become a semivegan, I can tell what foods affect energy levels. I can tell when I’ve been eating particularly high nutrient foods or I can tell when my glycemic levels are all over the place.

My brother says that I was writing songs about fate while he was off playing soccer. Now I tell him he’s 33 and being a professional while I’m playing soccer with my friends. Ha!

When I was producing on my own, I was doing it in order to – in a very patriarchal entertainment industry, let alone planet – very much hell-bent on trying to prove to myself, if nothing else, that I could do it as a woman.

It’s a joke to think that anyone is one thing. We’re all such complex creatures. But if I’m going to be a poster child for anything, anger’s a gorgeous emotion. It gets a bad rap, but it can make great changes happen.

I can’t not write, if I don’t then I get really depressed.

I’ll keep evolving and put that into my songs.

Typically I go in the studio and whatever I’m contemplating that day will wind up being a song. I don’t come in with lyrics… I just go in and let it happen.

Europe seems a little softer, but in America it’s harsh. In L.A., where I live, it’s all about perfectionism.

I wish people could achieve what they think would bring them happiness in order for them to realize that that’s not really what happiness is.

I’ve been doing a lot of different cross-training and kickboxing and Capoeira and kite surfing, and I’ve just really been back to what I consider my original athletic self.

I think a common misperception about attuning and tending to a child’s needs so constantly is that they don’t grow in their independence, but I think that the opposite is true.

When I start writing songs and it turns into an overly belabored intellectual process, I just throw it out.

My son was five months old, and I built a makeshift studio in my living room so that I could do the attachment parenting approach and write the record at the same time. That was fortuitous, that we could build that in the house.

I love to get to the underbelly of why people are up in arms about anything. Really, what I see is a big shadow in the West, in America especially, and everyone’s afraid of looking stupid. But the truth is, I’m a genius and I’m stupid at the same time.

I get angry at myself for staying in relationships way too long.

The person who knows HOW will always have a job. The person who knows WHY will always be his boss.

I think some people think I’m a smarty-pants. Some people think I’m intense, some people think I’m super-esoteric and nuts.

My own approach has always been to push intense emotions down and attempt to deal with them later.

If I could sell 500 million records every time, it would be great. But I’ve also had the luxury experience of having it when I was a teenager, in a very kind of model version of it.

Anger has been a really big deal for women: how can we express it without feeling that, as the physically weaker sex, we won’t get killed. The alpha-woman was burned at the stake and had her head chopped off in days of old.

We’re taught to be ashamed of confusion, anger, fear and sadness, and to me they’re of equal value to happiness, excitement and inspiration.

When someone says that I’m angry it’s actually a compliment. I have not always been direct with my anger in my relationships, which is part of why I’d write about it in my songs because I had such fear around expressing anger as a woman.

I see my body as an instrument, rather than an ornament.

I found that the more truthful and vulnerable I was, the more empowering it was for me.

I am a firm believer that one way to become enlightened is to be so relaxed, as relaxed as you possibly can be.

What’s that line from TS Eliot? To arrive at the place where you started, but to know it for the first time. I’m able to write about a breakup from a different place. Same brokenness. Same rock-bottom. But a little more informed, now I’m older. Thank God for growing up.

As a kid, I was listening to Aretha Franklin, Etta James and hip-hop as well as music my parents were listening to, like Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen.

I grew up in a very masculine environment. So I was around a lot of men, my brothers and their friends. There was just a lot of guys around.

I remember thinking during those times that I wanted to write in a way where there are no rules.