Top 80 Shirley Manson Quotes

It’s really difficult to navigate attention and stardom and celebrity status and still try to maintain yourself and hold onto your intelligence and integrity. It’s really challenging.

I have a lot of very close girlfriends and sisters – I’m from an all female family. My father often quips that even the cat was neutered!

I was a redhead and a middle child; both can make you feel excluded. It’s like fighting to be included, in the swim of things. After a while you start to develop a bit of a victim mentality, which isn’t great for a happy life.

I would say I’m pretty well at ease with my sexuality, but I’m an individual before I am a female.

I refuse to step inside the ring and fight like a gladiator against my own. I’m not playing that game. Any woman who has survived a year or more of making music has my undying respect.

At the end of the day, though, the band members have to be strong. It’s down to the individuals in the unit. Listen to me, I’m talking like I’m in the army and this is my squadron.

I couldn’t feel good about myself hanging out in Armani clothes when my girlfriend can’t even pay her heating bill. I’d feel foul and I’d be embarrassed.

I plan on doing as much in my life as I possibly can.

I’ve got no timetable. I’m sort of sick of timetables, to be honest.

I’m a loud person; I love noise and aggression. I crave contact.

That’s a difficult question, because to consider yourself a rebel is sort of ridiculous.

I mean, I tend to do my own thing, and that usually crosses purposes with everyone around me.

I’m fairly in control and I don’t like to flirt particularly. I mean, obviously if I meet someone who I think is hot, of course I’ll want to flirt with him, But in general I don’t use it in day-to-day life.

No, I like being a role model because I know how much comfort my musical idols brought me.

And then there’s all these other creeps that surround your band and suck off you like leeches and try to manipulate you and your business. You have to watch like a hawk. I’m always ready to fight. I see it very much as a battle.

No, I’m not Shirley the girl, I’m the woman on MTV with the big boots.

I think it’s a great thing to have failed in life and then pulled yourself up by the boot straps and actually done something, because then you appreciate it more.

I love pop music. Who doesn’t?

I was a redhead and a middle child; both can make you feel excluded. It’s like fighting to be included, in the swim of things. After a while you start to develop a bit of a victim mentality, which isn’t great for a happy life.

I have a lot of very close girlfriends and sisters – I’m from an all female family. My father often quips that even the cat was neutered!

People don’t associate red hair, pale skin, and freckles with beauty.

That’s a difficult question, because to consider yourself a rebel is sort of ridiculous.

Pop music seems to be the way radio programming has chosen to support female artists. They have chosen not to support a more provocative voice from women, which I find disappointing.

What makes a woman stylish is what she has to say and how she chooses to live her life.

In terms of fitting in, you know, I don’t have a lot of armor up. I’m a raw nerve and it’s really uncomfortable for a lot of people.

I have a temper on me that could hold back tides.

I am greedy, and most importantly, game for what’s next.

It’s everywhere, constant criticism of women’s appearance in magazines and online. It’s not easy to navigate.

It’s unhealthy for people to never express any kind of negativity or doubt. To have balance, you need to address that side of your thoughts as well as the positive. Otherwise, you tend toward crazy.

I’m afraid of happy people. They’re chemically unbalanced.

I am a contradictory mess but I see it as my prerogative to change my mood like the weather.

No, I’m not Shirley the girl, I’m the woman on MTV with the big boots.

It’s everywhere, constant criticism of women’s appearance in magazines and online. It’s not easy to navigate.

Humans all want to beat the clock but nobody ever does.

I think young artists are always inspiring because they are coming at worlds from a different point of view.

Starbucks is my main fix and it’s usually you people working in there – sometimes they’re actually shaking. It just makes me feel horrendous because I’ve been in that situation.

I like the feeling that I’m giving young women self-confidence. It sounds so cliched, but it can be very moving.

I feel the same way I did when I was in school. I’m having the same insecurities.

We’re living in a time when people are struggling to appear perfect.

I feel privileged, to be honest.

I don’t find any kind of tension very productive, I find it destructive, actually.

I was always embarrassed because my dad wore a suit and my mother wore flat pumps and a cozy jumper while my friends’ parents were punks or hippies.

My solo album is dead and buried. We had the funeral. It was sad and I cried a lot but it made such a beautiful corpse that we had an open casket.

I have a temper on me that could hold back tides.

I am greedy, and most importantly, game for what’s next.

How you present yourself is nobody’s business but your own. The stylists have an opinion. The hair people have an opinion. The fans and the management have opinions. Ultimately, you have to trust that you are the safe-keeper of yourself.

A lot of celebrities just want money, fame, power, fancy cars, houses all over the world and have people bow down to them. To me, that’s frightful behaviour.

The sensation of never feeling good enough or pretty enough will always be there. It’s a constant dialogue, and you just learn to be more powerful than that other voice. When you hear it come up, you shut it down.

I think women in pop have been declawed and defanged, and they’re just meant to look pretty and sing pretty.

I love pop music. Who doesn’t?

I mean, I tend to do my own thing, and that usually crosses purposes with everyone around me.

I refuse to step inside the ring and fight like a gladiator against my own. I’m not playing that game. Any woman who has survived a year or more of making music has my undying respect.

I think women in pop have been declawed and defanged, and they’re just meant to look pretty and sing pretty.

Pop music seems to be the way radio programming has chosen to support female artists. They have chosen not to support a more provocative voice from women, which I find disappointing.

Until we command the exact same salary as every male counterpart, I feel a political desire to stand by other women. If we don’t stand together, that equality will never be fully realized, and that bothers me.

I would say I’m pretty well at ease with my sexuality, but I’m an individual before I am a female.

I’m fairly in control and I don’t like to flirt particularly. I mean, obviously if I meet someone who I think is hot, of course I’ll want to flirt with him, But in general I don’t use it in day-to-day life.

In the ’90s, the radio was still alive with all different kinds of points of view, and I think that’s why people are longing for that time. It was the first time that alternative music broke through to the mainstream.

Selling millions of albums is a sign you’ve infiltrated the culture.

Mozart was a punk, which people seem to forget. He was a naughty, naughty boy.

I just am fascinated by other female artists, probably because I feel a kinship with them, no matter who they are and what they do.

In terms of fitting in, you know, I don’t have a lot of armor up. I’m a raw nerve and it’s really uncomfortable for a lot of people.

I think a lot of people in their lives feel like they don’t fit in, even if it looks like they do. People feel like outsiders even if others think we, the lives we live, have everything. If they are popular or they have everything they are supposed to have. Even then, people still don’t feel quite included.

I think a lot of people in their lives feel like they don’t fit in, even if it looks like they do. People feel like outsiders even if others think we, the lives we live, have everything. If they are popular or they have everything they are supposed to have. Even then, people still don’t feel quite included.

Possibly because I grew up not feeling very confident about my own physical appearance, I developed internal devices so that I could integrate into society.

People don’t associate red hair, pale skin, and freckles with beauty.

I want to hear an alternative viewpoint, and I don’t want girls to be defanged and declawed and pretty and mute.

I feel the same way I did when I was in school. I’m having the same insecurities.

I think young artists are always inspiring because they are coming at worlds from a different point of view.

I want to hear from the creature who isn’t blessed with unbelievable good looks and incredible genes. I want to hear from the geek girl, the forgotten girl, the invisible girl and the miserable girl.