Quotes from Alanis Morissette

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

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.

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.

I'm sad, but I'm laughing.

I think fame became exciting for me in the late '90s because I could actually use it as a means to an end. I could actually have it help me serve my vocationfulness.

As a teen, I was both anorexic and bulimic.

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.

At one point, I was just perceived as only being angry, but now I'm being perceived as angry, peaceful, and spiritual.

Some of the most beautiful things that have happened to me in my life have been things that I couldn't explain.

I want to walk through life instead of being dragged through it.

I try to keep a low profile in general. Not with my art, but just as a person.

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.

Only traumatised people want to be famous.

When people ask me who I'd want to have dinner with, dead or alive, I always say, 'John Lennon.' I just feel that he was an artist who was, in his own way, committed to wholeness and authenticity in a not dissimilar way that I am years later.

I highly recommend getting older! There's less tendency to people-please.

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.

Typically, I would run away from conflict and write about it - that was easier than staying and dealing face-to-face with humans; that's terrifying for me.

With songwriting I spend a lot of time living life, accruing all these experiences, journaling, and then by the time I get to the studio I'm teeming with the drive to write.

But once I acclimated and really used fame for what it was offering me as a tool to serve my life purpose of inspiring and contributing, then it started to get fun again.

I have been running so sweaty my whole life Urgent for a finish line And I have been missing the rapture this whole time Of being forever incomplete

I was left to painstakingly deal with the aftermath of my avoidance later in life, in therapy or through the lyrics of my songs.

I have a profound empathy for people who are in the public eye, whether they manifest it themselves or whether it happened by accident - it doesn't matter to me. I think there's a great misunderstanding of what it is to be famous.

It's not just the 'Grammys' that I've pulled out of. I also pulled out of the English awards as well. The reason that I wanted to pull out was because I believe very much that the music industry as a whole is mainly concerned with material success.

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