Fiona Apple Quotations

I used to get a shiver if I thought about holding balloons, because I was scared of floating away.

I would really like to go back to school. I would love it now.

I was so self-critical. I still am, but it's not as bad anymore.

I had really bad obsessive-compulsive disorder. At its worst, I was compelled to leave my house at three o'clock in the morning and go out in the alley because I just knew that the paper-towel roll I threw in the recycling bin was uncomfortable, like it was lying the wrong way, and I would be down in the garbage.

When I was a kid - 10, 11, 12, 13 - the thing I wanted most in the world was a best friend. I wanted to be important to people; to have people that understood me. I wanted to just be close to somebody.

Life is all about the friendship and the love and the music. It sounds silly, but it is. I want to have that experience as much as I can as an adult, not as a kid doing something that people are telling her she has to do. If anyone gets in my way, I'm going to get them out of my way.

I got a lot of problems, but I'm really good at intuiting what I need to do to be happy with whatever I create. I know when to stop myself, I know when to start, I know when to leave something alone. I guess I just kind of indulge that completely, and so I just take my time.

If you want to see me cry, just come to a photo shoot.

Now I feel like whatever I do, no one can hurt me. I cannot be violated, I cannot be humiliated, I cannot be disregarded, I cannot be disrespected.

I've gone through stages where I hate my body so much that I won't even wear shorts and a bra in my house because if I pass a mirror, that's the end of my day.

I don't go on lunch dates with friends. I hear about people having dinner parties, but I never do that. I'm not really human.

You know, I've always thought that it would be really funny if somebody made a romantic comedy where absolutely everything went well from beginning to end.

When you're surrounded by all these people, it can be even lonelier than when you're by yourself. You can be in a huge crowd, but if you don't feel like you can trust anybody or talk to anybody, you feel like you're really alone.

I have a very steadfast tendency to parent myself, to monitor my development into the person I want to be. I've tried to keep the corruption minimal.

I'm here because of what I write. Obviously, I must know something

There aren't many poster children for cool angst. Everybody thinks it's cool if you're the bad girl.

I got all my work done to graduate in two months and then they were like, I'm sorry, you have to take driver's ed. I just kind of went, Oh, forget it.

I got into therapy in the fifth grade because I said in a sarcastic way that I was going to kill myself, and they didn't get it then. Nothing's changed.

You think you're looking at things all the time, but you're not looking at things, you're looking at what your brain is interpreting through light and color. And who knows what everybody else sees?

My whole life, people have been saying, Why are you so angry?

I'm a really good parent to myself sometimes, and I do things that make me learn and grow.

Nothing that you do will ever feel good if you let people convince you that you have no choice.

I'm incredibly impressed by people who organize to achieve a goal, and believe that they can make a difference and then go ahead and do just that. I think it's incredible.

The way I feel about music is that there is no right and wrong. Only true and false.

How can you go wrong with two people in love? If a good boy loves a good girl, good. If a good boy loves another good boy, good. And if a good girl loves the goodness in good boys and good girls, then all you have is more goodness, and goodness has nothing to do with sexual orientation.

Sometimes interviews are fun and good conversations, but stuff like photo shoots and appearances at places where you have to meet a lot of people - I was never really made for this kind of stuff.

If I respect myself and believe in what I'm doing, no one can touch me.

Rape is the most humiliating thing that can be done to you; it's the most vulnerable that you can be. But once I realized that, I became a stronger person and faced all my fears.

Everybody sees me as this sullen and insecure little thing. Those are just the sides of me that I feel it's necessary to show because no one else seems to be showing them.

I really don't think anything I do is a mistake. It could be if I didn't learn from it.

For me, the best times are always going to be the most intense, the ones with the highest highs and the lowest lows.

I don't want to give any advice to a 19-year-old, because I want a 19-year-old to make mistakes and learn from them. Make mistakes, make mistakes, make mistakes. Just make sure they're your mistakes.

Because for whatever reason, even though I want to stay home all the time and be left alone, I want to tell the world who I am now.

I never thought I'd be in a position where people would be talking about my sexuality and saying how good I look in underwear.

Men are my bread and butter. It's what I live for! I have no shame about that.

I don't care what people do. I don't care how people remember my albums. I do them for my own reasons.

You can live your whole life in your brain and not experience what's around you. You go crazy that way. That's why I have to watch myself when I get isolated for too long.

And if I'm being honest, I don't think I have an ex-boyfriend who would have something mean to say about me.

I also just accept that I might never want to write a song again.

I caved in to what people wanted me to do. I thought that they weren't going to like me if I didn't.

I was never somebody who grew up going, 'I really want to be a singer in a band,' and I never had any ambition toward anything, really.

I'm not used to not having enough time to live with the songs. Usually, if I write something, I live with it for a little while.

I feel like I'm 100 years old. I can't tell you what I did today. I can't tell you what I did for seven years. I can't tell you. It happens so seamlessly - I'm just floating along and seven years go by.

The worst pain in the world is shame. I spend a lot of time trying to not do anything bad to anyone, but you can't live your life and not hurt people.

Hearing my songs in public freaks me out a bit. There was one restaurant I really liked in L.A., but I had to stop going there when they started playing my music. It felt kinda awkward.

But I honestly don't read critics. My dad reads absolutely everything ever written about me. He calls me up to read ecstatic reviews, but I always insist that I can't hear them. If you give value to the good reviews, you have to give value to the criticism.

I just tend to do things to myself that I don't realize I'm doing. Sometimes I bite my lip so that it splits and hurts, and yet I can't stop. And sometimes I'd play shows on the last run, I'd scratch my neck while I was singing, and I'd horrified to see these red streaks of blood after.

In a sense it's a lot crazier when you're on the road and it's a lot less stable, but it's actually really healthy for me because it keeps me from isolating, which I tend to do a lot.

I think I'm better at live shows than I used to be because I'm way more comfortable with the uncomfortable pauses between songs. Now, rather than trying to talk or do a costume change, I'll use those moments for myself. I listen to what other people are playing, or just rest, or dance, even though I don't know how to.

I was told so many times when I was a kid, 'I can't be friends with you, you're too intense, you're too sad all the time.' I really thought that when I made the first album that everyone would understand me, all the people who weren't my friends would become my friends.

I got drunk when I was five. Everybody gets drunk before they're 21.

The only reason that it takes me seven years to do stuff is because I just don't really have a plan.

I read on the Internet that I was dead.

I want to be like the patron saint of reality

There were songs I would write about breaking up with somebody before I broke up with them, months and months before I broke up with them.

I wrote 'Criminal' in 45 minutes when everyone else went to lunch because I had to have a hit. I can force myself to do the work, but only if someone is right up behind me.

No, I've never wanted kids. But I do read about parenting a lot.

Our ancestors always thought of the worst thing that could happen, and that's why we're alive.

Five years from now I'm probably going to look back on the things I'm doing and cringe.

I can bake. I made myself some nice French fries once. But otherwise I just eat out. Lots of salad bars.

I can't remember writing any of the songs that I've written.

I dare anybody to look at me and say I'm anorexic. I'm so totally not.

I don't have a big thing about leaving my mark or being historic.

I don't know if anybody wants to mix their politics with their entertainment.

I don't think what I look like is relevant.

I know what my job is: I write the songs, I sing them, I play them on the piano

I never went to concerts when I was a kid, so I never knew if what I was doing onstage was right.

I resent limitations. I'm going to be this way for a while.

I walk my dog at dawn because I don't like people to be around.

I wanted to write a happy song. I didn't know how.

I wasn't very ambitious as a child. I'm still not.

I'm not the Queen. I'm not a huge superstar; I don't get paparazzi around me.

I've never been to the websites. It's a lot healthier for me to keep out of the conversations about me.

In a strange way, I'm way more comfortable onstage than anywhere else.

The age thing really bugs me. Do people have more of a right to not like what I say because I'm 19?

The quick success was a bit strange to get used to.

As a person who performs on stage, it's good to be emotionally open. If you mess with someone when they are in that state, it's like you're messing with an animal when it's eating.

If I have one success in my relationship history, it's with the people who listen to my music. I think that they'll be there with me forever, and I'll be there with them forever. And I'm totally satisfied with that.

Now that my album is finally finished, I am very, very excited to have people hear what we did. I am so proud of it, and all of us who worked on it.

Nobody sees when you are lying in your bedand I want to crawl in with youbut I cry instead

I got my feet on the ground and I don't go to sleep to dream, you got your head in the clouds you're not at all what you seem.

He said 'it's all in your head' and I said 'so's everything'but he didn't get it.

My biggest inspiration has been romantic relationships, because there's something about the way that you are in a relationship that is reflective of your relationship with the world.

You got your game, made your shot, and you got away With a lot, but I'm not turned on So put away that meat you're selling.

This a real but minor issue involving a vendor-quality problem in a small number of units,

For a while I was looking forward to having to get another job, ... I had this fantasy about applying to this place in upstate New York, Green Chimneys. They do occupational therapy with kids, using farm animals. I thought that was something I could be passionate about. But music just kept on coming back.

It makes me panic inside to think that I'm not going to be able to remember my own songs and the work that it's going to take to learn them again.

They basically wanted me to audition my songs,

I'm actually doing great and I'm very happy.

But he washed me ashoreand he took my pearland left an empty shell of me.

Do they think I'm on drugs? That I have a life-threatening illness? That I'm anorexic? Emotionally, it doesn't get easier to hear those criticisms - but it gets easier to be resolute about my reaction to it.

I used to love to make things - you couldn't drag me away for dinner because I was always writing a story or something.

My career has been: first you have to prove yourself, then there's the sophomore record, then there's this thing and that thing, and you always want to be understood.

I didn't want to be precious about things. Of course, the idea is to make great music, but if you have great musicians up there, it gives me some leeway to play around a little bit.

I don't mind making a fool of myself. I felt like people would be accepting of that because, to me, that seems like an interesting way to do a show. I've always thought that it's interesting to watch people work things out on stage.

I have never bought myself a computer or a phone, but guys in my life have bought them for me, for whatever reason. So now I have them.

I spend a lot of time trying to not do anything bad to anyone, but you can't live your life and not hurt people.

Nobody is strong enough to not be influenced.

I realized I was trying to be friends with somebody who I used to be with but who I didn't get along with. I'm really big on that. I need to be friends with everyone that I've ever had a relationship with.

I want to be able to do whatever I feel like doing and not worry about anything. Even when I was a kid, the only contemporary artist I listened to was Cyndi Lauper.