Natalie Merchant Quotations

Im going to be shaking my booty when Im 55.

Be true to yourself, and, um, don't worry about some large companies' quarterly profit index.

I would say I'd rather dig a ditch, you know, do hard, manual labor than write lyrics.

I don't want to live in a culture of despair. I'd like to live in a culture of hope.

It's really wonderful to be able to be nobody, and then have a moment when I can be somebody, and then go right back to being nobody again.

Literature gives us a window into other people's experiences in other places, in other times, so I thought it would be really interesting to investigate how different people had written about motherhood, and childhood.

I was shy. Bookish. The kind of 13-year-old girl who, instead of having a boyfriend, would have a crush on a dead, 19th-century author!

I can't remove the autobiographical slant from the things I write. You always bring yourself into what you're writing.

I don't think women's prisons are environments for dance routines, and I don't think mass murder is humorous.

The research phase was really fascinating - I'm not a closeted nerd, I'm an out-of-the-closet nerd.

My mother was a single working mother; she started having children very young. There was a tension inside her about who she wanted to be and what she wanted to do and how she couldn't achieve the things she wanted to.

It's funny, I remember doing the Johnny Carson show, and, uh, I couldn't afford my rent.

I wish I had appreciated my youth - I should have worn tighter clothing when I could have!

I'm on this search trying to figure out exactly who I am and what I have to say to people.

I think of myself as a musician and not a celebrity. Celebrity status is something you have to deliberately pursue - I couldn't imagine myself seeking that.

I've found out how overwhelming the media is and the way it drills things into your head, it's almost like a mind control. If I could control prople's minds, I'd like to put something useful in.

My sister works in an inner-city school in Greenville, South Carolina, and she brought many of her at-risk kids to our show yesterday to the sound-check. It was amazing how these kids opened up with music. Music teaches so much about focus and concentration and group dynamics and appreciation for subtlety and beauty. And that's being taken away from schools.

That kind of violence is dangerous to me, to be beamed out via satellite to the rest of the country. Since I don't watch television very much, when I do check in, I'm horrified. But I don't think it took a massacre in a high school in America for me to see that there's too much violence or that children aren't being taught to use their own judgment when they watch television.

They came back to me and said, 'No, you have it wrong. This is all about getting these kids together, putting them into antagonistic situations and getting them to compete over a record contract.' It was horrible and mean-spirited. I couldn't believe they would want me to be involved in something like that.

I just want to be known as a good songwriter who wrote songs that were enduring. I hope my music gives people a glimpse of how empathetic we were and how desirous we were of a better society.

I'm in the public eye. I've sold 14 million records -- so 14 million individuals have bought my records and have sat down and intimately listened to them. And if I think about that many people paying attention to me, I'd better say something worthwhile. I do have a personal ideology when it comes to the work that I do and the art that I make. And it's based on just wanting to say something that has substance and to try to move people with music -- and give them an idea of the glimpse I have into what's possible for us.

I just wanted to get all this stuff in one place, ... A lot of it was scattered around or out of print. There are songs here that I thought would never get heard, the ones with Billy Bragg, for instance. The lyrics are kind of embarrassing - we wrote them in the middle of the night during these song-writing marathons - but I feel they are still documents of my work and that this is the place to let people hear them.

I've had a large gay following for many years and have been quite aware of that.

I think I don't invest so much time in thinking about people's sexuality. I just take people as individuals.

TV holds a close second to cars for destroying our society. It's a failed experiment.

I would never do a printed memoir. I've been asked to publish a memoir from years by different publishers and literary agents. I think it wouldn't be great for me because all I'd really want to talk about it music and I'd rather just play it.

Life is sweet, life is also very short.

I go to the river from time to time to ponder over the crazy days in my life. Watch the river flow, ease my mind and soul where I go.

There is one tradition in America I am proud to inherit. It is our first freedom and the truest expression of our Americanism: the ability to dissent without fear. It is our right to utter the words, I disagree. We must feel at liberty to speak those words to our neighbors, our clergy, our educators, our news media, our lawmakers and, above all, to the one among us we elect President.

I don't have a lot of thrilling anecdotes about my career or personal life. All the stuff that is interesting is private and I wouldn't want people to know.

Have I been blind, have I been lost, inside myself and my own mind?

For your kindness, I'm in debt to you. For your selflessness, my admiration.

I've walked these streets, in a carnival of sights to see. All the cheap thrill seekers, the vendors & the dealers, they crowded around me. Have I been blind? Have I been lost, inside myself and my own mind? Hypnotized, mesmerized, by what my eyes have seen? I've walked these streets, in a spectacle of wealth & poverty. In the diamond market, the scarlet welcome carpet that they just rolled out for me.

By calling it a memoir, I meant is as a collection of memories. I thought it was (a more) artful (title) than documentary.

For they told you life is hard Misery from the start, It's dull, it's slow, it's painful But I tell you life is sweet In spite of the misery There's so much more, be grateful So, who will you believe Who will you listen to Who will it be 'Cause it's high time that you decide It's time to make up your own Your own state of mind Oh they told you life is long Be thankful when it's done Don't ask for more, be grateful But I tell you life is short Be thankful because Before you know it It will be over 'Cause life is sweet, life is also very short

I feel we all have the obligation, myself. I want to live in a more humane, civilized society, and I feel like the only way we're going to achieve that is if we all take it upon ourselves. I just wish we could be a more caring society. I feel like we're social Darwinists who believe that everyone has to make it on their own. But the reality is that we all don't start out on the same footing.

I think the most enduring lesson I was taught through my experiences of being a Girl Scout was that I was a member of a larger community. I out-grew my uniforms and badges years ago, but the memories of visiting nursing homes or organizing Earth Day tree plantings or my summers camping with girls from all different backgrounds will stay with me always.

I’ve always considered it a great privilege to be a musician, I’ve never lost sight of that.

Poetry comes alive to me through recitation.

I think I have a really diverse audience. I've had people from all sorts of sexual persuasions.

When I originally wrote "Jealousy," it was more like an exercise to try to write a girl-group kind of pop song. It was really contrary to most of the material I'd ever written. I didn't pay much attention to the song after I'd recorded it. I didn't really perform it at all the last 20 years. When it came time to make the new record, I decided to make peace with the song and have fun with it.

I've never sold my publishing. I have 100% control of all of my publishing and that includes everything, every use of my songs.

I've raised my daughter with no television.

When it came time to sequence the album, the new arrangements really demanded a different order. They were so different than they were before that the old sequence didn't work anymore.

Have I been wrong? Have I been wise to shut my eyes?

I don't enjoy the work that I do. It's just that it's not self-sustaining anymore. The way that I like to make records - they're expensive records to make and just can't afford to do it anymore.