Tori amos quotes

I see the dream and I see the nightmare, and I believe you can't have the dream without the nightmare.

Our generation has an incredible amount of realism, yet at the same time it loves to complain and not really change. Because, if it does change, then it won't have anything to complain about.

What do you plan to do with all your freedom?

I realized that what was most important to me was following my own path, and not the one laid down for me by others.

The last thing I want to be known as is 'The Girl Who Got Raped'. The big turn around you make in your head is from victim to survivor.

Music is always a reflection of what's going on in the hearts and minds of the culture.

I think even in a good marriage, especially if you stay together long enough, there are going to be events that happen.

In real life I'm bone dry and when I play I'm a mango and in sex I'm starving to be a dripping mango

Robert Plant asked me to marry him, but I said 'no.' I mean, you just don't want to marry someone you've wanted to do it with since you were thirteen, because, well, if he farts, I would, like, die!

I do believe that we all are, fundamentally, divided creatures. Emotions split from intellect, spirit from flesh and far too often sexuality is disconnected from what we feel, and are, as total human beings. But how, for example, can anyone have an understanding of the virgin if they don't also have an understanding of the prostitute, the saint and sinner in one body?

There is value in everybody's gift. No matter how hard to find or strange it is.

Do we soon forget the things we cannot see?

Give me life, give me pain, give me myself again.

What girls do to each other is beyond description. No chinese torture comes close.

Girls you've gotta know when it's time to turn the page.

The romantic myth of the artist says that you are the Source. I have no illusion about that. Native Americans don't believe they are the Source. They have access to the Source. Endless access. But don't get confused.

Strange, i thought i knew you well, thought i had read the sky, thought i had seen a change in your eyes.

You can be self-empowered and still learning about how you think about things daily.

I have so many different personalities in me and I still feel lonely.

You have to really respect your path, or you will lose your mind.

My father has a pragmatic mind. He marched with Dr King in the 60s, and he's very much for women's rights.

When I play live, it's a conversation that we're all having with the song, and the audience... their response and relationship with the songs is as valid as my relationship with the songs.

You don't have to justify anything. Being pissed off is absolutely ok.

There is a phenomenal amount of pressure on women in this industry: they are considered vintage by the time they hit their mid-30s.

My father was a preacher in Maryland and we had crab feasts - with corn on the cob, but no beer, being Methodist - outside on the church lawn.

Our world is a huge mess right now, and not big enough for masses of intolerant people.

Even if everything else is downplayed, I'll wear good shoes.

People think I'm nuts because I can sit in a room and be happy by myself.

Some of the most wonderful people are the ones who don't fit into boxes.

Sometimes you have to do what you don't like to get to where you want to be.

Sometimes you are forced to defend your beliefs. Sometimes you are forced to look at relationships that aren't positive anymore. There are times when I have had to make peace with the fact that I am at war. And sometimes you have to fight those who do not want love to conquer all.

I'm a grown woman. I've earned my experiences, my scars.

I really respect anybody who stands by their truth.

Somebody will come backstage and go, 'You saved me.' And I will have to say, 'Stop right there. You saved yourself.'

To heal the wound, you have to go into the dark night of the soul.

I became a mom at 37 and having a child has been an emancipation for me.

So close to touching freedom, then I hear the guards call my name

An interview will seem very sane to me, and I'll find out that the journalist was laughing out of the side of his mouth half of the time.

I've been looking for a savior in these dirty streets, looking for a savior beneath these dirty sheets.

An ounce of breast milk is even more potent than the finest tequila.

I would love to compose something for dance before I kick the bucket, and I'm not closed-minded about the dance, or the dance company.

There are older men with younger women but you don't see a lot of older women with younger men. There are some women who have been able to do it but not often.

Get off the cross, we need the wood.

Many people lock a part of themselves away. It's a bit sacred.

My favorite saying is, 'If it's too loud, turn it up.'

I'm obsessed with crocodiles and getting eaten by one. When I hear that someone's been eaten by a crocodile or shark, I just get all gooey. I start salivating.

So, you can make me come, that doesn't make you Jesus.

When you stop putting yourself on the line, and you don't touch your own heart, how do you expect to touch other people?

Being stylish is about enjoying your life and expressing yourself and your inner light.

I think that people who can't believe in faeries aren't worth knowing. I just think that alternate realities make you a good writer. If your work is any more than one dimension, you believe in faeries.

I've never felt anything that moves me as much as my piano. I'm an emotional player. I don't really like people. I prefer my piano to people. It's totally reliable and it's alive. I can hear what it's saying.

Guys would sleep with a bicycle if it had the right color lip gloss on. They have no shame. They're like bull elks in a field.

Healing takes courage, and we all have courage, even if we have to dig a little to find it.

Some people are afraid of what they might find if they try to analyze themselves too much, but you have to crawl into your wounds to discover where your fears are. Once the bleeding starts, the cleansing can begin.

If you are a nurturing mother, and a good one, you can go to play groups, sit on the floor and play all the games, and have tea with the other mothers, but wouldn't you like to think that's not all there is? That you haven't hung up your high heels without knowing how to walk in them?

It's emotional blackmail to say if you're a good businesswoman and a musician, you're betraying your music.

You really do kind of learn a lot about a person when you watch and listen to the songs that mean something to them.

When you don't have people in your life pushing you, can you push yourself?

I'm not somebody that gets played a lot at parties and weddings. I mean, you know, you mention my name and you get an eye roll, until, of course, you're jumping off a bridge.

We are all fairies living underneath a leaf of a lily pad.

You're just an empty cage girl, if you kill the bird.

When they say take from my body, I think I'll take from mine instead. Getting off, getting off while they're all down stairs.

Things go wrong all the time; you can't be precious about it.

I'm really into moderation. Too much of anything will harm you in the end. Too much sugar. Too much pasta. I'm into drugs as a teaching tool, which is why I only take hallucinogenics. I mean, it's not like I've never done cocaine, but, on the whole, if I can't see dancing elephants then I'm not interested.

When we get in a routine we can become zombie-like and shut down.

The music is the magic carpet that other things take naps on.

Though I can't change what happened, I can choose how to react. And I don't want to spend the rest of my life being bitter and locked up.

I know I'm an acquired taste - I'm anchovies. And not everybody wants those hairy little things.

There were times that I needed to go to battle, but how I went to battle wasn't always the best way in.

I don't see myself as weird, I just see myself as honest.

Sometimes I breathe you in and I know you know.

Inspiration quite frequently arrives as a surprise. The key is being open to it.

The sun is getting dim, will I pay for who I've been?

The fact that religion plays such a part in how people vote troubles me, troubles me as a minister's daughter. Because I always felt that the separation of church and state was what our forefathers and foremothers really fought for.

Father Lucifer, you never looked so sane.

It's about realizing, painfully, you've kept that voice inside yourself, locked away from even yourself. And you step back and see that your jailer has changed faces. You realize you've become your own jailer.

If you sing to the mermaids, they come when you're drowning.

I'm a musician first, a food-lover second, a dirty mouth with feet, and a girl last time I checked.

I've got enough guilt to start my own religion.

I've always seen the songs as having a consciousness. Since I was two-and-a-half they would come to me from nowhere. I never thought that I was conjuring them by myself, and I was always grateful they would come and visit... They've always been very much alive. They don't have a physical body like we do but there seems to be an awareness.

It took the love of a good man [to heal]. When I was reverting back into my, let's say, perversions, he would say: 'Let's go get an ice cream. I am not going to enable you. If you can only come as a wanton woman for hire, because you feel dirty and shamed, then no. Women are goddesses.' And I know that and I believe that. I chose a man who believed that, too.

Let's be honest. You let yourself be pulled in because it felt good to be wanted, needed. But then it went too far, as projected images always do. If it's not a real image, but one that has been projected on to you, then you can keep up the masquerade for only so long before the mask cracks and the paint on the mask peels away.

As the sun sets, we've all had those nights where you question your choices and where your life is going.

Hair is gray and the firers are burning. So many dreams on the shelf. You say I wanted you to be proud of me. I always wanted that myself.

Womanhood is a whole different thing from girlhood. Girlhood is a gift...Womanhood is a choice.

I wanna smash the faces of those beautiful boys, those Christian boys.

I think you have to know who you are. Get to know the monster that lives in your soul, dive deep into your soul and explore it.

There's room for everybody on the planet to be creative and conscious if you are your own person. If you're trying to be like somebody else, then there is isn't.

My fear is greater than my faith, but I walk the missionary way.

If you really want a challenge, just deal with yourself.

Dance with the sufis, celebrate your top ten in the charts of pain.

My father was a minister and so rock music was banned in our house.

You don't have to justify everything. Being pissed off is just absolutely okay.

I know that mess spelled backwards is ssem and I felt much better armed with that information.

That's the thing about letting old lovers go. You don't stop loving some of them. There are a couple you love no less than you ever did. Not to mention namesbut I'm still in love with a couple. You're not going to try and make it work again, but if they needed you, you'd drop everything.

I am finding that vulnerability gives me great strength, because you're not hiding anymore. It's really about being a pioneer for myself, going into the places where I am not being taught. I have to teach myself.

Boys are cute, but food is cuter

Tell me you're crazy, maybe then I'll understand.

I don't want to sit on the sidelines and not value the gift of being here. Instead of the idea of time ticking away, the grains of sand running out, I try to think of time as giving me another grain of sand, another gift. So time passing is an accumulation, rather than a diminishing.

There is a time and a place for things. Sometimes one needs to put a filter on oneself. That can be a good thing.

Some of the biggest advocates for feminism seem to believe that in order to feel powerful you have to make another woman subservient, and that is not what feminism is about at all.

The sense of loss is such a tricky one, because we always feel like our worth is tied up into stuff that we have, not that our worth can grow with things we are willing to lose.

I'm not like a poker player. I'm not into bluff. My way is to look someone in the eye and tell them the way I'm intending to go. My cards are always on the table.

For the most part, pianos are female to me. Sometimes they're dykes, and they're always good fun.

Women must understand that simply attacking or hating men is just another form of disempowerment. A woman has to realize that when she makes a man crawl it doesn't give her power.

I'm too wacky for most weirdos. Who am I to judge?

The most important thing to me as a songwriter is the breath. The most important thing I could say to somebody is, 'Sometimes I just breathe you in.'

Those of you who are strong need to be there for those who have lost someone today. We have to be here for each other right now.

My parents think I'm better under pressure.

And is it right, butterfly, they like you better framed and dried?

I think all the boys that write the screaming stuff would write the best love songs... because they have the most to hide. The guys that are in the most pain are usually the ones with the biggest hearts.

We can all choose to become our potential, not just talk about it or dream about it. But daily, make a shift whereby we begin living and being our potential. With each day, that potential can expand because we are open to learning something every day.

I call that god the Little G. Because the god that we've been worshipping is not to me the Supreme Creator. Anybody who needs to control and make people feel ashamed. . .It's like, 'I send my only begotten son. . .' Well you know, that concept of sending a son where we as women could, like, breastfeed him and give him milk, but he's not gonna soil his dinky with us? What's that all about?

Your worst enemies are made when you ignore people. Those boys in America who shot dead classmates recently, didn't do that because they woke up with a positive self image that morning and then felt like slaughtering their friends.

Where we focus our energy is where we will get the results.

There's a richness to the old works if you look before the 1950s. The chord progressions and the language was more complicated, especially in the jazz and classical world.

The only way out is to go so far in.

Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie.

You decide whether you look at your reality or live pretending these feelings don't exist.

I like involved projects. I'm driven by the idea of characters and the song-cycle form is similar to a musical.

You don't know the power that you have with that tear in your hand

If you jump, you best jump far.

In life, sometimes everything falls into place, and sometimes everything just falls to pieces. The key is to begin creating with these fallen pieces. By improvising, you'll create something magical that might be the best thing you've ever accomplished

Women shouldn’t deny their dark side. Sometimes those demons are frightening and sometimes they’re beautiful. You’ll have to approach them. Drink a glass of wine with them, take them for a walk on the beach, examine yourself.

You'd think that in this age, especially in the 21st century - especially with all the technology and all the discoveries that we've made - that we would figure out how to tackle abuse.