Amanda Palmer quotes:

Bands like Nirvana had theatrical sensibilities, playing with image, challenging assumptions people were making about them, the apex being Kurt Cobain in a dress to make a point.

I'm a massive fan of David Lynch and 'Twin Peaks.'

I want to live in a world where Miley (or any female musician) can twerk wildly at 20, wear a full-cover floral hippie mumu at 37, show up at 47 in see-through latex, and pose semi-naked, like Keith & co, on the cover of Rolling Stone at 57 and be APPLAUDED for being so comfortable with her body.

I hate being ignored.

In some way, my fundamental feeling about music is that it's impossible to put a price tag on it. Human beings made music before they made a lot of other things, including tools.

The challenge in my life really is keeping the balance between feeling creatively energized and fulfilled without feeling overwhelmed and like I'm in the middle of a battlefield.

I see everybody arguing about what the value of music should be instead of what I think the bigger conversation is, which is that music has value, it's subjective and we're moving to a new era where the audience is taking more responsibility for supporting artists at whatever level.

Thank God my best friend's a therapist.

If you're willing to take risks, Twitter is a vast amusement park of interesting life possibilities.

Meditation, especially for people who don't know very much about it and think it's this very hippy dippy thing, can really be powerful, terrifying even, as it lifts the rug up on your subconscious and the dust comes flying out.

Asking for help with shame says: You have the power over me. Asking with condescension says: I have the power over you. But asking for help with gratitude says: We have the power to help each other.

I get so many ideas for songs, but I'm so seldom disciplined enough to sit down and crank them out.

Whatever we are given is supposed to be given away, not kept.

The perfect tools aren't going to help us if we can't face each other and give and receive fearlessly, but more important, to ask without shame.

When you're an artist, nobody ever tells you or hits you with the magic wand of legitimacy. You have to hit your own head with your own handmade wand. And you feel stupid doing it.

I suffer mornings most of all I feel so powerless and small By ten o'clock I'm back in bed Fighting the jury in my head

I have used Twitter for so many things, from places to stay, places to go, things to do, things I need, medical advice, you name it. Especially when I'm on tour, it really feels like I'm being taken care of by half a million people. It is like having a mom.

My number-one goal is to never feel like I'm strictly defining myself. The minute I feel like I'm doing that as anything - as theatrical, as feminist, as songwriter - I feel like the minute I name it, I'm stuck in a box.

I've been in a recording studio enough times to know that it is not the best place to multitask. Doing a couple of takes of a song and running out to check your email to talk to someone about video production really is not good.

If you stuck me in a room and gave me art-making tools but told me no one would ever see the results, I don't think I'd have much desire to make art. What I do comes from a deep desire to be seen and to see others.

The challenge in my life really is keeping the balance between feeling creatively energized and fulfilled without feeling overwhelmed and like Im in the middle of a battlefield.

Art is food for the soul, and an artistic climate is a healthy climate because it breeds empathy.

One of the best things about Kickstarter and crowdfunding and the collapse of the music business is a lot of artists like me have been forced to face our own weird mess about ourselves and what we thought it meant to become musicians.

Sometimes I have a terrible feeling that I am dying not from the virus, but from being untouchable.

In both the art and the business worlds, the difference between the amateurs and the professionals is simple: The professionals know they're winging it. The amateurs pretend they're not.

I think performance art comes from a simple place of wanting to express things beyond just sound.

You get the feeling that on a lot of days the audience for most music would kind of rather not be faced with the artist, especially because we've been educated to think that the artist are these special creatures are otherwordly and aren't like us.

When we really see each other, we want to help each other.

I want to be happy. i want to make people happy. i do not need to be rich to do that.

Quit the bitching on your blogAnd stop pretending art is hard.Just limit yourself to three chordsAnd do not practice daily.You'll minimize some stranger's sadnessWith a piece of wood and plastic.Holy fuck it's so fantastic,Playing ukulele.

People had this idea about becoming rock stars packing stadiums instead of having the goal of becoming what musicians used to be in terms of how they would perform and connect people.

In other words, let's give our young women the right weapons to fight with as they charge naked into battle, instead of ordering them to get back in the house and put some goddamn clothes on.

There's something advantageous about being a woman in rock versus, say, a woman in chemistry or construction. There's definitely a built-in sexism across the board, but I think you're afforded a degree of freedom in rock because, historically, the rules have been flexible.

I draw the line at letting people into my songwriting cave. To me, that's where the alchemy happens and where the mystery is.

There's a huge cloud of shame around art and business being seen as bedfellows.

There's no blueprint; getting married doesn't make you boring, having kids doesn't make you boring, having money doesn't necessarily have to make you boring.

Neil Gaiman swooped into my life though another friend, Jason Webley, who knew we were fans of each other's work and introduced us via email. Neil and I, like me and Ben, just hit it off instantly.

The world needs actual excitement and emotion more than it needs cool people.

If you want the world to pay for projects, you have to be able to display why you're worthy.

I have never in my career embarked on a journey towards controversy. I have never deliberately set a flame.

Twitter fascinates me because it's real. It feels kind of unreal, but it makes very real things happen.

I think one of the greatest gifts you can give to someone is just access to the possibility of freedom that you don't have to be totally depressed and enslaved by your own environment.

Every album is just a greatest hits of whatever songs are on a pile when I go in to make a record.

I was just a very dark kid. My family was complicated.

I had very literal parents and I wanted to survive with metaphor and art, and there was a real sense of shame around it.

I think being a woman in any business that's dominated by men, you have your garden variety pros and cons, where you learn how to focus and harness your various powers and weaknesses for better or for good.

All of my music, my stage show, my personality, my blog, my twitter feed, anything that's made me me, and a huge part of why people like and respect me, is that I just don't spend much energy on that other stuff. It's not worth it. It's a losing battle too. You're just screwed the minute you engage.

When you're afraid of someone's judgment, you can't connect with them. You're too preoccupied with the task of impressing them.

American culture in particular has instilled in us the bizarre notion that to ask for help amounts to an admission of failure. But some of the most powerful, successful, admired people in the world seem, to me, to have something in common: they ask constantly, creatively, compassionately, and gracefully. And to be sure: when you ask, there's always the possibility of a no on the other side of the request. If we don't allow for that no, we're not actually asking, we're either begging or demanding. But it is the fear of the no that keeps so many of our mouths sewn tightly shut.

You're not going to be perfect, you're not going to stop berating yourself, you're not going to stop the comparisons, you're not going to stop the judgment, but you can become evermore mindful of it, and that has to be good enough.

I don't think of myself as particularly cursed or blessed. I think I got dealt a set of cards, and I'm playing with them, sometimes in heels, sometimes in combat boots.

Collecting the dots. Then connecting them. And then sharing the connections with those around you. This is how a creative human works. Collecting, connecting, sharing.

If we can repair things emotionally, a lot of other things would follow.

I think you can't have this discussion and you can't have a discussion about feminism and the consciousness of the world without having a discussion about what has happened to men lately. They're holding the other side of the bag.

I crave intimacy to the same burning degree that I detest commitment.

I've always felt like an outsider across the board, since day one. The challenge has been to simply not pay attention to my outsider or insider status and just do the work and play the shows and connect with the people. And not even bother to play this game of keeping score, which is what destroys you.

When you trust people to help you, they often do.

I think the thing you're seeing now with the music industry is that the people who have tight-knit communities are now able to really hold each other up because of the internet tools. And the really top-down pyramid scheme of major labels and typical superstars isn't sustainable anymore because the system has collapsed.

The pattern's laid out on the bed With dozens of colors of thread But you've got the needle I guess that's the point in the end

One thing about being a performer is you're not just doing an intellectual job behind a desk; you're out there performing and being looked at, being assessed for really superficial stuff.

I still get laughed at but it doesn't bother me, I'm just so glad to hear laughter around me.

I think to say that meditation is helpful to artists is true and it's great, but it's also essentially helpful to any kind of process of, just, life.

If you love people enough, they will give you everything.

I think I've always felt as a band and as a musician and a music business person, I've always felt like an outsider, period.

I think a good role model has to be sexy. Real, empowered, self-possessed women are sexy. When you're really in control of your choices, your mood, your body, and your opinions, people find you sexy.

When you connect with people, they want to help you.

You are an artist when you make someone feel something deep and unexpected.

I have a handful of really close relationships in my life and I depend on those people heavily to carry me through and to help me stay steady.

I'm still trying to express my truth, my place in the world, my belief.

When I find myself having to share a meal with someone who simply wants to complain about the world, I almost feel myself wanting to crawl out of my skin and just sort of scurry away. But being able to pick up on that stuff and being able to easily identify the people walking towards the light instead of walking towards the darkness, that's a skill I'm very, very glad to see growing in myself.

Eat the pain. Send it back into the void as love.

I remember being a teenager and being really impressed by "let's sit around and b*tch" people, and I have so little time for those people nowadays.

It would nice to live in a world where art can just be art!

I suppose I'm happy to sell my time and energy, but I'm not happy to sell my initial creative time.

Take on the pain and wear it as a shirt.

Nothing is crueller than children who come from good homes.

I am bigger on the inside But you have to come inside to see me

I get really fantastic results when I just get out of my own way.

Life as it should be: all friends, all art, all music, all love, all the time.

I firmly believe in music being as free as possible. Unlocked. Shared and spread. In order for artists to survive and create, their audiences need to step up and directly support them.

I nurture my close relationships like priceless lamps. That's part of why the job itself is inherently difficult and kind of a paradox, because you're out there touring and traveling and going a million miles a minute, but the things that are keeping you steady and stable can be really hard to nurture when you're going fast, and your relationships, which are the number one thing that help me through.

We can only connect the dots we collect, which makes everything you write about you... your connections are the thread that you weave into the cloth that becomes the story that only you can tell.

There's a fundamental disconnection in society in the way we live, this way we live that we take so for granted, and we've become very separate from one another and we don't really take lot of time to realize that. And the math is overwhelming to the point of despair, but the answers could be so simple.

The impulse to connect the dots - and to share what you've connected - is the urge that makes you an artist

I think I've been addicted to openness since long before my rock career. I was terrible as a teenager. I used to go out of my way to make people uncomfortable with personal details. I was always fascinated by the idea that we have these weird, random boundaries between what we do and don't show.

I had a real come-to-Jesus a couple of years ago when I started to see the direct line between feminism and everything else - feminism and climate change, feminism and poverty, feminism and hunger - and it was almost like I was born again and started walking down the street and was like, "Oh, my God, there are women everywhere! They're just everywhere you look. There's women all over the place!"

How do we let people pay for music?

Crowdfunding as an idea itself isn't new - bands have been doing it since the dawn of time.

I feel like I've gotten to the point in my career and in my life where I can allow myself to write whatever comes into my head and not judge it too harshly.

There's really no honor in proving that you can carry the entire load on your own shoulders. Andit's lonely.

Nobody ever sees me. Thank you.

I don't feel at home in New Orleans. I don't feel at home in Austin or L.A. And I just felt immediately at home in northern Australia.

Itâ??s not easy to askâ?¦ asking makes you vulnerable.

If you're going to make work and you're going to write and you're going to put yourself out there and perform, you will be belittled, you will be insulted, you will be called a standard collection of names, you will be accused, and you just have to stand there and continue to work and find a way to not let those things poison you.

Those who can ask without shame are viewing themselves in collaboration with-rather than in competition with-the world.

On many days, harder than the act of making the art itself is the act of sharing it and living in a culture that you know is built to tear you down.

Meditation, especially for people who dont know very much about it and think its this very hippy dippy thing, can really be powerful, terrifying even, as it lifts the rug up on your subconscious and the dust comes flying out.

I feel that part of my life's artwork is creatively dealing with all this negativity and anger and rage and hatred coming from whatever corners it's coming from and somehow manifesting all of that anger into something positive, which is such a hard job.

I've watched so many women, from Kathleen Hanna all the way up to Taylor Swift, whether they're pop artists or rock stars or fine artists or writers, it is the subhistory of female artists that if you're going to make art, you're also going to have a full-time job of defending your right to make art.

The stage show is, in some sense, highly theatrical. It's definitely not just a band in jeans playing rock and roll.

I think the Internet really sussed things into perspective. Because twelve years ago, I could spend my days on writing and running my band and touring and making posters and practicing with my band and working on my vocals, but I didn't spend a large pie chart of my time sifting through criticism as well, and nowadays I do, and all female artists do, because to be able to promote your work, you need to live in those spaces.

If I were a guy, it would be, you know, just a different set of problems I have to carry along.

There's nothing more threatening than a powerful woman, and there's nothing more threatening to the current order of things than women powerfully owning their own narrative. It's so threatening to people, to women as well, and it's threatening the order of things.

It is terrifying to people when women step up and start owning the story that they have not owned. And I'm seeing so much of this, and it is a seismic shift.

When you really look back and take the wider perspective, it makes total sense that if the status quo is to remain the way it is, women will not be lauded and applauded for bonding with and helping each other, because it would destroy the world order if women organized; it would topple the whole thing. And so, it makes perfect sense to me that the current order of things would encourage the cat fights and encourage the comparisons and encourage the girl-on-girl hate that you see just being promoted everywhere.

It feels like it is a daily work and an ongoing task to undo all of the f - - g programming that I have had all my life about who I am supposed to be and how I'm supposed to look and that I'm supposed to win. It's a daily deconstruction of all that bullshit.

I think it's so important to have a practice, because the consciousness isn't perfection or enlightenment or any of that bullshit. The consciousness is, "Oh, I'm walking down the street and I'm doing nothing."

I do what I want. I try to be nice to everybody. When I fail, I try to apologize.

The minute I spend any energy defending myself, explaining myself, or in the worst case scenario, trying to please those who are criticizing me, I will, you know, just fall off a cliff.

I make the music that I want to make and make the show that I want to make. If you like it, you come. If you don't like it, you don't have to.

The cool thing too, as you get older, you get way better at identifying who's an ally and who isn't. And who has good, positive, "let's make all this sh*t better and let's try to have fun and fix sh*t" people as opposed to "let's sit around and b*tch and berate" people.

I don't try to make anybody outside happy.