Fiona Apple quotes:

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.

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.

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.

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 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?

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

I'm not a control freak.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

I want to be like the patron saint of reality.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

You can live your whole life in your brain and not experience what's around you. You go crazy that way.

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.

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

What's really good is African drum music.

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

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

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.

I let the beast in too soon I don't know how to live without his hand on my throat. I fight him always and still. Oh, darling it's so sweet. You think you know how crazy, how crazy I am."

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.

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.

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.

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

My heart went cold and only hollow rhythms resounded from within, but then he rose, brilliant as the moon in full and sank in the burrows of my keep, and all my armor, falling down, in a pile at my feet.

You're all I need and maybe some faith would do me good.

Though dreams can be deceiving; like faces are to hearts, they serve for sweet relieving, when fantasy and reality lie too far apart.

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 only write when I'm angry or sad, so because that's when I just have to write... If I'm having a good time and I'm happy and things are going really well, why would I want to stop what I'm doing to go and write at the piano?

My scars were reflecting the mist in your headlights I looked like a neon zebra, shaking rain off her stripes

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.

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

Put a little love here in my void.

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.

It pisses me off to think we're conditioned to push away bad feelings and think anything that's uncomfortable is to be avoided. When things are really bad nowadays, I recognize the value in it because it's me filling my quota- it's going to make my joy more intense later.

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

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

You fondle my trigger, then you blame my gun

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.

I don't want to give 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.

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.

We are like a wishing well And a bolt of electricity

Don't waste your crazy!

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

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

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 still don't know what Episcopalian means.

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.

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

I'm such an incredibly, stupidly sensitive person that everything that happens to me, I experience it really intensely. I feel everything very deeply. And when you feel things deeply and you think about things a lot and you think about how you feel, you learn a lot about yourself. And when you know yourself, you know life.

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. And back then, a thought would go through my head almost constantly: "There's never gonna be a room someplace where there's a group of people sitting around, having fun, hanging out, where one of them goes, 'You know what would be great? We should call Fiona. Yeah, that would be good.' That'll never happen. There's nothing interesting about me." I just felt like I was a sad little boring thing.

I still don't know what Episcopalian means

"The way I feel about music -- any song, any style -- is that there is no right and wrong, only true and false. If the music and lyrics are conceived out of honesty and if the production of the song goes along with its original message, then what has been expressed is art, regardless of what anyone's opinion is of it. So things are a lots impler if you just tell the truth.

I was screaming into the canyon at the moment of my death; the echo I created outlasted my last breath,

Heaven help me for the way I am, save me from these evil deeds before I get them done.

Everything that happens to me, I experience it really intensely. I feel it very deeply.

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.

Never is a promise, and you can't afford to lie.

Come on. I got drunk when I was like 5.

I'm not a functional person because 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.

Even though I found you on an ordinary day, it felt like I found a precious pearl in an oyster when I deep dived into the sea. Baby, you are really that precious to me.

I lie in an early bed thinking late thoughts, waiting for the black to replace my blue. I do not struggle in your web because it was my aim to get caught. But daddy long legs I feel that I'm finally growing weary of waiting to be consumed by you.

I keep living this day like the next will never come.

I'm a tulip in a cup. I stand no chance of growing up

Home is where my habits have a habitat

Love is love, and there will never be too much.

I mean to prove I mean to move in my own way/ And say I've been getting along/ For long before you came into the play.

I took off my glasses while you were yelling at me once more than once so as not to see you see me react. Should've put 'em, should've put 'em on again so I could see you see me sincerely yelling back.

I read on the Internet that I was dead.

Let me know the way, before there's hell to pay.

If I were to imagine myself as an idler wheel inside some big mix of gears, then I would be connected to everything. It's not like there's just me and then nothing.

I'm not lazy, but I don't have that spur on my ass that most people have, like, "Oh, god. I have to get something out or else my career will be over!" I don't really care if my career is over.

My problem was that I felt ashamed of feeling sad or angry. Now, I don't hide my vulnerability in my lyrics. There's no way I was going to get raped and not get something out of it. I learned about power and hope and forgiveness. I like who I am now and I wouldn't be who I am if that hadn't happened.

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

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

What will an angel say that the devil wants to know?

Everything that happens with me gets made out to be a fiasco, but I have every right to do everything I've ever done. I stand by everything I've ever said, apologies included.

I've been a bad, bad girl - I've been careless with a delicate man.

I stand by everything I've ever said, apologies included.

Hunger hurts, but starving works, when it costs too much to love.

I just want to feel everything.

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

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

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

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

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

The early cars already are drawing deep breaths past my door. And last night's phrases sick with lack of basis are still writhing on my floor.

I really, really enjoy fitting words together - but I only enjoy it when it's easy, when it sort of rolls along by itself. I never erase anything [and] I hardly ever write anything down... The song will be finished before I write it down... I won't write a song unless it serves me in some way, unless I feel I have to write the song to make myself feel better. If you're not overflowing with something, there's nothing to give.

My derring-do allows me to dance the rigadoon around you but by the time I'm close to you I lose my desideratum.

I'm amorous but out of reach / A still life drawing of a peach.

How can I ask anyone to love me when all I do is beg to be left alone?

It's calm under the waves in the blue of my oblivion.

Be kind to me, or treat me mean I'll make the most of it, I'm an extraordinary machine

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