Melissa Etheridge quotes:

I can look at cancer as a disease that picks me out and 'why me,' or I can look at it through love and say, 'This is a wake-up call. This is my body telling me: 'Hey, you're out of balance here. It's time to get in line with yourself.'

There is no fear when you choose love. The more you choose love, the more love is in your life. It gets easier and easier.

I feel my heart break to see a nation ripped apart by it's own greatest strength - it's diversity.

We all want to judge; it's an intrinsic part of our society and human nature. I'm not surprised that talent shows are hits, but I'm glad some of them aren't so brutal.

I think I've been on a path ever since I was born, a path of high stress. I put myself, my career, it was a big old juicy carrot right in front of me for all of my life.

I have days when I say, 'I'm going to have five chocolate chip cookies today.' I'll have a salad every day but every week I have a cheat day.

Christmas comes during a season when the Earth is in its darkest time. It's a holiday for the family and for everyone.

There are many plant medicines that are available to us that have a lot of stigma around them that I hope, in the future, our medical community can look at, because I would absolutely go to those alternatives first before I went back to Western medicine.

My ultimate joy and happiness is being a wife and mother.

I definitely feel we're moving forward. There's a lot more understanding... there's less fear and we're working on there being less hatred.

To be completely stripped bare of any image power or my hair. To step onstage and get the response that I got blew any problems I had about self-image out the door.

Instead of taking five or six of the prescriptions, I decided to go a natural route and smoke marijuana.

Video is a funny thing. It's one thing to be an artist, singer-songwriter, and use words and create pictures in people's minds. And then be asked to do video for it, to actually give a certain visual for your song.

I adopted a healthier diet. I take at least a tablespoon of apple-cider vinegar a day. It's an old wives' tale, but it really is one of the best things you can put in your mouth.

I can be a rock star with a television show and still have a self-esteem problem. So it's nice to have your dad go, 'Hey Melissa, I'm proud of you - you're doing good.'

It was tough being a single mom. It was tough being in a divorce with children. Very, very hard.

Our society, where we are right now, our minds are junkyards. We watch TV and sit on the computer all day and barely have an original thought.

I'm exploring the maturity, the wisdom that just comes from having gone around the sun 50 times. My experience is, 'Oh, I'm never really going to get it right. I'm never going to get it done. But that's not the point here.' The point is the journey.

I always tell people I'm grateful for my cancer diagnosis because it was the greatest gift because it completely changed my life. I was able to stop and let my whole life and world just crash over me like a wave. And I stood there and went, 'Wow.' And for the first time, I stopped everything. I had to.

I've sold my soul for freedom. It's lonely but it's sweet.

I don't have a bucket list because it is my dedication to live every day of my life there. I don't have a bucket list because I'm doing it that day. I don't want to go to bed and say, 'Oh, I wish I had done this.'

On the road, as a 'rock star,' there's superficial attention and adulation is thrown at you for a couple of hours - then you're alone in your room and it's lonely.

When you realize that we're the spirit that's in our bodies and our bodies are like the vehicles that take us around, you realize that you have to take care of that body.

I'm not one for big public displays of affection, anyway. Straight, gay, whatever.

I've been a rock star since you were very young. But I've never encountered anything as powerful as cancer.

I've worked since I was 11 years old, playing music and following the dream, and shaking and moving and doing it. And then, you have cancer and it was like 'Ooooohh.' It was like a big eraser. It was the only thing in my life that had ever made me just stop.

I would never say I had a bad childhood at all.

I think being a parent is knowing how to love. Sometimes love is discipline, sometimes it's humor, sometimes it's listening.

I'm for gay marriage, because I'm for gay divorce.

What people don't get is that hair is such a big part of our identity.

What I do believe in is other worlds and spirits. There is some other power in control - levels of energy that perhaps we don't see.

Your own personal health is your own personal choice, all the way down the line.

When you grow up in one town and your life revolves around it, you are very aware of any darkness on the edge of town. That's because it's scary and it's inviting.

I have found that I'm just political just by being who I am.

The songs are inspired by my experiences. Sometimes they are more than my real-life and, conversely, my life is more than just my songs.

I'm so cool that the kids come to my bedroom and go, 'Mom! Turn the music down!

I do believe in true bisexuality. We all have the capacity. [My partner] Julie is much more bisexual than I am. The more the world understands their bisexuality the better we'll be. I'm attracted to souls. I can be attracted to both.

I taught Brad Pitt how to fly-fish in my swimming pool!

I don't have a bucket list because it is my dedication to live every day of my life there. I don't have a bucket list because I'm doing it that day. I don't want to go to bed and say, 'Oh, I wish I had done this.

Cancer Is an opportunity to sit down and look into yourself and find the answers. Yes, it's serious, but it's not the end-all.

Chemotherapy tests your sanity.

There will always be someone else with a different view than you. I appreciate them and would never say that they are wrong. I hope that they would give me that courtesy also.

Mothers, tell your children: be quick, you must be strong. Life is full of wonder, love is never wrong. Remember how they taught you, how much of it was fear. Refuse to hand it down - the legacy stops here.

We are getting older, and we are getting wiser, and we are getting freer. And when you get the wisdom and the truth, then you get the freedom and you get power, and then look out. Look out.

I look forward to exercising my American civil liberties and getting fully, completely and legally married this year to my true love of over three years, Linda Wallem,

To deserve this fate what have I ever done?... All I want is just a little piece of mind but the angels won't have it.

I believed in Obama for social issues. I believe he brought our nation together and healed our racial divide. Martin Luther King's dream came true when he was elected. That's huge.

The sign says do not enter, no trespassing allowed. With visions of redemption I walk against the crowd.

I am a songwriter. I do get to put my personal experiences in song.

I'm very fortunate that I have a wonderful family around me and loved ones.

You are more powerful than you know; you are beautiful just as you are.

Once I overcame breast cancer, I wasn't afraid of anything anymore.

Gay people are born everyday. You will never legislate that away.

Life happens, and I write about it wherever I am.

Weight isn't a factor in nutritional health.

My kids and I love to listen to Bill Cosby.

People ask me, 'Is being a parent the be-all, end-all?' And I say, 'Oh, it definitely is up to the person, and it is difficult, it can be very difficult, and it can be extremely healing.' That's what I have found, that the children are mirrors. Everyone is a mirror, but children especially because they're day and night and all day long.

Cancer's like the ultimate excuse. Who's gonna say, 'Oh, no, you have to show up for this one?' 'Hey, I got cancer. I can't be there.' It's the ultimate eraser.

In country music, there are certain female artists, like Gretchen Wilson, where you're going to find lesbians because they're responding to that more aggressive side.

I stand before you a totally healthy person.

My friends have always told me that rock stardom was wasted on me.

There's a point when your tape of life runs off the reel and there's this stillness of your own - I got to know myself.

Don't let anyone tell you that you have to be a certain way. Be unique. Be what you feel.

All men, and women, and everything in between are created equal.

Believe in yourself and what you feel. Your power will come from that.

Don't let people who live in fear and hate govern how you live.

Empty and cold, but it keep me alive. I gave it my soul, so that I could survive.

Everybody's got a hunger no matter where they are. Everybody clings to their own fear. Everybody hides some scar - Precious pain. Empty and cold but it keeps me alive. I gave it my soul so that I could survive - keeping me safe in these chains.

Go on and close your eyes, go on imagine me there She's got similar features with longer hair And if that's what it takes to get you through Go on and close your eyes it shouldn't bother you

I can feel the thunder underneath my feet

I could have been you, you could have been me. One small change that shapes your destiny.

I had a lot of self-loathing, .. I've been self-sustained since I was 11. I've always been the one making the money, and to be flat on my back and .. so vulnerable and then be completely loved. To have my wife be there, 110% supportive. To have my children say, 'It's OK, Mom.' To have the people that I work for say, 'It's OK.' To have my fans go, 'It's all right.' It's like, what was I afraid of? I'm going to get healthy now, and I'm not going to carry that baggage anymore.

I had to go see the Glee concert with my daughter - oh my God, shoot me.

I have a very strong opinions about health and our responsibility to our own health, and I will always say what I feel.

I have that gene mutation too and it's not something I would believe in for myself. I wouldn't call it the brave choice. I actually think it's the most fearful choice you can make when confronting anything with cancer. My belief is that cancer comes from inside you and so much of it has to do with the environment of your body. It's the stress that will turn that gene on or not.

I hope that you know in your heart how you feel about things, and you don't let the people that live on fear and hate govern the way you live.

I kind of thought when I was 30 that you're as good as your going to get. And that's not true.

I saw you with your envoy A consenting adult Technique in moderation But vogue to the cult Me I've got my strangers To exile in the night I guess I'm just addicted To the pain of delight

I tell people that anything that could ever happen to you on stage has happened to me. My clothes have fallen off. I've fallen off the stage. I've gotten sick - anything.

I think I'd like to be inspirational to anyone who has a dream, anyone who wants to make more of their life than maybe what is set out in front of them. And you can!

I think it has done us more harm believing in the huge differences between left and right, Democrat and Republican.

I think Patsy Cline made country music classy. She just opens her mouth, and it's just heavenly.

I think the best way to be an activist is to live your life well and be honest. It means being out. If you are not comfortable marching, you can make a big difference just by working side by side with someone who actually knows you're gay and a fine human being.

I wanted to be out so I could relax and be me.

I was constantly around all those religious images and to me, angels exist. I feel we were definitely guided and helped and I'm always referring to them in my work.

I write songs for people who drive in cars. I really do.

I'm one of those people that will say, 'My cancer was a gift.'

Im one step ahead of my past, two steps behind my dream.

I'm only lonely when I'm driving in my car. I'm only lonely after dark. I'm only lonely when I watch my TV. I'm only lonely occasionally.

I'm so close to Heaven, this Hell cannot be mine.

I'm so cool that the kids come to my bedroom and go, 'Mom! Turn the music down!'

It's so hard to listen to these trains outside my window, here it comes again. And it's calling me, begging me, follow me down the track. And it moans so dark and low, baby ain't comin' back... It sounds like crying, it sounds like letting go. Breathing and lying, sinking and dying slow. And I watch from my window, touching the cold glass sky. As the train rolls down the track, I say goodbye.

It's the closest to death I have ever been. The chemotherapy takes you as far down into hell as you've ever, ever been.

Laughing is a medicine. It releases this amazing stuff.

Life is full of wonder, love is never wrong....

My belief is that cancer comes from inside you and so much of it has to do with the environment of your body. It's the stress that will turn that gene on or not.

My wife works harder than anyone else with the children around the house. I make the money, sure, but she does everything else.

No one to hear, you might as well scream.

Realizing I was gay was a long sort of waking up.

Somebody bring me some water/can't you see I'm burning alive.

The night is black, as black as night.

The only thing that stays the same is change.

The subject and the reality of having children came at the height of my career.

The sweetness is in having success with something you truly believe in.

There's been so many different types of musicals, and it's a funny genre because there's a fine line between clever and stupid. It really takes a genius to know how to do it.

This is the only naked man that will ever be in my bedroom.

We have a choice every day between fear and love.

What's happening right now, this month, I check in and go, 'Hey. You are at the top of a wave right now. Look around and enjoy it because it's not going to stay,' ... The wave goes away. It does not dictate how good I am or my worth. It's just the way it happens.

When I grew up, there were no songs about gay people.

You are digging for the answers until your fingers bleed, to satisfy the hunger, to satiate the need.... And as you pray in your darkness for wings to set you free, you are bound to your silent legacy.

Be strong, believe in who you are;

I don't think anyone masters parenthood.