More Tori Quotes!!


Thanks again to Elizabeth Lauren Perry and her quotes of the day.

"I remember our huge black upright. It had one of those winding stools on it that could wind down low or wind up really high. I would wind it down to get on it and then I would ask my brother to wind it up so I could reach the keys. He would always wind it up for me."
-All These Years Biography

"The self is an endless vat of soup. That minestrone does not stop."
-The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion & Rock and Roll

"This is the thing. This is the plugged tour. I haven't hidden it or kept it secret. We might be trading a bit of intimacy for a bit of butt. Butt, you know, low-end bottom. There is a kind of rhythm thing going on that you can only get from a rhythm section. You can't trade, for instance, snow and rain. They're different elements. They just are."
- Quote from an article in the October 3, 1998 edition of The Commercial Appeal, a Memphis, TN newspaper.(Taken from A Dent In The Tori Amos Universe.)

"The main following is coming from the colleges. But thats because they're into poetry...they just don't want to hear another, you know I'm not here to bash anybody else's music, but 'Hold me tonight, make it o.k.' from another girl, because thats not what we're all about as people. I'm a bit more graphic."

"Being in love was not the most important thing to me; being respected was."
-Rolling Stone, June 30, 1994

"I don't have to try in the least to shock people."
-Nieuwe Revu

"I never had a fantasy of being a bride as a child after I realised that Robert Plant would never marry me. And with Dad being a preacher, I saw too many weddings. You see, I don't think I could ever have gotten married in America."
-The Times (UK), April 11, 1998



"I use innocence in my demeanor like a Venus flytrap."

"In twenty years we're gonna wake up in a tidal wave of crap."
-On her environmental concerns for the future
-Yahoo Online Chat, April 13, 1998

"The rebellion is not about what clothes you are wearing or whether you turn your back to the audience - it's not about shocking for the shock's sake. It's not about singing Smack My Bitch Up and pretending to be hard. All you do is to get your name on K-Mart's black list. It easy, and boring. So Prodigy, if you want to be hard, go to an abortion clinic and try to help those girls who have had an abortion in a front of 20 shotguns. Try to be rough and don't tell how you beat up your girlfriends, if you got the balls to do that."
-Rumba Magazine, March 13, 1998

"Please tell me what cellulite cream I should use, before I get the wrong one."
-Yahoo Online Chat, April 13, 1998

"The Christian God is alive and well and I usually go out with him every six weeks. Just for a good binge."
-London Times, April 10, 1998

I love speed. I love Formula One racing. I love the idea of travelling. Why do you have to leave your body to travel...why can't you go interdimensionally emotionally?
-Z100 radio interview, February 4, 1996

"Sometimes you see how people beat their children up in a mall, and there is no sense in it; why some kids are taken from the loving parents and why children are given to those who are treating them badly. That all is a part of the big mystery of life."
-Rumba Magazine, March 13, 1998

"When things get really empty for me, empty in my outer life, in my inner life, the music world, the songs come across galaxies to find me."

"The second grade was a bummer. I sat in the corner more than any other kid in the class until the ninth grade. I tried to be an inspiring force but my teachers and I were at odds. Independent thinking was not their priority."

"I'd like to make a request. The sneak preview shows are going to be jammed with people in a very small space. If someone is being pushed and shoved, you have to rally together so you don't get hurt. And if they are a bad apple, you need to let Joel know, there will be security everywhere. These concerts are not about violence. It is no good to say you are spiritually growing and you don't want violence, and then you start kicking to get a better seat. However, if someone kicks you, clock 'em! No victims here, but try and support each other. If you have gotten in, that's a huge accomplishment and let's make it magical--A Magical Seance. Not a night of brutality."
-Yahoo Online Chat, April 13, 1998

"People are afraid of what they might find if they try to analyze themselves too much, but you have to crawl into the wound to discover what your fears are. Once the bleeding starts, the cleansing can begin."
-The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock 'N Roll

"I want it hot and sweet."
-On how she likes her bagels

"I'm a winter girl; I like coming out when things are desolate and everybody's ready to slit their wrists."

"People make statements about 'this unicorn shit' and don't realize that this 'unicorn shit' was a secret code that millions of people were killed for. The gangs could learn a few things.If you weren't towing the Catholic line at the time, then you were a heretic. I'm trying to reconstruct some of these falsehoods."

"A lot of times, the animal that bit you, you have to go and commune with that animal to release the poison, to release that bite, to understand the infection that it causes."

"The worst way to insult the Americans is to question their moral smugness."
-Rumba Magazine, March 13, 1998



"My father suggested I take my songs and play them someplace. So I got a job at a local gay bar in Washington DC, playing for free. I used to play there when I was 13, wearing my sister's polyester pants and all made-up to look older. I was happy."
-Mick St. Michael CD Booklet

"I don't know about making pop videos. I know about you know, making little films. That's what I try to do. What it was really about is this woman is in a situation and you find out later she was in the trunk of this car, and miraculously this car accident saves her life. To have your hands tied behind your back and be blindfolded to have that experience and really have to get from one end of Dartmoor to the other it was... you hear better, your instincts get better."
- On the Spark video

"You know how women always say men aren't emotionally available. Well, a lot of women aren't emotionally available. It's like, if you're vulnerable, we say, 'Look, we need you to be sensitive.' So you become sensitive, and yet we go, 'You've got no fuckin' backbone.' and we kick you in the face and run off with a ski trainer.

"You see, I'm not music theory smart. To me, it's an internal, instinctive thing. It's like, I don't care if this is making mathematical sense, I am not creaming. If I'm really honest, looking back, I wanted my father to be proud of me. But I couldn't do it in that way, because it has to be in your soul to be a great concert pianist."

"I haven't missed a show yet; I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing. Maybe I should have. Some musicians will do anything to cancel, a little ache in their throat or whatever. I'm not like that. I've been playing since I was two and a half and I really see it as being, well...you be great at what you do. You be stellar. I believe in excellence. I've done three world tours and I haven't cancelled one show yet."

"Every Friday night I have a margarita with a Christian God. I'll share the observations of my week, and ask for answers and try to keep an open mind. Then we both move on."
-Philadelphia Inquirer, May 3, 1998

"I just hated my name. If a guy even started to look at me and they heard my name was Myra Ellen, it just created a limp dick immediately."
-Q Magazine, May 1998

"What really pisses me off is that the British aren't self-made; they want to win the lottery or go on the dole. I hate people who bitch about people who do well - if someone wants my career they should get off their butt and play in a band for 14 years."
-She Magazine, May 1998

"You see, I didn't get married because I didn't have anything to do. I really looked at this man and thought 'this person is incredibly unique and I don't want to be with anybody else'."
-UK Times, April 11, 1998

"I've been fourtunate because men have been very creative as far as romance goes. One man took me to a cliff- I thought he was going to throw me off, but he took out a bottle of wine and an elaborate picnic."
-She Magazine, May 1998

"I love books! I have a lot of them. When I feel lonely I can touch my books and read them."
-Nieuwe Revu Magazine, April 8, 1998

"I've never played the guitar, except throwing it against the wall cause it was pissed off I couldn't play it."
-Yahoo Chat, April 13, 1998



"Some of the most wonderful people are the ones who don't fit into boxes.
-Breakfast with Tori, KROQ, May 8, 1998

"It surprises me. I listen to this album and I smile. It happened and I didn't know it. I found a way to dance with sorrow."
-On her new album
-Vox Magazine, June 1998

"Forgiveness is the most important thing about friendship."
-Yahoo Online Chat, April 13, 1998

"Absolutely. While drinking margaritas on the bus, on tour in the mid-West."
-Her response when asked if she ever dances to her Professional Widow remixes
-UK Times, April 11, 1998

"The idea of a series of songs with the same basic sound didn't appeal to me. The woman in 'She's Your Cocaine,' which is about a reptile woman who has no fidelity to sisterhood, had to be distinct from the woman in 'Spark,' who's addicted to nicotine patches."
-Philadelphia Inquirer, May 3, 1998

"Somebody will come backstage and go, 'You saved me.' And I have to go, 'Stop right there. You saved yourself.'"
-Philadelphia Inquirer, May 3, 1998

"I think I'm a really fair boss, When I'm on the road I have 35 people with me and I work them really hard. But I don't like bullies - if there's a bully we weed them out."
-She Magazine, May, 1998

"I have total control of my work. I'm very fierce about my music."
-Attitude Magazine, May, 1998

"The whole idea was for me to become a concert pianist. Something got lost and it became deadly serious. It wasn't free expression anymore. It was going to be channeled into a career. I found I couldn't live with the piano in that regimented way. It was obvious that I couldn't work within those parameters. I just didn't want to do what was expected of me."
-Mick St. Michael CD Booklet

"From the age of 5, I hated my grandmother. She was also a minister and believed that a young woman should turn her body over to her husband, who then owns it. Until then, she said, you should remain untouched. She told me that if I didn't love Jesus there would be no money for me in the Christmas kitty."
-She Magazine, May, 1998

"My dad has always liked the entertaining side of things. When he was a little boy he hitchiked 20 km to see the Wizard Of Oz and to go to the movies in the mountains. He told me that he watched Gone With Wind for 3 days and then got spanked because he had stolen a hen from his father's farm to see Vivien Leigh. I believe he respects my devotion to music."
-Rumba Magazine, March 13, 1998

"Feminism is about the separation, not about the oneness. So I find the whole concept a bit stale. We need to get a bit futuristic here."
-Upside Down, Issue #6

"Yes I do have a mission. To expose the dark side of Christianity."

"I'm an acquired taste -- I'm anchovies, and not everybody wants those hairy little things. If I was potato chips, I could go a lot more places, but I'm not."

"I want to torture the people who don't understand the world of faeries. Sometimes I want to grab these bitches by the hair and take them to the world of faerie and say, 'Would you repeat that?'"



"I think you're always striving for wholeness. I don't think you can put a time limit to it; it's really always another fragment coming your way as long as you're alive until you leave the planet."

"If you call me an airy-fairy new age hippy waif, I will cut your penis off."

"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."

"An angel's face is tricky to wear constantly."

"Mess with me and you will not survive."

"I don't play the piano, the piano plays me."

"The problem with all the big four religions is that they won't admit their dark sides."
-Rumba Magazine, March 13, 1998

If I couldn't play, I've no idea what kind of bitter person I would've become. Because that's where I was able to express some kind of freedom without guilt. Guilt for passion.
-Rolling Stone, June 30, 1994

"When you're good at what you're doing, when you're skilled and work all the time, then there is a place for everyone and you don't have to feel threathened."
-Rumba Magazine, March 13, 1998

"I feel like a work really has many sides to it when people have such extreme reactions. When a work is greeted with just, 'Oh, you know, it's nice', then it's not affecting people. So love it or hate it, that's okay. That's exciting to me. If you wanted music for your dog to do something on, hey, it's paper, too."

"There's a lot of shame in being famous; that's because so many people want it and haven't achieved it and are envious."

-Attitude Magazine, May, 1998
"I heard stories that they brought in this henchman from France, and I really aligned with him. He had Anne [Boleyn] move her hair over [before the execution] and he made her look away. He did it when she didn't know. Even though his job was a bit brutal, he had more compassion than the king. The riddle in 'Talula' is things are not what they seem."

"Now you can't just say that cherry pie is great without the crust. Get over it."

"Mothers drag their daughters out of my shows because their daughters are going, 'Hey, maybe I don't have to think about these things. Why am I worshipping some dead guy?'"

"I am a real believer in looking at pain and taking it out shopping."

"The cross has been used as a weapon, as it has been used against all women throughout the ages. And that's the greatest evil of all."

"Yeah, I do write about stuff I'm going through, but I think you've got to find a giggle somewhere in stuff that would scare the poop outta ya. That's what fascinates me."

"I believe in energy, everything is energy. And therefore sometimes magic can be created if somebody is open to letting energy do what it does, instead of being so cynical, that you miss magic happening."

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