Tori Amos Quotes
Quotations and aphorisms by Tori Amos:
I like involved projects.
~Tori Amos
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Some of the most wonderful people are the ones who don't fit into boxes.
~Tori Amos
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I know I'm an acquired taste - I'm anchovies. And not everybody wants those hairy little things.
~Tori Amos
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I don't really cook. There are caterers, and my husband cooks.
~Tori Amos
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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.
~Tori Amos
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For a song cycle to work, you have to feel these things when you hear them and you either have an emotional reaction to it or you don't. The plotline is something that gets woven together in the back-story.
~Tori Amos
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When one doesn't want the limelight, but is also creative in developing whatever it is they are, then you can have two equal people that aren't competing against each other. I think when you are in the same field, it's difficult to leave it outside and not compete. Then when the doors are closed; that pervades everything.
~Tori Amos
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Tori's my legal name. My niece and nephews, they all call me Aunt Ellen, because I went by my middle name years ago, before I turned 18.
~Tori Amos
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I want to be an integrated woman.
~Tori Amos
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When you're in your 20s, there's maybe a little room for you to not be at the top of your artistic game, if you look good on a magazine cover. When you're not on the cover of the magazines anymore, then you realize that the work has to be great.
~Tori Amos
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There is a time and a place for things. Sometimes one needs to put a filter on oneself. That can be a good thing.
~Tori Amos
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After a while, though, you realize that a whole slew of young singer-songwriter piano players are getting compared to you. That's when you feel the passage of time is occurring.
~Tori Amos
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I have a great relationship with my mother-in-law. We're both Leos, we understand each other.
~Tori Amos
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Being stylish is about enjoying your life and expressing yourself and your inner light.
~Tori Amos
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You can be self-empowered and still learning about how you think about things daily.
~Tori Amos
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I've got tonnes of aboriginal and Native American art, but I'd like even more.
~Tori Amos
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I have so many different personalities in me and I still feel lonely.
~Tori Amos
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I felt sidelined by the industry, by the preoccupation with finding something newer, younger.
~Tori Amos
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There are enough scary rock & roll mothers in the world.
~Tori Amos
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People listen to music the way they want to listen to music.
~Tori Amos
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I produce the records. I don't hand over control to some really expensive producer who then talks to the record company and then tries to bend me to their will - for commercial purposes.
~Tori Amos
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The key things are about power and about growing up and realizing as you grow up that there are consequences for the choices you make, especially when you get seduced by power.
~Tori Amos
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There are ways to stimulate being prolific, and part of that is making pilgrimages, and being open to listening, changing up the routine.
~Tori Amos
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Music is always a reflection of what's going on in the hearts and minds of the culture.
~Tori Amos
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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.
~Tori Amos
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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.
~Tori Amos
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The world that we all knew before, could wake up in feeling safe... now it seems that everything has been turned upside down.
~Tori Amos
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If I was writing songs just for me I'd only play them in my living room, alone.
~Tori Amos
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There is an energy that you carry when you're nurturing another life where you're protecting first - and once you know that cub is out of the way of the hunter's gun, you can be a little more daring.
~Tori Amos
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After a while of getting jerked around, you realize what the business is really made up of.
~Tori Amos
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I think even in a good marriage, especially if you stay together long enough, there are going to be events that happen.
~Tori Amos
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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.
~Tori Amos
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I am the worst influence. If you can't handle your vices, then I am the Devil.
~Tori Amos
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My ears are huge. If there's ever a problem with a plane I'm on, they could just put me on the wing and I'll land the sucker.
~Tori Amos
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At 15, I knew someone whose mother cooked macrobiotic, so I persuaded my mother to go macrobiotic with me.
~Tori Amos
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I became a mom at 37 and having a child has been an emancipation for me.
~Tori Amos
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Musically, I always allow myself to jump off of cliffs. At least that's what it feels like to me. Whether that's what it actually sounds like might depend on what the listener brings to the songs.
~Tori Amos
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I have a rule that I don't read my press, but then somebody in the crew will be reading it and of course it's right there, so what do you think I do?
~Tori Amos
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I love the classic crooners, but I got that from my mother - she worked in a record store.
~Tori Amos
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Things go wrong all the time; you can't be precious about it.
~Tori Amos
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I think you need to have people around you whose standard is high and who don't accept anything less.
~Tori Amos
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I'm a hard worker. I get my hands dirty.
~Tori Amos
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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.
~Tori Amos
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I'm a classic emerald green Sixties Jaguar that nobody can own, but my husband is allowed to drive.
~Tori Amos
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A lot of songs are derivative of each other.
~Tori Amos
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I'm not very social when I'm off the promo trail, because I step into wife and mother mode. It's very reclusive.
~Tori Amos
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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.
~Tori Amos
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My mother says I was two-and-a-half when I started playing. My father was a minister, and when he went to church in the morning, she would put on Fats Waller, Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole and Cole Porter records. I'd crawl up on the piano stool, sit on a phone book and play.
~Tori Amos
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In our minds, love and lust are really separated. It's hard to find someone that can be kind and you can trust enough to leave your kids with, and isn't afraid to throw her man up against the wall and lick him from head to toe.
~Tori Amos
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Parenting is not for everybody. It changes your life. Especially when they're little.
~Tori Amos
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If you think a child is going to be your accessory... it's not like a micro pig. It's not about putting them in front of the television. You need to read to them at night.
~Tori Amos
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I started playing the piano when I was about two and got a scholarship to the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore when I was five. But I left when I was 11.
~Tori Amos
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I usually get myself into situations that cause sparks. I mean I'm a girl that likes the storms. I love feeling alive, I love walking out in the cold in my bare feet and feeling the ice on my toes.
~Tori Amos
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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?
~Tori Amos
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My favorite saying is, 'If it's too loud, turn it up.'
~Tori Amos
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I was very close to my mother as the youngest of three. She was my playmate.
~Tori Amos
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I'm not not going to stop giving away what I feel about something.
~Tori Amos
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For the most part, pianos are female to me. Sometimes they're dykes, and they're always good fun.
~Tori Amos
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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.
~Tori Amos
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There are two ways to wake up. You can wake up thinking about what you know, or you wake up thinking and saying 'What can I learn?.' That's a very different approach.
~Tori Amos
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I don't know if the average person really has faith in Washington anymore.
~Tori Amos
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My parents think I'm better under pressure.
~Tori Amos
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Well, I have a lot of food references in my work.
~Tori Amos
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A lot of songs are derivative of each other. Sometimes you need to take a departure from what you do to something that's slightly different in order to get inspiration.
~Tori Amos
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Some people say, I'd give anything to be 30 again. Well, I really wouldn't. I didn't enjoy being 30.
~Tori Amos
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The violence betwen women is unbelievable. Women try to make each other crawl so that their knees are bleeding.
~Tori Amos
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This was a time frame when dance music and clubs were having a real impact on culture, and it had an impact on me.
~Tori Amos
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I guess my husband is a muse as well.
~Tori Amos
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There's a side to this industry that nurtures divas who can't write. It's a big business.
~Tori Amos
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If you have an issue with homosexuality, then it comes to your own fear and your own darkness.
~Tori Amos
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I have built my world through Native American mythology.
~Tori Amos
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I find that in the 21st century, there's not a lot of compassion for what other people are going through or the walk that they have to walk.
~Tori Amos
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Cornwall is one of the most beautiful places, with great people - there's not a great downside to it.
~Tori Amos
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I'm driven by the idea of characters and the song-cycle form is similar to a musical.
~Tori Amos
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My father was strict, but he recognised my ability and got a lot of flak from the church for supporting me.
~Tori Amos
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Many people lock a part of themselves away. It's a bit sacred.
~Tori Amos
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When you don't have people in your life pushing you, can you push yourself?
~Tori Amos
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My father was a minister and so rock music was banned in our house.
~Tori Amos
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I don't mind a dirty girl. But what I find tragic is when we, as women, become not the subject of our own story but someone else's object.
~Tori Amos
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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. I would really just love to collaborate on that.
~Tori Amos
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Not everybody wants to have the same career. I think what's difficult is when you have two people that do something very, very similar and they both, say, want the limelight. That's very tricky.
~Tori Amos
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Some people hide more than others, and it does intrigue me.
~Tori Amos
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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.
~Tori Amos
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Being in your forties - any woman who isn't there yet, I just have to say to you: Euphoria is coming to you.
~Tori Amos
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I'm a conduit for telling people's stories. It's a privilege.
~Tori Amos
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My husband doesn't know what my songs are about - even when they're about him. He's very British in that way. He doesn't ask, and he doesn't want to be told.
~Tori Amos
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What girls do to each other is beyond description. No chinese torture comes close.
~Tori Amos
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You know that saying, bad things don't happen to good people? That's a lie.
~Tori Amos
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So the first job that I got - my father got it for me - he had his clerical collar on, was a gay bar in D.C., it was Mr. Henry's of Georgetown.
~Tori Amos
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A lot of the carols were not as you hear them now.
~Tori Amos
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I think doing variations on a classical theme is a dangerous thing to do.
~Tori Amos
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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.
~Tori Amos
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It's been a thrilling journey - I have had to really learn that an orchestra is an entity - it's a creature. I have been calling it the dragon and the conductor is the dragon tamer. And you just have to... ride and don't let go and you will be fine.
~Tori Amos
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You have to be clear what your message is and what you're doing. I mean, Miley Cyrus is an amazing talent, and sometimes you kind of just want to say, 'We know you're not Hannah Montana anymore. We know that, my dear. My darling. Now, go be great.'
~Tori Amos
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My brother was a fantastic cheerleader for my development as a musician. He was almost 10 years older than me and would really push me to develop as a songwriter.
~Tori Amos
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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.
~Tori Amos
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I remember driving to North Carolina when I was a little girl in a snowstorm to get down to my mom's family in the Carolinas. There were chains on the car - it was the late sixties - and we were just singing in the car. Christmas carols.
~Tori Amos
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Right now, half the world is depressed and they need to be entertained.
~Tori Amos
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I had a very strict upbringing with my dad and was very close to my mum, who was extremely loving.
~Tori Amos
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Life is fleeting. It is to be enjoyed.
~Tori Amos
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I don't want to give too much ink to foolish men.
~Tori Amos
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I don't kid around.
~Tori Amos
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Sometimes it seems like we're closer to our manicurists than we are our own souls. We have to find ways to get in touch with that and to listen to it and to hear it.
~Tori Amos
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I get painted quite a bit as a tragic figure because of some of the stuff that's happened in my life.
~Tori Amos
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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.
~Tori Amos
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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.
~Tori Amos
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I know people sometimes have this fantasy about Cornwall. But the Cornish are so grounded.
~Tori Amos
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I don't see music as working.
~Tori Amos
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The pop world has really opened its doors.
~Tori Amos
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Being able to still make records is a privilege. I don't take it casually.
~Tori Amos
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A key to keeping your husband is getting him to miss you. That keeps a marriage fresh.
~Tori Amos
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It's fun to write your set list 20 minutes before and keep the crew very much on their toes.
~Tori Amos
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I wanted to do something creatively, having been a beached whale for many months and nursing my daughter.
~Tori Amos
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When we get in a routine we can become zombie-like and shut down.
~Tori Amos
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I get tired of wearing the same thing all the time too.
~Tori Amos
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I think there's a time as a writer when you want to see the best things in life, and you go out wherever you go with your dreams as a writer or a composer.
~Tori Amos
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Even if everything else is downplayed, I'll wear good shoes.
~Tori Amos
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I like cosy, intimate houses.
~Tori Amos
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I think having a child can really change you if you're open to it.
~Tori Amos
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Sometimes you need to take a departure from what you do to something that's slightly different in order to get inspiration.
~Tori Amos
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People assume that all artists make for terrible business people, but I'm in complete charge of my own career.
~Tori Amos
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Healing takes courage, and we all have courage, even if we have to dig a little to find it.
~Tori Amos
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There were times that I needed to go to battle, but how I went to battle wasn't always the best way in.
~Tori Amos
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I think everyone understands grief, the journey it takes us on, whether it's the death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, a disappointment. Some people don't deal with it, the power of it. Some do. Some feel the weight of it and it informs their choices. I've had to open up to grief in different contexts.
~Tori Amos
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I don't choose to analyze what I have done and I think that is the right choice, because then I won't be spending my time creating.
~Tori Amos
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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.
~Tori Amos
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When I was little, my mom tells me, I used to say things like, 'Mom do you hear the string section? Do you hear the string section?' And she would look at me and say, 'No honey, I don't know what you're talking about.'
~Tori Amos
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I was two and a half when I first climbed up and sat at a piano.
~Tori Amos
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I'm a mother, and that's really important. Today, the mother and the musician can sit next to each other. Even when the musician is out there in full swing, the mother doesn't get switched off.
~Tori Amos
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I can see how the young girls really get hurt when their moms are critical, or vice versa when they're overly critical of their moms. It can be so painful.
~Tori Amos
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When I got older, I chose to look at Christianity as another myth.
~Tori Amos
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I've had to keep exploring different ways of presenting the music so I don't repeat myself.
~Tori Amos
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I'm very at home working with mythology.
~Tori Amos
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I've been known to throw watermelons, backstage, at people who are giving me news I don't want to hear. But I never aim for the head.
~Tori Amos
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As the sun sets, we've all had those nights where you question your choices and where your life is going.
~Tori Amos
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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.
~Tori Amos
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I'm a musician first, a food-lover second, a dirty mouth with feet, and a girl last time I checked.
~Tori Amos
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Give me life, give me pain, give me myself again.
~Tori Amos
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When the mothers start to shatter, then everything just comes undone.
~Tori Amos
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I like involved projects. I'm driven by the idea of characters and the song-cycle form is similar to a musical.
~Tori Amos
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To me glamour isn't about being sparkly.
~Tori Amos
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I don't feel I'm as good a mum as my mum was.
~Tori Amos
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I've worked with many powerful men in the music industry.
~Tori Amos
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Romance is important to me, and to have a romance with your husband takes a bit of doing. The key is to make sure your partner misses you. That means you have to take yourself away.
~Tori Amos
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I'm really quite happy to say that in my early 40s, I wake up feeling sexy, and I can't say I felt that way in my late 20s.
~Tori Amos
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You don't leave people who can't defend themselves.
~Tori Amos
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My childhood was extreme.
~Tori Amos
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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.
~Tori Amos
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Take a different route to the coffee shop to see what you can see and hear. When we get in a routine, we can become zombie-like and shut down. It's about discipline. You have to push yourself.
~Tori Amos
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I have never smoked and have always drunk a lot of water, but cleanse, tone and moisturise every day? No way!
~Tori Amos
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Our world is a huge mess right now, and not big enough for masses of intolerant people.
~Tori Amos
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There is a phenomenal amount of pressure on women in this industry: they are considered vintage by the time they hit their mid-30s.
~Tori Amos
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I've carved out a career for myself really as a writer.
~Tori Amos
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Sometimes you have to do what you don't like to get to where you want to be.
~Tori Amos
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My father has a pragmatic mind. He marched with Dr. King in the '60s, and he's very much for women's rights.
~Tori Amos
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