Best 126 quotes of Pj Harvey on MyQuotes

And all of these writers offer me a greater understanding of what it is to be alive, and that is such an incredible thing art can do for other people. It made me want to try and get close to this strange, mysterious thing that people can do with words.

Any of these contemporary war situations, whether civilian or soldier on either side - that's what I was interested in. The people who are being affected. Not so much the political speak at the top of the food chain, but the people who are affected by it on the ground.

As far as in my adult life, it kinda started (with) writing first 'cause I went to school in Nashville. I mean, not Nashville but close to Nashville, and I met my managers in L.A. at a convention randomly. And then, it kinda just started from there. And then, I got my publishing deal.

As I grew older, I actually was prepared to go into fine arts school and do a degree. That was what I was actually settled upon when I was offered a record deal.

At this point in my life, I'm probably not gonna be able to stop writing because it's gonna help me be able to do what I need to do.

Being a recording artist and having thousands of people listening to your music and singing your songs, and paying for it? It feels great!

But even when I do give interviews, I always come across as such a completely different person. It seems like there's no controlling it anyway.

But huge photographs of dead bodies are slightly different. I couldn't find much humor there.

Ever since time began: What song is not about love? Whether it's about love from man to woman or parent to child, or grandmother to granddaughter... It just goes on and on. Or whether it's the love of one's country.

Everything from a lifetime's worth of collecting things. You know as we go through life, and something stays and ends up on your shelf and lives there until you die? Just those little things.

Fly with me, touch the face of the true God. And then cry with joy at the depth of my love.

Folk music was to strengthen and unify people, whether it was through an uprising and rebellion or whether is was through hard work, bringing in crops. But it was to strengthen each other and that's still what music is about today.

I always wanted to be an artist. I think I was just waiting on somebody to approve me and be like, "Oh, okay, you should be an artist," you know 'cause it wasn't until I stopped looking for approval that I could actually do it.

I am someone that follows the news and reads newspapers yet what do you believe and what don't you.

I come from an art-school background, and I still feel that in my music, it's about exploration and challenging myself, about putting myself in a place that's frightening because I haven't been there before.

Ideas for songs can come from something as simple as a photograph and letting my imagination run wild on an old photograph that I found, or to a film that I have seen or to just most of the time, just daily walking through life and keeping your eyes open.

I didn't even know the industry of songwriting existed. I thought everybody sang songs and they were only singing the songs that they wrote. So after I found out about songwriting in college, I was like, "Okay, I want to do that.

I didn't know folk music growing up, no. It's something I've come to study, really, because I think there's so much to learn from traditional music in the sense of the way music began as a way of communication, the traveling storyteller, the bard, the minstrels.

I did photography, painting, and drawing, but I prefer sculpture. I like it because it's very physical.

I feel that my dreamscapes are part of my everyday life, and sometimes I can't tell the difference.

I don't hold onto anything, because it's a waste of energy to do so, really. There's nothing that I can do about the way people want to write about me. I just try and concentrate on my work and do that as well as I can.

I don't loathe interviews, I'm just one of those people who makes music because I find it difficult to talk.

I don't think that much anymore in terms of 'write a record, record a record, tour a record,' because in my own mind, things have changed, in that I'm just an ongoing artist. I'm not quite sure what the next project needs to be until it presents himself, and then I know. I just follow dutifully while I'm being led.

I do take enormous interest in what's going on. I try to see whatever I can, whenever I can.

I do write a lot of prose. It's not disciplined enough yet that it's actually become stories, or short stories. The idea of writing a novel seems impossible.

I'd want to read the stories that I'd written, I'd want to show the drawings that I made. That was just purely natural. So I knew I wanted to go into the arts in some way and that I'd want to show that work in some way.

I enjoy looking like a tart and thinking like a politician.

If anything, I hope being an artist opens up more opportunities 'cause I feel there's a lot of things I could do, like musically and stylistic-wise that I can write, but I don't really have an avenue to show it 'cause most of the things I'm writing are in Hip Hop.

I feel like I make a soundtrack for the come up, and I feel like there's so many people that's trying to figure out how to chase their dreams, or that are in the process of chasing their dreams, so they connect with that. And then being a singer, you don't really get to touch on nothing either.

I feel like I'm being put inside a box, and I'm not necessarily getting a chance. Like I'm not getting the shot that I deserve. So that's what Rare is about 'cause I feel because I am the way that I am, and I don't necessarily fit the mold of a lot of different artists that's out, it's like I'm not getting the chance to show what I can do. So, that's basically all the frustration of that, and everything is pretty much Rare for me anyway.

I feel like "Not For Long" was one for me just because I got to work with two people that I looked up to...

I feel like the actual, the most beautiful thing about a song is that it is something that goes out there in the universe and people use it in the way that they need it in their lives.

I feel like when I'm writing for other people, when I'm doing rap hooks, it's kinda like playing dress up for me...

If I ever meet a writer or a painter, I don't presuppose that they are like the work they are presenting.

I find it hard myself to feel justified to sing in a very politically direct way about war or social conditions because I feel so ignorant of a lot of it.

I firmly disbelieve that one has to be a tortured soul to write good music.

If you come at the record feeling really happy and optimistic, it can be incredibly beautiful and uplifting, and if you come at it in a bleak moment, it can feel like a very dark place to share. It's all down to the listener.

If you want to be good at anything, you have to work hard at it. It doesn't just fall from the sky. I work every day at trying to improve my writing, and I really enjoy it. Nothing fascinates me more than putting words together, and seeing how a collection of words can produce quite a profound effect.

I grab an instrument to make my body a song, but I'm not a player as such, maybe a little more on guitar, but certainly not piano.

I have learnt through doing interviews throughout my life that the way that somebody can write about something can change entirely how it was meant, or what actually happened.

I just love having no clothes on outside, and the only time to do that is when the sun's shining. It's a wonderful sensation to not have any clothes on.

I just started writing and writing for people. And then, like I guess after (a) year of getting some placements, I kinda got a shot to be an artist. Long story short I think, yeah.

I long ago learned that you can't expect people to interpret the songs in the way they had meant for you, as the writer.

I make tiny wooden people with bits of hair. Puppets and things like that.

I'm always trying to swim to new ground.

I'm always writing, the past 10 years. A lot has changed, in that it's something I do every day.

I'm a very private person, so obviously I don't enjoy talking about more personal matters. But at the same time I care very much about my work and I would like people to know that it exists. So I appreciate that there's a meeting point, where I would like people to know about the work that I'm doing, and that requires me to talk about it.

I'm a visual artist myself and always have been so it's very natural for me to be very concerned with presentation, whether it's artwork or onstage.

I'm doing quite a lot of painting on stones - little funny fish and animals.

I'm finding my way, and I make mistakes.