Best 122 quotes of Amanda Palmer on MyQuotes

All of my music, my stage show, my personality, my blog, my twitter feed, anything that's made me me, and a huge part of why people like and respect me, is that I just don't spend much energy on that other stuff. It's not worth it. It's a losing battle too. You're just screwed the minute you engage.

American culture in particular has instilled in us the bizarre notion that to ask for help amounts to an admission of failure. But some of the most powerful, successful, admired people in the world seem, to me, to have something in common: they ask constantly, creatively, compassionately, and gracefully. And to be sure: when you ask, there's always the possibility of a no on the other side of the request. If we don't allow for that no, we're not actually asking, we're either begging or demanding. But it is the fear of the no that keeps so many of our mouths sewn tightly shut.

Art is food for the soul, and an artistic climate is a healthy climate because it breeds empathy.

Asking for help with shame says: You have the power over me. Asking with condescension says: I have the power over you. But asking for help with gratitude says: We have the power to help each other.

Bands like Nirvana had theatrical sensibilities, playing with image, challenging assumptions people were making about them, the apex being Kurt Cobain in a dress to make a point.

Collecting the dots. Then connecting them. And then sharing the connections with those around you. This is how a creative human works. Collecting, connecting, sharing.

Comparing yourself to the people like you, comparing yourself to the people who aren't like you, looking at how many records you've sold, looking at the venue size you're selling out. None of that can even remotely measure how happy you are.

Crowdfunding as an idea itself isn't new - bands have been doing it since the dawn of time.

Donald Trump is going to make punk rock great again.

Eat the pain. Send it back into the void as love.

Every album is just a greatest hits of whatever songs are on a pile when I go in to make a record.

Everyone I know shares toothbrushes. Everyone I know sleeps on each other's floor. Everyone I know uses what they've got and shares what they've got.

For most of human history, musicians, artists, they've been part of the community — connectors and openers, not untouchable stars.

How do we let people pay for music?

How you sound. How you look. Are you fat? Those are things that could be really irritating.

I crave intimacy to the same burning degree that I detest commitment.

I don't feel at home in New Orleans. I don't feel at home in Austin or L.A. And I just felt immediately at home in northern Australia.

I don't think of myself as particularly cursed or blessed. I think I got dealt a set of cards, and I'm playing with them, sometimes in heels, sometimes in combat boots.

I do what I want. I try to be nice to everybody. When I fail, I try to apologize.

I draw the line at letting people into my songwriting cave. To me, that's where the alchemy happens and where the mystery is.

I feel like if I were to play the game completely and just get myself in a giant bottle of nail polish and put myself on display, I would feel like I had somehow cosmically lost. I feel like I'm taking a bunch of the ingredients and using some of them but not all of them and shuffling around and making people think I'm doing my job.

I feel that part of my life's artwork is creatively dealing with all this negativity and anger and rage and hatred coming from whatever corners it's coming from and somehow manifesting all of that anger into something positive, which is such a hard job.

I firmly believe in music being as free as possible. Unlocked. Shared and spread. In order for artists to survive and create, their audiences need to step up and directly support them.

If I were a guy, it would be, you know, just a different set of problems I have to carry along.

If you come across an American artist right now who has no political opinions or is afraid of talking politics, be very concerned.

If you're going to make work and you're going to write and you're going to put yourself out there and perform, you will be belittled, you will be insulted, you will be called a standard collection of names, you will be accused, and you just have to stand there and continue to work and find a way to not let those things poison you.

If your writing is good, if it resonates, if it connects the dots for anybody out there, the lovers will come, the haters will come, support will come — sometimes in the form of money, sometimes in the form of something less expected — and it balances.

If you want the world to pay for projects, you have to be able to display why you're worthy.

I get really fantastic results when I just get out of my own way.

I get so many ideas for songs, but I'm so seldom disciplined enough to sit down and crank them out.

I had a real come-to-Jesus a couple of years ago when I started to see the direct line between feminism and everything else - feminism and climate change, feminism and poverty, feminism and hunger - and it was almost like I was born again and started walking down the street and was like, "Oh, my God, there are women everywhere! They're just everywhere you look. There's women all over the place!

I had very literal parents and I wanted to survive with metaphor and art, and there was a real sense of shame around it.

I hate being ignored.

I have a handful of really close relationships in my life and I depend on those people heavily to carry me through and to help me stay steady.

I have never in my career embarked on a journey towards controversy. I have never deliberately set a flame.

I kind of rely on my artist friends to make my physical music worth buying by having them all come together and create beautiful artwork that everyone is gonna want to own to support my record.

I maintain couchsurfing and crowdsurfing are basically the same thing — you're falling into the audience and you're trusting each other.

I'm bisexual, but it's not the sort of thing I spent a lot of time thinking about. I've slept with girls; I've slept with guys, so I guess that's what they call it! I'm not anti trying to use language to simplify our lives.

I'm still trying to express my truth, my place in the world, my belief.

In both the art and the business worlds, the difference between the amateurs and the professionals is simple: The professionals know they're winging it. The amateurs pretend they're not.

I never wanted to grow a thicker skin; I felt a real sense of pride in my thin skin, and in a weird way, I still do, because it's my thin skin that allows me to empathize with other people. It's the thing that allows me to create vulnerable art. It's the thing that allows me to create other feelings and make songs that actually grab people and touch people. I feel like I've spent my life fighting that thicker skin because I don't want to become an embittered asshole.

In other words, let's give our young women the right weapons to fight with as they charge naked into battle, instead of ordering them to get back in the house and put some goddamn clothes on.

I nurture my close relationships like priceless lamps. That's part of why the job itself is inherently difficult and kind of a paradox, because you're out there touring and traveling and going a million miles a minute, but the things that are keeping you steady and stable can be really hard to nurture when you're going fast, and your relationships, which are the number one thing that help me through.

I remember being a teenager and being really impressed by "let's sit around and b*tch" people, and I have so little time for those people nowadays.

I still get laughed at but it doesn't bother me, I'm just so glad to hear laughter around me.

I suffer mornings most of all I feel so powerless and small By ten o'clock I'm back in bed Fighting the jury in my head

I suppose I'm happy to sell my time and energy, but I'm not happy to sell my initial creative time.

It feels like it is a daily work and an ongoing task to undo all of the f - - g programming that I have had all my life about who I am supposed to be and how I'm supposed to look and that I'm supposed to win. It's a daily deconstruction of all that bullshit.

I think a good role model has to be sexy. Real, empowered, self-possessed women are sexy. When you're really in control of your choices, your mood, your body, and your opinions, people find you sexy.

I think being a woman in any business that's dominated by men, you have your garden variety pros and cons, where you learn how to focus and harness your various powers and weaknesses for better or for good.