Peace of mind for five minutes, that's what I crave.
Alanis Morissette
The person who knows HOW will always have a job. The person who knows WHY will always be his boss.
We're taught to be ashamed of confusion, anger, fear and sadness, and to me they're of equal value to happiness, excitement and inspiration.
You live, you learn.
We'll love you just the way you are if you're perfect.
I highly recommend getting older! There's less tendency to people-please.
A good man often appears gauche simply because he does not take advantage of the myriad mean little chances of making himself look stylish. Preferring truth to form, he is not constantly at work upon the facade of his appearance.
Courage and willingness to just go for it, whether it is a conversation or a spontaneous trip or trying new things that are scary - it is a really attractive quality.
Long hair is a security blanket for me. I cut it short a few years ago and I really never want to do that again. When I do cut it, I cut it myself.
I want to walk through life instead of being dragged through it.
I have not an ounce of regret. Every link is so valuable in forming the chain that is my life. Who I am today is because of those links, and I wouldn't change any of them.
I see my body as an instrument, rather than an ornament.
Canada has a passive-aggressive culture, with a lot of sarcasm and righteousness. That went with my weird messianic complex. The ego is a fascinating monster. I was taught from a young age that I had to serve, so that turned into me thinking I had to save the planet.
I wish people could achieve what they think would bring them happiness in order for them to realize that that's not really what happiness is.
Your political views really denote your spiritual views.
My son was five months old, and I built a makeshift studio in my living room so that I could do the attachment parenting approach and write the record at the same time. That was fortuitous, that we could build that in the house.
I'm doing it because I choose it. And if it's not working, I can make a change.
I live with some of my best friends from high school, very commune-like, in my house. It's my hippie way of life.
I'll be writing songs till I die. There's just no question.
When people ask me who I'd want to have dinner with, dead or alive, I always say, 'John Lennon.' I just feel that he was an artist who was, in his own way, committed to wholeness and authenticity in a not dissimilar way that I am years later.
Trauma happens in relationships, so it can only be healed in relationships. Art can't provide healing. It can be cathartic and therapeutic but a relationship is a three-part journey.
I think it's child abuse to have someone in the public eye too young. Society basically values wealth and fame and power at the cost of well-being. In the case of a child, it's at the cost of someone's natural development. It's already hard enough to develop.
Fame is hollow. It amplifies what is there. If there is any self-doubt, or hatred, or lack of ability to connect with people, fame will magnify it.
I still indulge in a glass of wine or chocolate - treats are mandatory. Without deviating from the day-to-day healthy diet once in a while, it wouldn't be sustainable for me, and that's what I wanted: an approach to eating to last my entire life.
Well, as a kid I did not get Shakespeare. I just never understood it.
The ego is a fascinating monster.
For four to six months at a time, I would barely eat. I lived on a diet of Melba toast, carrots, and black coffee.
I started playing piano when I was 6. And I knew that wanted to be involved in that form of expression, whether it was through music, or acting, or dancing, or painting, or writing.
What I try to keep in mind is that there are going to be a lot of articles that are going to be misrepresentative of what I'm about as a person and as a writer.
I was always such a people-watcher. I would sit on street corners alone and watch people and make up stories about them in my head. Then, all of a sudden, I was the one being watched.
When I was producing on my own, I was doing it in order to - in a very patriarchal entertainment industry, let alone planet - very much hell-bent on trying to prove to myself, if nothing else, that I could do it as a woman.
I know that I'm deeply, spiritually, profoundly philosophical and I also know that I'm about the flakiest person you're gonna meet.
Unless I really loved it and felt really passionate about it, I would just kind of abort the song and start a new one.
I just feel compelled to continue to be transparent. It just really levels the playing field and eradicates the shame that I have, or that one might have, about being human. So I'm going to just keep going.
In LA, where I live, it's all about perfectionism. Beauty is now defined by your bones sticking out of your decolletage. For that to be the standard is really perilous for women.
Infidelity is a deal breaker for me. I've broken up with people over it. You can't do monogamy 90 percent of the time.
I think quite spiritually of myself. I feel like I'm here to support the human evolution.
There was a period of time during the 'Jagged Little Pill' era where I don't think I laughed for about two years. It was a survival mode, you know. It was an intense, constant, chronic over-stimulation and invasion of energetic and physical literal space.
I was motivated by just thinking that if you had all this external success that everyone would love you and everything would be peaceful and wonderful.
I'm quite obsessed with the idea of nailing the girl friendship. It's such an art, so delicate.
For me, a life without expectation results in a life with inspiration.
I was so ready to become a mom. Actually, I was ready secondarily to become a mom. I was so ready to have the intimacy and commitment of marriage.
Beauty is now defined by your bones sticking out of your decolletage. For that to be the standard is really perilous for women.
Over the last couple of years, I've really worked toward balancing my life out more, having a little bit more time with friends, family and my boyfriend. There was a period of time when they were way down the list. It was all about music and touring and if everything fell by the wayside, so be it.
Alpha men are very turned on by the alpha woman, really high chemistry, really fun to work with, probably really fun to have affairs with, but there's not sustainable harmony in that lack of complement. There can only be one person in the driver's seat.
Knowing that people make my songs their own is what keeps me going.
I'm really clear about what my life mission is now. There's no more depression or lethargy, and I feel like I've returned to the athlete I once was. I'm integrating all the parts of me - jock, musician, writer, poet, philosopher - and becoming stronger as a result.
My favourite pastime used to be sitting on a park bench watching people. But after 'Jagged Little Pill,' the eyeballs turned, and I was the watched one.
What's that line from TS Eliot? To arrive at the place where you started, but to know it for the first time. I'm able to write about a breakup from a different place. Same brokenness. Same rock-bottom. But a little more informed, now I'm older. Thank God for growing up.
A lot of preconceived notions that I had about fame and status and money and joy and pain, and all of these things that I thought I knew, I didn't.
