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
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.
If I was writing songs just for me I'd only play them in my living room, alone.
Being in your forties - any woman who isn't there yet, I just have to say to you: Euphoria is coming to you.
I think even in a good marriage, especially if you stay together long enough, there are going to be events that happen.
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.
I like cosy, intimate houses.
My father has a pragmatic mind. He marched with Dr. King in the '60s, and he's very much for women's rights.
I like involved projects.
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?
I get painted quite a bit as a tragic figure because of some of the stuff that's happened in my life.
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.
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.
For the most part, pianos are female to me. Sometimes they're dykes, and they're always good fun.
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.
The violence betwen women is unbelievable. Women try to make each other crawl so that their knees are bleeding.
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.
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.
After a while of getting jerked around, you realize what the business is really made up of.
I've got tonnes of aboriginal and Native American art, but I'd like even more.
I think having a child can really change you if you're open to it.
I love the classic crooners, but I got that from my mother - she worked in a record store.
Life is fleeting. It is to be enjoyed.
I have a great relationship with my mother-in-law. We're both Leos, we understand each other.
My childhood was extreme.
Right now, half the world is depressed and they need to be entertained.
I've had to keep exploring different ways of presenting the music so I don't repeat myself.
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.
A lot of the carols were not as you hear them now.
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.
I know I'm an acquired taste - I'm anchovies. And not everybody wants those hairy little things.
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.
Sometimes you have to do what you don't like to get to where you want to be.
Healing takes courage, and we all have courage, even if we have to dig a little to find it.
This was a time frame when dance music and clubs were having a real impact on culture, and it had an impact on me.
I felt sidelined by the industry, by the preoccupation with finding something newer, younger.
There is a phenomenal amount of pressure on women in this industry: they are considered vintage by the time they hit their mid-30s.
There were times that I needed to go to battle, but how I went to battle wasn't always the best way in.
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.
I became a mom at 37 and having a child has been an emancipation for me.
A key to keeping your husband is getting him to miss you. That keeps a marriage fresh.
I'm driven by the idea of characters and the song-cycle form is similar to a musical.
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.
Some people hide more than others, and it does intrigue me.
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?
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.
I'm a musician first, a food-lover second, a dirty mouth with feet, and a girl last time I checked.
Give me life, give me pain, give me myself again.
Many people lock a part of themselves away. It's a bit sacred.
I have so many different personalities in me and I still feel lonely.
