Shirley Manson Quotes

1. People don't associate red hair, pale skin, and freckles with beauty.  






2. I was a middle child, you know? I was always afraid of never being seen or heard - of having my identity swallowed up by something else - so I never wanted clothes that spoke for me.

3. I'm charming and sweet and lovely, but I have short fuse.


4. I don't find any kind of tension very productive, I find it destructive, actually.

5. I just am fascinated by other female artists, probably because I feel a kinship with them, no matter who they are and what they do.

6. Boys like to use the word "pussy", cos it's a soft, safe word, I like to use the word "vagina", VAGINA, VAGINA, VAGINA!

7. A lot of people these days are not music lovers - they just want to be famous which is a very different thing to what I grew up believing in.

8. I just want to live my life a little freely and not adhere to any schedule - just make music and have fun.

9. I plan on doing as much in my life as I possibly can.




10. I'm all the woman you'll ever need or want, so learn to appreciate me.



11. It's everywhere, constant criticism of women's appearance in magazines and online. It's not easy to navigate.

12. You don't really hear a female perspective on the radio, because so many of the songs are being written by men.

13. I've got a lot of stamina and I enjoy people, so having lots of people around doesn't freak me out.

14. I am greedy, and most importantly, game for what's next.

15. I know lots of people who've never been lucky enough to get to this stage in their life. And I'm not gonna hide it for anybody.

16. I always look after my underwear - you never know when it might come off.

17. I think young artists are always inspiring because they are coming at worlds from a different point of view.

18. I can't stand someone who can outdepress me.

19. And then there's all these other creeps that surround your band and suck off you like leeches and try to manipulate you and your business. You have to watch like a hawk. I'm always ready to fight. I see it very much as a battle.

20. I really wouldn't recommend it to anyone to mess with me. Sometimes I'm surprised how dumb people can be.

21. I feel privileged, to be honest.

22. My solo album is dead and buried. We had the funeral. It was sad and I cried a lot but it made such a beautiful corpse that we had an open casket.


23. It's easy to be morose and hard to be happy.


24. I was always embarrassed because my dad wore a suit and my mother wore flat pumps and a cozy jumper while my friends' parents were punks or hippies.

25. My father's given me one of the greatest gifts ever: an ability to think beyond my immediate material situation.

26. When somebody asks me a question, I try to be as straightforward about it as possible. I try not to overthink what I'm going to say in an interview.

27. I've become very self-sufficient, which is a good thing because I used to be very dependant and needy. I couldn't go into a shop! I swear to God, hee hee! People laugh at me, but I couldn't shop properly, I was so f*cked up!

28. No, I'm not Shirley the girl, I'm the woman on MTV with the big boots.



29. I want to hear an alternative viewpoint, and I don't want girls to be defanged and declawed and pretty and mute.

30. I want people to want to hang out with me. I'm really into people, they fascinate me.

31. I like the feeling that I'm giving young women self-confidence. It sounds so cliched, but it can be very moving.




32. A lot of celebrities just want money, fame, power, fancy cars, houses all over the world and have people bow down to them. To me, that's frightful behavior.




33. When people are so self-conscious about being cool, that's not cool. That person has been led.

34. It's an exaggeration, I suppose, to a certain extent...No, I think it's the same person, it's just exaggerations of each part of your personality. But I think I am that arrogant f**ker that you see on stage!



35. I wanted to put out a solo record because I was stuck on a major label and sick of it.


36. You know, it doesn't matter how beautiful you are, if you don't have anything interesting to say, then you're still boring.

37. That's a difficult question, because to consider yourself a rebel is sort of ridiculous.


38. Selling millions of albums is a sign you've infiltrated the culture.

39. Aging isn't something that frightens me. Because I've become happier as I've got older, so I associate it with positive things.

40. I refuse to step inside the ring and fight like a gladiator against my own. I'm not playing that game. Any woman who has survived a year or more of making music has my undying respect.

41. I think women in pop have been declawed and defanged, and they're just meant to look pretty and sing pretty.

42. People in day-to-day life tend to skim the surface of things and be polite and careful, and that's not the language I speak. I like talking about feelings, fears and memories, anguish and joy, and I find it in music.

43. I'm 45 years old. I used to be a club girl, but that's not my world anymore. That doesn't mean I can't make music that excites. I think it's inspiring to see an artist you grew up with take another crack.

44. I was a redhead and a middle child; both can make you feel excluded. It's like fighting to be included, in the swim of things. After a while you start to develop a bit of a victim mentality, which isn't great for a happy life.

45. How you present yourself is nobody's business but your own. The stylists have an opinion. The hair people have an opinion. The fans and the management have opinions. Ultimately, you have to trust that you are the safe-keeper of yourself.

46. I want hips like a boy. Boys' bodies seem so easy and uncomplicated. They're so easy to dress and use and take care of.

47. I think a lot of people in their lives feel like they don't fit in, even if it looks like they do. People feel like outsiders even if others think we, the lives we live, have everything. If they are popular or they have everything they are supposed to have. Even then, people still don't feel quite included.

48. In terms of fitting in, you know, I don't have a lot of armor up. I'm a raw nerve and it's really uncomfortable for a lot of people.

49. It's really difficult to navigate attention and stardom and celebrity status and still try to maintain yourself and hold onto your intelligence and integrity. It's really challenging.




50. Somedays, it seems like I get random moods delivered in the post.

51. I'd never imagined myself in a band. So the fact that I've had such a long career without really naturally pursuing it is really astounding. It's taken me a long time to accept what I do for a living and actually feel like I have anything of value to add to the equation.






52. Pop music seems to be the way radio programming has chosen to support female artists. They have chosen not to support a more provocative voice from women, which I find disappointing.

53. Until we command the exact same salary as every male counterpart, I feel a political desire to stand by other women. If we don't stand together, that equality will never be fully realized, and that bothers me.

54. There's nothing I've done that I feel a lot of regret over because I stuck to my guns, even when it got uncomfortable - and it will get uncomfortable because you're going up against the wall.






55. I've been accused by male friends of thinking like a man - maybe it comes from being small-chested!

56. I have a lot of very close girlfriends and sisters - I'm from an all female family. My father often quips that even the cat was neutered!

57. I'd want to sing about periods, but I don't think the boy's would be particularly interested in working all day in the studio on that kind of thing. We try to find common ground.

58. At the end of the day, though, the band members have to be strong. It's down to the individuals in the unit. Listen to me, I'm talking like I'm in the army and this is my squadron.





59. I'm a loud person; I love noise and aggression. I crave contact.

60. Siouxsie Sioux (from the band Siouxsie & the Banshees) was a goddess when I was 14, I wanted to be like that. She frightened me because she was so amazing. She wasn't girlie, she looked really hard and powerful and incredibly articulate.

61. I want to hear from the creature who isn't blessed with unbelievable good looks and incredible genes. I want to hear from the geek girl, the forgotten girl, the invisible girl and the miserable girl.

62. I mean, I tend to do my own thing, and that usually crosses purposes with everyone around me.

63. I felt ugly, weak, overwhelmed - I couldn't imagine being capable of doing anything.

64. I am not a sexy woman, I'm not beautiful, I'm not a sex kitten, I don't flirt with people, yet I've been tagged more of sex symbol than women who truly are and I that's solely because I don't reveal too much: people are curious.

65. I feel disgusting. I could take a knife to my throat for the way I look. Can someone just put a bin or a bag or a f...king bomb on my head?

66. I am laughably aggressive, and the rest of the band is very laid back, so we mix well.



67. I have a temper on me that could hold back tides.

68. I feel the same way I did when I was in school. I'm having the same insecurities.




69. I think it's a great thing to have failed in life and then pulled yourself up by the boot straps and actually done something, because then you appreciate it more.


70. What makes a woman stylish is what she has to say and how she chooses to live her life.

71. The sensation of never feeling good enough or pretty enough will always be there. It's a constant dialogue, and you just learn to be more powerful than that other voice. When you hear it come up, you shut it down.

72. I remember playing the wicked witch in "The Wizard of Oz" when I was in school - my hair was straightened and I had black eye makeup on - and I remember that it was the first time I ever looked in the mirror and felt beautiful. The black eye makeup has stayed with me ever since!

73. I want a man who will let me pee in his belly button. i want a man to accept the beast in me.

74. No one tells me how to look. I wear clothes suited to what I'm doing.

75. Mozart was a punk, which people seem to forget. He was a naughty, naughty boy.

76. I've got no timetable. I'm sort of sick of timetables, to be honest.

77. It's definitely an intrinsic part of my makeup that makes me want to see black when everyone else is seeing white.

78. My grandmother - she single-handedly raised a family and went to college at a time when women just didn't do that.

79. Possibly because I grew up not feeling very confident about my own physical appearance, I developed internal devices so that I could integrate into society.

80. Starbucks is my main fix and it's usually you people working in there - sometimes they're actually shaking. It just makes me feel horrendous because I've been in that situation.





81. We're living in a time when people are struggling to appear perfect.


82. You have to watch all sides of your advancement, you have to make sure people's bodies and minds are healthy and their morale is cool before you can really go out and play great music.

83. In the '90s, the radio was still alive with all different kinds of points of view, and I think that's why people are longing for that time. It was the first time that alternative music broke through to the mainstream.

84. I am a contradictory mess but I see it as my prerogative to change my mood like the weather.

85. If you have any opinions at all or if you're even remotely verbal then they're going to call you fiery.

86. Humans all want to beat the clock but nobody ever does.

87. We're very aware of how treacherous the music industry is, particularly nowadays. The industry doesn't want to encourage fan loyalty over the long term, they just want a quick hit.

88. No, I like being a role model because I know how much comfort my musical idols brought me.

89. We're nothing like Curve...When a band is young and it hasn't made its own mark, then people will compare you to others. Always.

90. I'm fairly in control and I don't like to flirt particularly. I mean, obviously if I meet someone who I think is hot, of course I'll want to flirt with him, but in general I don't use it in day-to-day life.

91. It's unhealthy for people to never express any kind of negativity or doubt. To have balance, you need to address that side of your thoughts as well as the positive. Otherwise, you tend toward crazy.



92. I would say I'm pretty well at ease with my sexuality, but I'm an individual before I am a female.

93. I'm afraid of happy people. They're chemically unbalanced.


94. I have never had and probably will never have male groupies, because I think they know that I would eat them for breakfast.

95. The truth is, I've always been wracked with self-loathing and terrible, paralyzing depression.

96. I couldn't feel good about myself hanging out in Armani clothes when my girlfriend can't even pay her heating bill. I'd feel foul and I'd be embarrassed.






97. I love pop music. Who doesn't?


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