Part of the charm of what I do is the fact that it's completely unrelated to everything that came before.

I would be humiliated if I found out that anything I did actually became a commercial success.

I used to think feminism was a liberating force - now I see many of those people are just censors under a different name.

Because we have so much eye candy and mind candy, spending so much time trying to pay the rent, all of this conspires to keep us from thinking too hard or taking action from that. Our time is stolen. So much of our daily life is stolen.

I am a humanist not a feminist. There's a big difference.

I'm a total pleasure seeker. I pursue anything that satisfies me. I usually get it. I have specific needs and I know what they are so I can achieve satisfaction.

'Musician' is not a very respected title. I'm not a musician.

I think my speeches are hilarious. I think I'm a natural comedian, but I like denying people the chance to laugh. I want to deny you the relief of the punchline.

Sure you're powerless, sure you're just one person, sure you can't change anything... but you don't have to be miserable about it as well.

If people could understand how much pleasure they could have by themselves, I think everyone would be a lot saner. I think that people really need a dose of quality time with one's self.

Just because my bank account hasn't swelled astronomically I don't consider myself any less of a success.

The female format is a beautiful one in which to function. Foolhardy as it may be. I change my image all the time, it's whatever suits me at the moment.

I'm nihilistic, antagonistic, violent, horrible - but not obliterated, yet. I just refuse to be beaten down. I think it's stubborness that keeps me going.

Think your own thoughts.

Part of the charm of what I do is the fact that it's completely unrelated to everything that came before.

I think it's important to encourage gluttony in all its formats.

I just prefer instrumental. I don't need to hear what other people are singing. And if I need music as a backdrop to work or to think, I need to have that part of the brain clear - I don't need people feeding their fantasies into my vision.

I'm completely optimistic - I know the end is coming!

I'm a very sympathetic person, but that doesn't always come across in my work because I'm too busy being mad at everything.

Aggressive female icons have been chronically demeaned... It's fine for male artists to be angry - they're encouraged to outwardly express their aggression - but women? I've been painted as an aggressive Feminazi because I'm blunt, stubborn, independent, forthright.

Honesty works against you in the entertainment field. I try to be a journalist and a documentarian, but that doesn't mean that people are going to embrace it at the moment. The point is I'm leaving the mark of my hysteria and the political hysteria, and that's it... I can only do what I do.

I believe happiness is a chemical imbalance - it's a silly thing to strife for. But satisfaction - if you seek satisfaction, you can succeed. Satisfaction is knowing that you're doing the best that you can do; you're living your life to the fullest.

I have to laugh because despite the destruction, we cannot let 'them' steal our pleasure. That is always the theme of my performances: I'm here to thrive, not just to survive.

If someone says 'grunge' or 'punk,' you know what the sound is, but if you say 'No Wave,' it's kind of mysterious. That was the most interesting part and should have been the most inspirational thing about it... here's this collective sonic insanity, and none of it sounds anything alike.

If what I write is literature, I guess you'd better emphasize the 'litter.'

Living in Barcelona, I have my own little ghetto utopia. There are 3,000 ghost towns in Spain, and I've used the images of them a lot in my backdrops for my solo spoken-word stuff. The ghost towns could be from two buildings to 40 - things died out, or there were plagues, the roads don't lead there, whatever.

The American way of life, as I see it, is really the American way of death. Everything is determined by greed and the insatiable desire to be the richest and most powerful. And that desire is limitless.

The biggest insult is that I've been called an exaggerator... I tell the truth as I know it. I don't glamorize the nightmare and horror that I witness; I just digest it and spew it back, with venom.

The problem with music was always that the sound system often obliterated the words, and words, not music, have always been what I was about.

To be in a band, at least according to the rules of rock in the 1970s, one must know how to play an instrument. But rather than waste time solving that problem, No Wavers ignored it. The point was simply to make music, not to learn how first.

Power without abuse loses its charm.

The name of Jesus, like a secret charm, awakened similar emotions in the hearts of all the converts, and called immediately into action every feeling of moral loveliness, and every desire of dutiful obedience, which constitute Christian purity.

Here is everything which can lay hold of the eye, ear and imagination - everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and ignorant. I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell.

The shows are either 11 or 22 minutes and they move pretty quickly, and that's part of the charm of them - so it was just trying to keep that in mind and keep the energy of the story moving, even though we were dealing with a longer format.

Charm, in most men and nearly all women, is a decoration.

There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.

You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer 'yes' without having asked any clear question.

I'm not sure I can explain the nature of Jack Kennedy's charm, but he took life just as it came.

Rhyme, that enslaved queen, that supreme charm of our poetry, that creator of our meter.

Charm is a glow within a woman that casts a most becoming light on others.

You will also allow me to thank the Academy for inviting me to lecture in Stockholm, for its hospitality, and for the opportunity afforded me for admiring the charm of your people and the beauty of your country.

Thus we hope to teach mythology not as a study, but as a relaxation from study; to give our work the charm of a story-book, yet by means of it to impart a knowledge of an important branch of education.

It's a very difficult thing losing a parent, but I think there's an added complication for me, because he was so well-loved and he had this very open charm that made people feel they had a personal relationship with him.

God gave us faculties for our use; each of them will receive its proper reward. Then do not let us try to charm them to sleep, but permit them to do their work until divinely called to something higher.

Alan Ginsberg was fabulous. The man is so filled with energy. He's 65 years old and he's just loaded with energy and charm and wit and his mind is constantly racing.

The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different.

An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit.

The rarest of all things in American life is charm. We spend billions every year manufacturing fake charm that goes under the heading of public relations. Without it, America would be grim indeed.

I then realized that I could never be satisfied again with the mere natural charm of my voice, that I had to constantly paint when singing, melting all the colors, expressing reds and blacks that had to be less primary but bursting with subtly colored combinations.