Jenny Zhang Quotes

When I'm singing, it's like I'm at home. And music is a great healer. I think I'd have been a basket case if I hadn't been a singer.

I'd go to swim practice, put my face in the water, and I didn't have to talk to anybody. Swimming was like my escape, but it was also like this huge prison because I felt like I had to swim up to people's standards.

We all need ways of processing things. I think I was called to music because it was this thing that was always there for me that I could pour my heart into safely.

Most artists - painters or writers - I think create out of stress or negative situations. Look at rock music. It's about getting things off of your chest, and it's a means of venting in many ways. That's what my work is about.

Being able to sing all these years has helped me handle life's tragedies.

I do become a recluse once in a while. It's so nice to just be at home and to not have to deal with the outside world.

I found music to be the therapy of choice. I guess it is for a lot of people.

When something irritates me, I don't go home and write; I just don't do that.

Music was my one way to vent.

Whenever people are faced with any sort of adversity... they tend to gravitate toward things that make them comfortable, and things that they feel are important.

I can get where some scientists would say comedians are crazy. What you have to understand: A lot of comedians are dealing with a dark passion. A lot of these are guys coming from a tumultuous life, including myself. Some people need outlets, a way to express yourself.

If I stopped writing and being at my piano, I wouldn't know how to live. It's your best friend.

What I like about singing is that, for me, it's a substitute for the psychiatrist's couch.

If I was sad or afraid, I would sit in a corner and sing. If I was happy I would jump into the middle of the room and sing. It was how I expressed my emotions.

Writing is a fine therapy for people who are perpetually scared of nameless threats... for jittery people.

Music has always been my protection against the world, from a very young age. I feel safe inside of a jam.

Music was a big outlet for me. Being able to play an instrument and sing was definitely a good way for me to escape things I was dealing with: family issues, growing up, being a kid and not knowing what I wanted to do with my life.

When you're home all the time, you don't have as much courage.

I was bullied; I was kind of a girl in the corner. So acting was a great outlet for me by pretending to be someone else.

I think that's why I put my energy into making music. That's how I get my thoughts out, instead of being crazy all the time.

Growing up in the '80s in central New Jersey as a weird kid with a blue mohawk listening to the Sex Pistols and dressing really funky, I was bullied pretty badly. It was every single day in elementary school and kept going into middle school, too. I felt totally alone, without a single person there for me.

Music helped me, growing up: it very much felt like a companion and made me less lonely.

If something's upsetting me, being able to go in and work on new music makes all the difference in the world.

Creativity, for a lot of young people, is a coping mechanism. It's the only place they feel comfortable. It's the only time they feel like they're being heard or can make a difference, is if they can go into a room and do a drawing or go to a garage and play a song or retreat to this world.

For me, wrestling was an escape. It was like a way out.