Amanda Palmer Quotes

I think writers write for their consciences, they write for their own true audiences, for their souls.

I feel a kind of permission and freedom in my work that I might not allow myself in my real life.

There is no longer any pressure to play the heroine. So I can have fun and be the actor I want to be. I can look beyond the hairstyles and the clothes and concentrate on the acting.

I feel like I've just got to be me and let my play speak for itself.

I always wanted everyone to love me, probably because I didn't love myself enough. But now I realize that when you're an artist, you're making the music that's in your head and in your heart, and not for any other reason.

It was through poetry I learned just to appreciate my own voice and to not think of my voice in terms of what it needs to be able to do, but what it can do.

No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge

Shameless actually good since it gives a kind of freedom. We consider the old, functionless shame destructive. Today, if you have a strong sense of shame you also have a strong desire to overcome it. And that's when you can write.

I'm going to write a book someday and the title will be I'm an Ass, You're an Ass. That's the most liberating, wonderful thing in the world, when you openly admit you're an ass. It's wonderful. When people tell me, You're wrong I say, What can you expect of an ass?

You must write for yourself, above all. That is your only hope of creating something beautiful.

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.

There are people who have never studied writing who are capable of being writers. I know this because I am an example. I was a part-time registered nurse, a wife, and a mother when I began publishing. I'd taken no classes, had no experience, no knowledge of the publishing world, no agent, no contacts ... Take the risk to let all that is in you, out. Escape into the open.

Everyone always comes to one point in their life as an artist where you can either let your heart guide you or your ego.

I had a lot of conversations with my family, my close friends, with my pastor, with God, and kind of came to a revelation that maybe I should be honest with myself about who I am and let that person - this woman who has lived inside me for my entire life - finally have an opportunity to live.

To be at acting school, it was kind of the first time you felt the freedom to be as much of yourself as you wanted. People weren't going to judge you.

I'm happy being myself, which I've never been before. I always hid in other people, or tried to find myself through the characters, or live out their lives, but I didn't have those things in mine.

I don't think of myself as Scottish or lesbian when I sit down and write. I am glad I have broken out of that limited audience.

When I stopped hiding who I am, I started writing hits.

Be yourself, let you come through.

We are never doing anyone any favors by withholding our gifts from the world. It's scary to be fierce, but you can't compromise that for fear of losing those around you.

As far as writing, it's grown because I've really grown comfortable with who I am.

I write what I'm interested in.

On the first album I was saying, that's just one part of me. And then I was thinking, well, am I going to hide the rest of me now just because I'm afraid of something? No. I'm just going to be myself.

There have been times when I'm writing about things that are personally embarrassing. Like any human being, sometimes I can't help but wonder - 'What are the people I know going to think about this?' So I have to remind myself that all is permissible. Art has to be a free space. Language has to be a free space.

I like to write when I feel I'm the real me.