Alanis Morissette Quotes

People think my work is therapeutic. I don't see it that way. It's not like I'm saving money from a weekly therapy visit by writing down my life.

I love sharing my story. It's endlessly healing.

I didn't realize when I first started writing how much it would set me free from certain situations in my life. It's incredible.

For me, doing an interview with someone is like having therapy.

I always find out after the fact that the books I've been writing were actually some sort of therapy, some sort of, you know, self-examination that I had to write the book in order to complete.

[Shwing] the really naked stuff I've dealt with in my own life, my own therapy and relationships - for me it just feels like a film I'm really proud of.

For many years, I shut down that place inside myself that needed to rage, cry, ask questions and basically just express herself. I made a conscious choice when I put (the song) 'Me and a Gun' on the record not to stay a victim anymore.

To get the stuff out of you, especially if what you're dealing with is yourself, requires you to open up and touch tender spots. You have to be anesthetized a little bit.

It is painful to relive things that have caused emotional crises or whatever and find ways to express that musically.

I don't see it as a form of healing, because if you have wounds that are bleeding I don't think acting will ever get them to stop. But I find acting is a form of illumination.

To give and receive love, you have to be in touch with pain, you have to be capable of provoking it and feeling it.

I internalize everything, keep everything inside. I'm not used to spilling my guts, and when you have to do that on film to make a point, it's hard. It's rough. I don't think it's as easy as people think.

For people like me, who have blocked out a chunk of their past, you wonder - if you open that door, if you walk into that room of your memories, what will happen? Will it destroy you or will it make you stronger?

I'm shy, and I can hide behind my acting and discover the truth about myself because it's cathartic in that way. But I tend not to read reviews.

Being so honest in my writing is cathartic.

I don't know where the idea originated that memoir writing is cathartic. For me, it's always felt like playing my own neurosurgeon, sans anesthesia.

It was very hard for me to put my life on paper. It was a very intimate process, very psychological, but at the same time liberating. It was like cleaning the closet, like cleaning the house... It was very refreshing.

I've made a lot of mistakes in my life. And I'm really sensitive, so I take even small mistakes as huge ones.

I think writing really helps you heal yourself. I think if you write long enough, you will be a healthy person. That is, if you write what you need to write, as opposed to what will make money, or what will make fame.

I would say my whole first record, 'Steady On,' had a lot to do with healing.

I feel like my music at least allows me to release the other side of me, a more vulnerable and sensitive side.

For better and for worse, I feel like sorrow and grief are really transformative personal experiences for me, and I question what I would be had I decided to take a different path and not embrace that kind of pain.

Writing is a type of therapy for me. I'm always trying to break down what happened, and why I felt a certain way.

It's like I'm thin skinned, I guess, but I thought I could never write about my youth for the longest time. It took getting to my forties before I could even look back on it.

I remember the first time I ever showed my parents a song that I had written. The content may have been a little darker than they were used to, or really introspective in a way that may have been uncomfortable. I thought they'd retaliate with some kind of judgment or concern about whether I was feeling all right, but they were proud of it.