Sharon Van Etten Quotes

When I got to New York, I had no place to sleep. The pay from 'Sesame Street' wasn't enough to rent an apartment. I was staying on people's couches. I stayed in the dressing room until they found out. I stayed with Jim Henson and his family for a week, and I wanted to do that permanently. I didn't dare ask, though.

When I was living in New York and didn't have a penny to my name, I would walk around the streets and occasionally I would see an alcove or something. And I'd think, that'll be good, that'll be a good spot for me when I'm homeless.

I lived on couches for something like six months. I had no home. I was totally broke. I would stay at a friend's house for two weeks, then move because I didn't want to become this permanent mooch.

I've never seen anyone handling pans in the streets of New York, and if I did I doubt I'd give them money, unless I needed a pan. I do give money to homeless people, whether they ask or no.

There's something really great and romantic about being poor and sleeping on couches.

Eventually I did that, but it took a lot of twists and turns, and there were a year or two there where I was living with no money at all - no home, no car, no nothing. I was living in somebody's garage in Los Angeles at that point - for a year.

For me, I went from showering at the YMCA in L.A., eating chicken sandwiches and ramen noodles if lucky, and going from couch to couch. I'm a real story. I know the struggle.

I slept on a friend's kitchen floor for a year and a half.

When you're a musician, a lot of time people help you out; they take pity on you. Family members will kind of come around and are like, 'Listen, I bought you a bunch of groceries because I know that you're a screwup.'

Any free meal is a good meal, you know?

When I moved to New York, I was waiting tables, painting in the daytime and working at night, and I felt it was possible to find a balance and just about get by.

I had to figure out how to survive in New York, and most of my time was occupied in getting an apartment and getting money. A lot of older jazz guys looked out for me and found me gigs and places to stay.

I moved to New York when I was 15, but my parents lived nearby in Connecticut, so I could go be in this incredible countryside when I needed it.

We used to get one room and we'd park the vehicle outside, everybody would all take showers and we'd steal towels because we knew we wasn't gonna have enough towels for all five of us to shower.

People come up to me in bars and on street corners and they say to me, 'Hey, Paulsen, have you got any change?'

There were about two years when I literally paid no rent anywhere in the world. Everyone's a contact, but there's no real human interaction. That's a very wearying thing.

There are thousands on thousands in New York who have no assignable home.

Growing up in New York, we lived all around the city depending on our economic circumstance. I also lived in Puerto Rico for a number of years.

Everyone loved my father. He was so nice that people took advantage of him. We were lower middle class. I slept in the hallway on a cot that rolled away during the day, and my younger brother and sister slept in my parents' room. My goal as a kid was to someday have my own room and to own a car - and I wanted to be able to take care of my parents.

Oddly, moving to L.A. had nothing to do with me wanting to be an actress. My mother had a friend who was willing to take us in for a month until we could get on our feet. So we lived on her floor. It was pretty traumatic, but I found my strength through my mother in that time because she never once made us feel like we wouldn't be OK.

Things I didn't have in the past I try to give to kids. I know how it feels not to have things. We were poor, but we had enough food to eat. It was a big family, four kids, and it was not like you could just go and buy something. But we had the essentials, the food.

It's been a very strange trajectory because I struggled for so many years. I mean, I was doing these videos, I was doing these live shows, I had a lot of fans in New York, the press would write about me, but I couldn't get a paying job, and so my father and I were really like a team.

I grew up quite poor, and the Mormon church was always there for us as a family.

My main residence is Baltimore. I have an apartment in New York, one in San Francisco, and I live in a rental in Provincetown in the summer.

When I moved to New York, I was dead broke and lost my mind, and my girlfriend dumped me and was with some banker making money. I wandered by Jane Curtin's house, and she's like, 'Come in here, dear. I'll make you lunch. Tell me, what's going on in your life?'