Marianne Faithfull Quotes

I left because I could no longer make records that sounded less and less like me. I tried to please people instead of believing in my own strength, until the only thing I could do was walk away.

If people want to know who I am, it is all in the work.

I was trying to find my way into the music business still, but I didn't want to portray something that I wasn't. I really wanted to be just me.

Love the art in yourself and not yourself in the art.

We are more than the work we perform. In fact, I'd say that our work is a mere representation of who we are underneath.

I don't like to use my last name. I don't like it attached to things because people think you can just stamp your name on something, and it's not organic or that you're just doing it for money.

Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.

But everything of value about me is in my books.

You're only famous in the eyes of others. Inside, you're still the same, and not a hundred million records or TV shows can change that. I think the only pitfall of fame is believing that it means something, and behaving like that.

You can't intellectually purge yourself of who you are. Whatever that is, it's going to come out in the wash, the film wash. What you are is going to be relevant, if not to yourself, to the movies you make.

My father's music was influential. My place is my place. I must be myself and who I am.

Fame is a weird one. You need to distance yourself from it. People see a value in you that you don't see yourself.

I want to speak up and tell you that mascara and clothes don't make you cool, neither do name-brand handbags, but being a leader can.

People want to be liked by other people, so they adopt other people's standards, but for me, my standard had always been true.

A man's own manner and character is what most becomes him.

I really admire people who concern themselves more with how they perceive the world rather than how the world perceives them. I think, as an artist, it's very important to do that. You can limit yourself a lot if you spend too much time caring about what people think of you.

I wanted to find a way to intelligently argue that we should be valuing our own skills and talents instead of valuing the number of people we can get to look at us.

I was born Chinese, and I write in Chinese. I don't think there's any need to evade this... to a writer, as to a person, what matters is not his political label or his nationality, but whether he is a person and whether his work is worth looking at.

I don't have to carry myself as anybody that I'm not, and people picked up on it.

My whole life is not defined by what Hollywood does.

My greatest offering is my concept. It isn't my face.

If I couldn't get to where I wanted to by being my organic self - which is a smart, funny, unapologetically black woman - then I felt like it's not worth doing it if I can't do it the most organic way possible. Which is why I left the music business.

I'm not what I make.

I'd be a liar if I said I didn't care what people think, but I would rather have less people who like or approve of me for who I really am than a bunch more people who like or approve me for what I'm not.

I wanted to be Jon Bon Jovi and Bono. But I'm not that cool. I don't need to be. I'm not a rock star. I am who I am.