Amanda Palmer Quotes & Sayings

Art is food for the soul, and an artistic climate is a healthy climate because it breeds empathy. — Amanda Palmer

Throughout my career, the fanbase has been like one big significant other to me, a thousand-headed friend with whom I have a real, committed partnership. I — Amanda Palmer

This is how a creative human works. Collecting, connecting, sharing. — Amanda Palmer

If you love people enough, they will give you everything. — Amanda Palmer

There's really no honor in proving that you can carry the entire load on your own shoulders. And ... it's lonely — Amanda Palmer

For real? I dropped my cell phone in a puddle this morning, couldn't find my keys, can't hold down a relationship, and here I am clutching a sharp knife about to cut someone's head open. And they could die. Who is letting me do this? This is BULLSHIT. — Amanda Palmer

I hate being ignored. — Amanda Palmer

What I have found is, so much of that is like a Chinese finger trap: the more you play to the dark, the more you will get trapped in the dark, and if you just play to the light and focus on the people that don't misunderstand you and focus on the audience that does celebrate you and focus on the people who aren't trying to tear you down, all that other stuff eventually erases itself because it has nothing to feed on. — Amanda Palmer

We all got used to living in the cloud of unknowing. — Amanda Palmer

I want to live in a world where Miley (or any female musician) can twerk wildly at 20, wear a full-cover floral hippie mumu at 37, show up at 47 in see-through latex, and pose semi-naked, like Keith & co, on the cover of Rolling Stone at 57 and be APPLAUDED for being so comfortable with her body. — Amanda Palmer

Maybe we should stop asking how do we get people to pay for music, and start asking how do we let them pay for music? from Ted Talk — Amanda Palmer

We've been watching you, and we have evidence that you have NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE DOING. You — Amanda Palmer

If you want the world to pay for projects, you have to be able to display why you're worthy. — Amanda Palmer

The field of asking is fundamentally improvisational. It thrives not in the creation of rules and etiquette but in the smashing of that etiquette.
Which is to say: there are no rules.
Or, rather, there are plenty of rules, but they ask, on bended knees, to be broken. — Amanda Palmer

When we really see each other, we want to help each other. — Amanda Palmer

Asking for help with shame says:
You have the power over me.
Asking with condescension says:
I have the power over you.
But asking for help with gratitude says:
We have the power to help each other. — Amanda Palmer

I'd actually say that every musician is a human being, and that not everybody likes being social. But with music, there are all these ingredients to the business that have nothing to do with writing songs or playing an instrument. — Amanda Palmer

I don't feel at home in New Orleans. I don't feel at home in Austin or L.A. And I just felt immediately at home in northern Australia. — Amanda Palmer

Twitter fascinates me because it's real. It feels kind of unreal, but it makes very real things happen. — Amanda Palmer

Here's the thing: all of us come from some place of wanting to be seen, understood, accepted, connected. Every single one of us wants to be believed. Artists are often just ... louder about it. — Amanda Palmer

When artists work well, they connect people to themselves, and they stitch people to one another, through this shared experience of discovering a connection that wasn't visible before. Have you ever noticed that this looks like this? And with the same delight that we took as children in seeing a face in a cloud, grown-up artists draw the lines between the bigger dots of grown-up life: sex, love, vanity, violence, illness, death. — Amanda Palmer

You are not to blame,
The world's a viscous place,
So go on and think how you want,
You will not be alone in your thoughts,
Well you will but you won't in a way,
Cause a girl thought it too in a book that the library bought — Amanda Palmer

Nothing is crueller than children who come from good homes. — Amanda Palmer

Those who ask without fear learn to say two things, with or without words, to those they are facing: I deserve to ask and You are welcome to say no. Because the ask that is conditional cannot be a gift. — Amanda Palmer

Life as it should be: all friends, all art, all music, all love, all the time. — Amanda Palmer

I never wanted to grow a thicker skin; I felt a real sense of pride in my thin skin, and in a weird way, I still do, because it's my thin skin that allows me to empathize with other people. It's the thing that allows me to create vulnerable art. It's the thing that allows me to create other feelings and make songs that actually grab people and touch people. I feel like I've spent my life fighting that thicker skin because I don't want to become an embittered asshole. — Amanda Palmer

A farmer is sitting on his porch in a chair, hanging out.
A friend walks up to the porch to say hello, and hears an awful yelping, squealing sound coming from inside the house.
"What's that terrifyin' sound?" asks the friend.
"It's my dog," said the farmer. "He's sittin' on a nail."
"Why doesn't he just sit up and get off it?" asks the friend.
The farmer deliberates on this and replies:
"Doesn't hurt enough yet. — Amanda Palmer

The perfect tools aren't going to help us if we can't face each other and give and receive fearlessly, but more important, to ask without shame. — Amanda Palmer

Just take the fucking donuts. — Amanda Palmer

That night changed my life: I was finally experiencing, in person, the songs that had been the soundtrack of my life for the past few years, the lyric-images I'd memorized after hours of headphone-listening on walks to school, the words that had been direct-deposited into my heart though the channel of my ears
I was hearing them here, now, in a moment that would never exist again. — Amanda Palmer

Neil Gaiman swooped into my life though another friend, Jason Webley, who knew we were fans of each other's work and introduced us via email. Neil and I, like me and Ben, just hit it off instantly. — Amanda Palmer

Sometimes it was like Neil was from an alien planet, where people never asked for or shared anything emotional without deeply apologizing first. He assured me that he was simply British. And that we Americans, with all of our loud oversharing and need for random hugs and free admissions to people we've just met of deep, traumatic childhood wounds looks just as alien to them. — Amanda Palmer

The Fraud Police are the imaginary, terrifying force of 'real' grown-ups who you believe - at some subconscious level - are going to come knocking on your door in the middle of the night, saying:
We've been watching you, and we have evidence that you have NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE DOING. You stand accused of the crime of completely winging it, you are guilty of making shit up as you go along, you do not actually deserve your job, we are taking everything away and we are TELLING EVERYBODY. — Amanda Palmer

The world needs actual excitement and emotion more than it needs cool people. — Amanda Palmer

Before I saw your talk, I always thought of street performers as beggars. — Amanda Palmer

You can't ever give people what they want. But you can give them something else. You can give them empathy. You can give them understanding. And that's a lot, and enough to give. — Amanda Palmer

In some way, my fundamental feeling about music is that it's impossible to put a price tag on it. Human beings made music before they made a lot of other things, including tools. — Amanda Palmer

From what I've seen, it isn't so much the act of asking that paralyzes us
it's what lies beneath: the fear of being vulnerable, the fear of rejection, the fear of looking needy or weak. The fear of being seen as a burdensome member of the community instead of a productive one.
It points, fundamentally, to our separation from one another. — Amanda Palmer

They all told me I had a fear of intimacy, but I vehemently disagreed; I craved intimacy like a crack addict.
The problem was that I craved intimacy to the same burning degree that I detested commitment.
Being a statue was such a perfect job. — Amanda Palmer

I was just a very dark kid. My family was complicated. — Amanda Palmer

I maintain couchsurfing and crowdsurfing are basically the same thing - you're falling into the audience and you're trusting each other. — Amanda Palmer

Nobody ever sees me. Thank you. — Amanda Palmer

It's not easy to ask ... asking makes you vulnerable. — Amanda Palmer

I get so many ideas for songs, but I'm so seldom disciplined enough to sit down and crank them out. — Amanda Palmer

American culture in particular has instilled in us the bizarre notion that to ask for help amounts to an admission of failure. But some of the most powerful, successful, admired people in the world seem, to me, to have something in common: they ask constantly, creatively, compassionately, and gracefully. And to be sure: when you ask, there's always the possibility of a no on the other side of the request. If we don't allow for that no, we're not actually asking, we're either begging or demanding. But it is the fear of the no that keeps so many of our mouths sewn tightly shut. — Amanda Palmer

When you connect with people, they want to help you. — Amanda Palmer

I see everybody arguing about what the value of music should be instead of what I think the bigger conversation is, which is that music has value, it's subjective and we're moving to a new era where the audience is taking more responsibility for supporting artists at whatever level. — Amanda Palmer

There's nothing more threatening than a powerful woman, and there's nothing more threatening to the current order of things than women powerfully owning their own narrative. It's so threatening to people, to women as well, and it's threatening the order of things. — Amanda Palmer

I suffer mornings most of all
I feel so powerless and small
By ten o'clock I'm back in bed
Fighting the jury in my head — Amanda Palmer

When we ask for anything, we're almost always asking for help, in some form; help with money, permission, acceptance, advancement, help with our hearts ...
Brene Brown has found through her research that women tend to feel shame around the idea of being 'never enough' ... at home, at work, in bed, never pretty enough, never smart enough, never thin enough, never good enough ...
Men tend to feel shame around the fear of being perceived as weak, or more academically, 'fear of being called a pussy'.
Both sexes get trapped in the same box for different reasons.
If I ask for help ...
I am not enough.
If I ask for help ...
I'm weak.
It's no wonder so many of us don't bother to ask, it's too painful. — Amanda Palmer

I think one of the greatest gifts you can give to someone is just access to the possibility of freedom that you don't have to be totally depressed and enslaved by your own environment. — Amanda Palmer

The challenge in my life really is keeping the balance between feeling creatively energized and fulfilled without feeling overwhelmed and like I'm in the middle of a battlefield. — Amanda Palmer

Certain art hungers for context. — Amanda Palmer

I think to say that meditation is helpful to artists is true and it's great, but it's also essentially helpful to any kind of process of, just, life. — Amanda Palmer

I think a good role model has to be sexy. Real, empowered, self-possessed women are sexy. When you're really in control of your choices, your mood, your body, and your opinions, people find you sexy. — Amanda Palmer

Bands like Nirvana had theatrical sensibilities, playing with image, challenging assumptions people were making about them, the apex being Kurt Cobain in a dress to make a point. — Amanda Palmer

Take on the pain and wear it as a shirt. — Amanda Palmer

I'm a massive fan of David Lynch and 'Twin Peaks.' — Amanda Palmer

The stage show is, in some sense, highly theatrical. It's definitely not just a band in jeans playing rock and roll. — Amanda Palmer

Make me famous, okay? he said, brightly. Maybe I'll finally get some free coffee around here. — Amanda Palmer

I hate it when people don't spend the night. — Amanda Palmer

In both the art and the business worlds, the difference between the amateurs and the professionals is simple: The professionals know they're winging it. The amateurs pretend they're not. — Amanda Palmer

It's really easy to love passing strangers unconditionally. They demand nothing of you. It is really hard to love people unconditionally when they can hurt you. — Amanda Palmer

You get the feeling that on a lot of days the audience for most music would kind of rather not be faced with the artist, especially because we've been educated to think that the artist are these special creatures are otherwordly and aren't like us. — Amanda Palmer

Quit the bitching on your blog
And stop pretending art is hard.
Just limit yourself to three chords
And do not practice daily.
You'll minimize some stranger's sadness
With a piece of wood and plastic.
Holy fuck it's so fantastic,
Playing ukulele. — Amanda Palmer

We are human and our nature is to air. — Amanda Palmer

Our first job in life is to recognize the gifts we've already got, take the donuts that show up while we cultivate and use those gifts, and then turn around and share those gifts - sometimes in the form of money, sometimes time, sometimes love - back into the puzzle of the world. Our second job is to accept where we are in the puzzle at each moment. — Amanda Palmer

I crave intimacy to the same burning degree that I detest commitment. — Amanda Palmer

Your songs are good, Amanda. And I'm not just saying that. I stared at him in disbelief. I get given a lot of music, he continued. It's like that on the road, you know, we get handed mountains of demo tapes every night. And they're, you know, not always good. Your songs are good. I don't know what your plans are. But I hope you keep going. I just wanted to say that. — Amanda Palmer

When you accept somebody's offer for help, whether it's in the form of food, crash space, money, or love, you have to trust the help offered. You can't accept things halfway and walk through the door with your guard up. When you openly, radically trust people, they not only take care of you, they become your allies, your family. Sometimes people will prove themselves untrustworthy. When that happens, the correct response is not: Fuck! I knew I couldn't trust anybody! The correct response is: Some people just suck. Moving right along. — Amanda Palmer

i know which side of the train i was on today. — Amanda Palmer

I had a real come-to-Jesus a couple of years ago when I started to see the direct line between feminism and everything else - feminism and climate change, feminism and poverty, feminism and hunger - and it was almost like I was born again and started walking down the street and was like, "Oh, my God, there are women everywhere! They're just everywhere you look. There's women all over the place!" — Amanda Palmer

I wanted to feel like I could extend someone else's joy and not crush it, and that is the giant paradox nowadays of being a powerful woman: you want to live in a space of compassion and helpfulness and joy and expression, and the world is standing there, pointing the finger at you and telling you that you're greedy and domineering and attention-grabbing, and all you can do is shrug and just say, "Hopefully, someone out there understands and isn't misinterpreting." — Amanda Palmer

While we're over here blocked up in our departments and locked up in our own judgments and dealing with our own crazy problems, they're over there dealing with equivalent problems. One of the things that I am so frightened by lately is that men are having just as difficult a time striking a balance as we are. — Amanda Palmer

The key is to just focus on the spots where the love is real, because you can just drive yourself crazy focusing on the negativity, focusing on the relationships that are irreparable and just aren't going to work, trying to convince the haters that you are indeed lovable. So much of that is wasted energy. — Amanda Palmer

There's a difference between wanting to be looked at and wanting to be seen.
When you are looked at, your eyes can be closed. You suck energy, you steal the spotlight. When you are seen, your eyes must be open, and you are seeing and recognizing your witness. You accept energy and you generate energy. You create light.
One is exhibitionism, the other is connection.
Not everybody wants to be looked at.
Everybody wants to be seen. — Amanda Palmer

Given the opportunity, some small consistent portion of the population will happily pay for art. — Amanda Palmer

WHO'S GOT A TAMPON? I JUST GOT MY PERIOD, I will announce loudly to nobody in particular in a women's bathroom in a San Francisco restaurant, or to a co-ed dressing room of a music festival in Prague, or to the unsuspecting gatherers in a kitchen at a party in Sydney, Munich, or Cincinnati. Invariably, across the world, I have seen and heard the rustling of female hands through backpacks and purses, until the triumphant moment when a stranger fishes one out with a kind smile. No money is ever exchanged. The unspoken universal understanding is: Today, it is my turn to take the tampon. Tomorrow, it shall be yours. There is a constant, karmic tampon circle. It also exists, I've found, with Kleenex, cigarettes, and ballpoint pens. — Amanda Palmer

We were far more interested in serving our slowly growing, tight-knit community of weirdos than we were in topping the charts. — Amanda Palmer

There was a dance that everyone was doing that was heavily skewed with the power in one direction, but the dance was basically working, and then the dance got really disrupted with the first wave of feminism, and nobody found their footing yet - not the guys, not the women. — Amanda Palmer

Those who can ask without shame are viewing themselves in collaboration with - rather than in competition with - the world. — Amanda Palmer

Everybody out there is winging it to some degree, of this we can be pretty sure. — Amanda Palmer

People had this idea about becoming rock stars packing stadiums instead of having the goal of becoming what musicians used to be in terms of how they would perform and connect people. — Amanda Palmer

It's hard to work on an assembly line of broken hearts Not supposed to fix them, only strip and sell the parts — Amanda Palmer

This impulse to connect the dots - and to share what you've connected - is the urge that makes you an artist. If — Amanda Palmer

We pissed each other off, royally and frequently in those early days. But we were getting better, bit by bit. I stopped thinking he was going to cage me and he stopped thinking I was trying flee. The poetry was not lost on us. He had abandonment issues and I had commitment issues. Go figure. Also, the sex which had been fumbling and awkward at the beginning of the relationship got really hot, we figured that was a promising sign general relationship progress.
Mostly though we realized it was about leaving the doors and windows of the relationship wide open. That way he could see in, and I could see out. — Amanda Palmer

I suppose I'm happy to sell my time and energy, but I'm not happy to sell my initial creative time. — Amanda Palmer

I knew what I needed, but asking for specific emotional things felt impossible and obnoxious. He was a human being. He should just instinctively know how to take care of an emotionally exhausted, sick, post-abortion wife. He ought to just know, I thought. I shouldn't have to fucking ask. — Amanda Palmer

On many days, harder than the act of making the art itself is the act of sharing it and living in a culture that you know is built to tear you down. — Amanda Palmer

People can understand a price tag no matter what it's stuck on. But they couldn't understand the messier exchange of asking and giving: the gift that stays in motion. — Amanda Palmer

Eat the pain. Send it back into the void as love. — Amanda Palmer

If you stuck me in a room and gave me art-making tools but told me no one would ever see the results, I don't think I'd have much desire to make art. What I do comes from a deep desire to be seen and to see others. — Amanda Palmer

My blog readership grew steadily as I started to dump more of my inner self onto the page. I — Amanda Palmer

For most of human history, musicians, artists, they've been part of the community - connectors and openers, not untouchable stars. — Amanda Palmer

I have used Twitter for so many things, from places to stay, places to go, things to do, things I need, medical advice, you name it. Especially when I'm on tour, it really feels like I'm being taken care of by half a million people. It is like having a mom. — Amanda Palmer

I think you can't have this discussion and you can't have a discussion about feminism and the consciousness of the world without having a discussion about what has happened to men lately. They're holding the other side of the bag. — Amanda Palmer

If you're willing to take risks, Twitter is a vast amusement park of interesting life possibilities. — Amanda Palmer

I've been in a recording studio enough times to know that it is not the best place to multitask. Doing a couple of takes of a song and running out to check your email to talk to someone about video production really is not good. — Amanda Palmer

There's no blueprint; getting married doesn't make you boring, having kids doesn't make you boring, having money doesn't necessarily have to make you boring. — Amanda Palmer

The perception that vulnerability is weakness is the most widely accepted myth about vulnerability and the most dangerous. When we spend our lives pushing away and protecting ourselves from feeling vulnerable or from being perceived as too emotional, we feel contempt when others are less capable or willing to mask feelings, suck it up, and soldier on. We've come to the point where, rather than respecting and appreciating the courage and daring behind vulnerability, we let our fear and discomfort become judgment and criticism. — Amanda Palmer