Carrie Brownstein Quotes & Sayings

I'm kind of a hermit - it's almost easier for me to write about connection than to actually connect. — Carrie Brownstein

My favorite kind of musical experience is to feel afterward that your heart is filled up and transformed, like it is pumping a whole new kind of blood into your veins. This is what it is to be a fan: curious, open, desiring for connection, to feel like art has chosen you, claimed you as its witness. — Carrie Brownstein

I've realized that I have a lot of different loves, and I want to pursue writing, but I can never divorce myself from music. — Carrie Brownstein

I think hypochondria always plays a part in the healthcare landscape. — Carrie Brownstein

Here I was in a group of women, allies, I thought, colleagues, and I felt like I was being shamed for the relatively modest success I had achieved. But Instead of sticking up for myself, I apologized. — Carrie Brownstein

I could turn up the volume on their songs and that loudness matched all my panic and fear, anger and emotions that seemed up until that point to be uncontrollable, even amorphous. — Carrie Brownstein

Eventually, I started to cringe at the elitism that was often paired with punk and the like. A movement that professed inclusiveness seemed to actually be highly exclusive, as alienating and ungraspable as many of the clubs and institutions that drove us to the fringes in the first place. One set of rules had simply been replaced by new ones, and they were just as difficult to follow. — Carrie Brownstein

We were never trying to deny our femaleness. Instead, we wanted to expand the notion of what it means to be female. The notion of "female" should be so sprawling and complex that it becomes divorced from gender itself. We were considered a female band before we became merely a band; I was a female guitarist and Janet was a female drummer for years before we were simply considered a guitarist and a drummer. I think Sleater-Kinney wanted the privilege of starting from neutral ground, not from a perceived deficit or a linguistic limitation. Anything that isn't traditional for women apparently requires that we remind people what an anomaly it is, even when it becomes less and less of an anomaly. — Carrie Brownstein

Anything that isn't traditional for women apparently requires that we remind people what an anomaly it is, even when it becomes less and less of an anomaly. I — Carrie Brownstein

Art communities and music scenes want to pretend like they don't care, but they will also tell you louder and more frequently than anyone that they DON'T CARE. — Carrie Brownstein

I have no problem spending money on a great meal with friends or a flight to see somebody that I love, versus something like a fancy car. I don't need a fancy car. I don't need a giant TV. — Carrie Brownstein

But there are also much less dire reasons to have a manager, reasons that may have been useful to us but that we willfully ignored, or were just too stubborn or parsimonious to try. — Carrie Brownstein

I would love to do a reunion tour if it only involved basements across the U.S. — Carrie Brownstein

I feel like I came in comedy's side door, and still feel very fraudulent in many ways. — Carrie Brownstein

I wrote so much about fandom and participation for NPR that I eventually realized my most fertile way of participating in music is to actually play it, at least in a way that made the most sense to me. — Carrie Brownstein

You can never underestimate that moment of somebody explaining your life to you, something you thought was inexplicable, through music. That was the way out of loneliness. — Carrie Brownstein

I think one of the reasons I haven't been doing music is because I think that some of my performance, like, needs are being taken care of in other mediums. — Carrie Brownstein

It's very common to think that we're always evolving, that we've changed so much from our younger selves, that within decades we've transformed into these different people. We like to think that. I feel in some ways that I am still so much my younger self. There are ways that I'm different: I feel like I'm wiser and kinder. But I think a lot of the impulses are still the same. I learned that. — Carrie Brownstein

People are wearing fleece, which is a hard fabric to be angry in. — Carrie Brownstein

I never want to contribute to the corrosiveness of wanting someone to stay hidden. — Carrie Brownstein

To become a fan of something, to open and change, is a move of deliberate optimism, curiosity, and enthusiasm. — Carrie Brownstein

I think it's very disheartening and undermining to focus on nostalgia or youthful sentimentality as the lens through which you view art and culture, because then you feel like everything good already happened. I really just try to be in the present with music and just find the things that are invigorating and make me feel happy to be alive right now. — Carrie Brownstein

The notion of "female" should be so sprawling and complex that it becomes divorced from gender itself. — Carrie Brownstein

What I value most in new music is strangeness, oddity. Passion. And humor. I listen to a lot of hip-hop because it combines so many things like that. — Carrie Brownstein

Back then, I was still just a fan of music. And to be a fan of music also meant to be a fan of cities, of places. Regionalism - and the creative scenes therein - played an important role in the identification and contextualization of a sound or aesthetic. Music felt married to place, and the notion of "somewhere" predated the Internet's seeming invention of "everywhere" (which often ends up feeling like "nowhere") — Carrie Brownstein

Nothing is as nice as plugging in your guitar and turning up the volume really loud, just seeing what kind of beautiful noise you can make with it. — Carrie Brownstein

We would go out and play these songs and people could interpret them however the hell they wanted. — Carrie Brownstein

I think, for some artists, the fear of taking on a political identity stems from not wanting to be pigeonholed as political actor or a political musician. It becomes this thing where somehow your art can no longer exist on its own and be multifaceted. — Carrie Brownstein

I'm always trying to encourage people not to limit themselves in the same way that many of our parents stayed with one job forever. — Carrie Brownstein

I think in some ways, whether you've ever actually been to Portland, people definitely understand this highly curated niche lifestyle, because a lot of people are sort of striving for that now. Or they're hating on it. — Carrie Brownstein

There is a stillness about the past, a clarity, the way it had been somewhat defined and dissected, in the rearview mirror; it was there for the taking, for the mining. — Carrie Brownstein

Well, in some ways I had sort of the opposite experience of other people that are sort of dreaming of being in a rock band. I was dreaming of like corporate lunches and just like, and I'm not really joking. Like the whole idea to me was really appealing. — Carrie Brownstein

I am a horrible visual artist. I can't fix a car, sew, knit, cook, etc. Statistically, there is more I don't do than do. — Carrie Brownstein

I think grief is a step towards strength because it allows you to be porous and take everything in, and have it transform you. What will sit within you is despairing, but at least it's feeling. You're not numb. Grief is sort of the allowance of feeling. — Carrie Brownstein

After Sleater-Kinney broke up in 2006 I had very little desire to play music. It took well over three years before picking up a guitar meant anything to me other than an exercise. — Carrie Brownstein

I've mostly been focusing on writing, and I've really enjoyed not playing music. It will always be part of my life, but I don't feel the immediate need to be playing for people. — Carrie Brownstein

I was always drawn to performing. I took improv and acting classes during the summers and was involved in middle and high school plays. But when I discovered indie and punk music in high school, those things sort of took over. — Carrie Brownstein

Yet I felt it was unfair to be labeled when I had yet to find a label for myself, and when binary, fixed identities held no meaning or safety for me. — Carrie Brownstein

Plus, it seemed inconceivable to give someone money for a job we were capable of doing. — Carrie Brownstein

I like to take things incrementally, and strive for something that feels more attainable. — Carrie Brownstein

I think that half of us feel fraudulent in our lives anyway. There's that strange disconnect of not really knowing what we're doing sometimes, or why it matters. It's our existential crisis. — Carrie Brownstein

The fact that people go to Portland to visit a tiny feminist bookstore-no matter what the impetus is for them getting there-the fact that they go in there and look around and shop for books or stationery or whatever, is a major source of pride for me, — Carrie Brownstein

I was a sprinter - there were no long-term goals, — Carrie Brownstein

We felt there was a creeping tepidness in music, a cloying softness, as if music were only a salve, not an instigator. It's — Carrie Brownstein

To be a fan is to be curious, and to be curious is to have openness. Part of being a fan is to allow 360 degress of experience - to immerse without judgment. It's like a really fearless step forward into new experience. There's something that feels very timeless about fandom. — Carrie Brownstein

I'm pretty horrible at relationships and haven't been in many long-term ones. Leaving and moving on - returning to a familiar sense of self-reliance and autonomy - is what I know; that feeling is as comfortable and comforting as it might be for a different kind of person to stay. — Carrie Brownstein

I like how blogging emulates fandom because it's so completist and spontaneous. It really mirrors the way people listen to music, and I like that fluidity with online content. — Carrie Brownstein

I've learned to really enjoy video games. It's really toxic to have in your house, because it's really distracting. — Carrie Brownstein

If we measured our affection toward others by how many nicknames we bestow upon them, our pets would be the most loved. Here's the etymological journey for the nicknames I have for Tobey: Tobito, Toblerone. T-Bone. T-bonics. Ta-T. Ta-Tobes. Tubby, for when he's gotten into the trash and gorged himself. Nicknames with origins based on appearance: Bearded Yum Yum, Handsome McHandsome, Fuzzy Face. Then this strange progression: Pooch. Poochers. Poocharoo. Poochacho. Pachune. Then, somehow, Pooch turned into Mooch, and so there had to be Moocharo. Muchacho. Manu, and most recently Man-nu-nu. All these monikers I say in voices more commonly echoed from the confines of straightjackets and padded walls. Anyone we truly love should come with their own dictionary. — Carrie Brownstein

I'm really drawn to the uncompromising realness of natural process: It's unadorned. It's not very pretty. — Carrie Brownstein

It does feel great to be writing, but the process is sometimes excruciating. — Carrie Brownstein

There are foods you should avoid. For me, sugar is a no. Because it gives me a spike and then a crash. — Carrie Brownstein

It's so nice to have a band name you don't have to explain. — Carrie Brownstein

The hedonistic lifestyle is difficult to achieve when you're still carrying your own gear. Trust me that you don't feel glamorous with a 60-pound amp in your arms; it's a lot less sexy than toting a vodka gimlet and impossible to do in heels. — Carrie Brownstein

Practice. Learn and then unlearn - that's the trick in finding your own style of playing. You can't merely emulate, you have to innovate, or at the very least create your own path into the process. — Carrie Brownstein

I like to connect with people through my work. That's my favorite way - meetings of the minds, fans at a show. Those are nice mediated ways of hanging out. — Carrie Brownstein

Music has always been my constant, my salvation. It's cliche to write that, but it's true. — Carrie Brownstein

Wholeness is sort of a dubious concept. Because in terms of the human body and literal wholeness and structures, you think: "here are the structures that help make me whole." Family, or school, or the city I live in. When those structures are dysfunctional or decaying, you end up kind of Frankensteining pieces from everywhere in order to make yourself sated and comfortable and alive. — Carrie Brownstein

With music, I get to a much darker place. Where I'm able to go with 'Portlandia' has a wider range, but also a brighter range. — Carrie Brownstein

It's hard to beat the visceral high of playing live and creating something spontaneous. — Carrie Brownstein

For film and television, it's interesting how fans feel that their particular ways of manifesting their affections are the correct ones. It's not just about being a fan, it's about how you perform your fandom. That's always been interesting to me. — Carrie Brownstein

Despite my lack of sophistication or maturity, I was headstrong. My sense of possibility and certainty made me focused. I had blinders on. I was a sprinter--there were no long-term goals, I just knew I'd run as hard as I could in any situation. I'd learned that as an adolescent, to keep moving, to not be dragged down. The best word to describe it is "scrappy." I still feel that way today. Put me in a situation and I will find my way out of it or through it, I will hustle and scramble. I hate losing. Only later do I think about how it looks from the outside, and then I get stuck in a cycle of shame or anxiety--but in the moment, I rare could see beyond it, I really could fight. I didn't think much about how it looked from the outside, or how I looked. — Carrie Brownstein

It was writing about music for NPR - connecting with music fans and experiencing a sense of community - that made me want to write songs again. I began to feel I was in my head too much about music, too analytical. — Carrie Brownstein

A certain kind of exhaustion sets in from having to constantly explain and justify one's existence or participation in an artistic or creative realm. What a privilege it must be to never have to answer the question "How does it feel to be a woman playing music?" or "Why did you choose to be in an all-female band?" The people who get there early have to work the hardest. — Carrie Brownstein

At nineteen, you can make out for hours, that goal-less, amorphous melting into someone else. — Carrie Brownstein

I'm all about being prudent. And I've started to appreciate experiences more than actual objects. — Carrie Brownstein

Rock Band is more like Stairmaster than it is like rock 'n' roll - it's the same steps with different degrees of difficulty. — Carrie Brownstein

The game Rock Band has been haunting me like a bad ring tone. It gets stuck in my head and momentarily effaces all that I love about music. — Carrie Brownstein

I love coffee. I love a midday espresso on set, just for the energy. — Carrie Brownstein

I read a lot; fiction and non-fiction are the mediums I find most edifying and inspiring. I watch movies and listen to music and take lots and lots of walks. Nature is a nice reset button for me, it's how I get a lot of thinking done. — Carrie Brownstein

The natural world operates by its own set of rules. The animal world, all the places that are feral and ungovernable, that's where I find a lot of inspiration. There is just as much beauty there, but there is also decay and violence. — Carrie Brownstein

I felt that first awareness that there's a whole set of species whose sounds and calls you've never heard - the wonder of realizing that people are growing up with an entirely different sensory experience from yours. This whole country seemed so shiny to me. — Carrie Brownstein

At that age I thought apartments were built specifically to house the single or the newly single, a divorce dormitory of sorts. — Carrie Brownstein

(Like a lot of middle-class kids, I needed my punk rock and rebellion underwritten by my parents.) — Carrie Brownstein

For a while I had somebody that came to clean my house that turned out to be in a band that I really loved. — Carrie Brownstein

The more comfortable you get, the more money you earn, the more successful you are, the harder it is to create situations where you have to prove yourself and make yourself not just want it, but need it. The stakes should always feel high. Stephen — Carrie Brownstein

To me, the grotesque is like a sonic manifestation of reality. I don't know how you could look out onto our world and see only beauty. And I like beautiful things. I like the aesthetically harmonious. But I am much more attracted to something that is off-kilter. It is a truer reflection of not only nature, but the human spirit - the state of the world. I just think everything feels a little off. — Carrie Brownstein

I'm interested in the crevices, and the grotesque, and the unsavory. That started out when I was young. I've never quite been able to shake that. — Carrie Brownstein

I need a template of a template — Carrie Brownstein

Entitlement is a precarious place from which to create or perform - it projects the idea that you have nothing to prove, nothing to claim, nothing to show but self-satisfaction, a smug boredom. It breeds ambivalence. It's as if instead of having to prove they are something, these musicians prove they aren't anything. It's an inverted dynamic, one that sets performers up to fail, but also gives them a false sense of having already arrived. I don't understand how someone would not push, challenge, or at least be present, how anyone could get onstage and not give everything. — Carrie Brownstein

We want our parents to be the norm from which we deviate. — Carrie Brownstein

It was about having a box in the attic or basement or attic or garage, something we could return to over and over again, something that said, this is us, this is where we were last year, and this is where we'll stay, and this is where we'll pile on the memories, over and over again, until there are so many memories that it's blinding, the brightness of family, the way love and nurturing is like a color you can't name because it's so new. — Carrie Brownstein

No matter what people are struggling with, or based on whatever. Sexuality, ethnicity, economic status, size. I don't wish smallness for anyone. It's a terrible place to live. — Carrie Brownstein

"We can't name it, but we can sing along." That is my ultimate relationship to any art form, but especially music. — Carrie Brownstein

Nostalgia is recall without the criticism of the present day, all the good parts, memory without the pain. Finally, nostalgia asks so little of us, just to be noticed and revisited; — Carrie Brownstein

I'll admit that I'm not quite certain how to sum up an entire year in music anymore; not when music has become so temporal, so specific and personal, as if we each have our own weather system and what we listen to is our individual forecast. — Carrie Brownstein

Living in Olympia, we had lost perspective on what a traditional group looked or sounded like; band configurations were abnormal, either multi-limbed or conspicuously amputated. — Carrie Brownstein

I was shut off from my body; I had barely thought about sexuality or longing. Up until this point, my sexual experiences had felt business like or even transactional...I hadn't been suppressing urges or denying my needs. I didn't feel like I had any, not corporeal ones. My journal entries from that time speak to depression and feelings of isolation, fears that a friend would leave, a sense that I had been responsible for my mother's departure and would therefore cause anyone I loved or needed to leave. I was still spending most of my time in my head. I was removed from my own feelings. — Carrie Brownstein

I have to erase my Google search histories, because they always lead to an obituary. — Carrie Brownstein

I got kind of tired of playing, I think. But I think it will be part of my life again, maybe. — Carrie Brownstein

Even then, I could still appreciate the moment of simply making sounds with a group of people. There is another place you go to in those instances, and it feels vast, refreshing, like you're creating your own air to breathe. And even though it's never going to happen again and there's a palpable sense of mediocrity, there's still a connection that you wouldn't have otherwise, to the sound, to the people. — Carrie Brownstein

It turns out I'm not very good at working with a traditional boss. — Carrie Brownstein

I really don't know what to do when my life is not chaotic. — Carrie Brownstein

My story starts with me as a fan. And to be a fan is to know that loving trumps being beloved. All the affection I poured into bands, into films, into actors and musicians, was about me and my friends. — Carrie Brownstein

I've always been interested in queerness and underground and fringe and periphery, and who and what flourishes in those spaces. Those spaces that are darker and dingier and more dangerous, more lonely. What comes out of there, to me, is the life force. I'm excited when the center reaches over to those places and pulls inspiration from them, and translates it for a lot of people. — Carrie Brownstein

I felt like no one was really looking out for me, that I was marginal and incidental. I compensated by being spongelike, impressionable, and available to whatever and whoever provided the most comfort, the most sense of belonging. I was learning two sets of skills simultaneously: adaptation - linguistic and aesthetic - in order to fit in, but also, how to survive on my own. — Carrie Brownstein

If you always want to look relevant, just be CGI-prepared. — Carrie Brownstein

It's hard to express how profound it is to have your experience broadcast back to you for the first time, how shocking it feels to be acknowledged, as if your own sense of realness had only existed before as a concept. — Carrie Brownstein

I've never understood people who play up the artifice of music. — Carrie Brownstein

To me, curiosity is married to optimism. And that's where a lot of my motivation comes from. A lot of my way out of depression and anxiety is that intersection between optimism and curiosity. Because it means taking a step forward with the hope that there will be discovery. — Carrie Brownstein