Shirley Manson Quotes & Sayings

I just am fascinated by other female artists, probably because I feel a kinship with them, no matter who they are and what they do. — Shirley Manson

Selling millions of albums is a sign you've infiltrated the culture. — Shirley Manson

It's everywhere, constant criticism of women's appearance in magazines and online. It's not easy to navigate. — Shirley Manson

Until we command the exact same salary as every male counterpart, I feel a political desire to stand by other women. If we don't stand together, that equality will never be fully realized, and that bothers me. — Shirley Manson

I am not a sexy woman, I'm not beautiful, I'm not a sex kitten, I don't flirt with people, yet I've been tagged more of sex symbol than women who truly are and I that's solely because I don't reveal too much: people are curious. — Shirley Manson

I want to hear an alternative viewpoint, and I don't want girls to be defanged and declawed and pretty and mute. — Shirley Manson

And then there's all these other creeps that surround your band and suck off you like leeches and try to manipulate you and your business. You have to watch like a hawk. I'm always ready to fight. I see it very much as a battle. — Shirley Manson

A lot of celebrities just want money, fame, power, fancy cars, houses all over the world and have people bow down to them. To me, that's frightful behaviour. — Shirley Manson

I'm afraid of happy people. They're chemically unbalanced. — Shirley Manson

What makes a woman stylish is what she has to say and how she chooses to live her life. — Shirley Manson

I had taken some of my solo music into the record label. They didn't really care for the direction I was moving in and I found it really disheartening. They wanted a pop hit, which I understand in terms of making money. I get that. But what they were going to ask of me was something I wasn't prepared to deliver and I felt kind of trapped. I just stopped writing. I just stopped. It was stifling. — Shirley Manson

I know lots of people who've never been lucky enough to get to this stage in their life. And I'm not gonna hide it for anybody. — Shirley Manson

You have to watch all sides of your advancement, you have to make sure people's bodies and minds are healthy and their morale is cool before you can really go out and play great music. — Shirley Manson

I feel privileged, to be honest. — Shirley Manson

A lot of people these days are not music lovers - they just want to be famous which is a very different thing to what I grew up believing in. — Shirley Manson

It is so hard for musicians when they step into acting is they're not coming in as a blank slate, they're coming in with a real set idea of who they are, where they're coming from, what their politics are, what their tastes are. — Shirley Manson

How you present yourself is nobody's business but your own. The stylists have an opinion. The hair people have an opinion. The fans and the management have opinions. Ultimately, you have to trust that you are the safe-keeper of yourself. — Shirley Manson

People don't associate red hair, pale skin, and freckles with beauty. — Shirley Manson

Here's the tragedy of the modern record business: It's radio. If you're not on radio, nobody really is going to hear you or see you or care about you. — Shirley Manson

Possibly because I grew up not feeling very confident about my own physical appearance, I developed internal devices so that I could integrate into society. — Shirley Manson

No, I'm not Shirley the girl, I'm the woman on MTV with the big boots. — Shirley Manson

I wouldn't say that cutting was pleasurable, but there is a sense of euphoria that follows cutting yourself. The quick pinch of pain and the sight of blood snaps you back to the surface and you start to appreciate being alive. — Shirley Manson

I want to hear from the creature who isn't blessed with unbelievable good looks and incredible genes. I want to hear from the geek girl, the forgotten girl, the invisible girl and the miserable girl. — Shirley Manson

A lot of my friends are artists or musicians or single parent families and I'm totally aware of how difficult it is for them to make ends meet. — Shirley Manson

There's nothing I've done that I feel a lot of regret over because I stuck to my guns, even when it got uncomfortable - and it will get uncomfortable because you're going up against the wall. — Shirley Manson

It's a torturous time when you learn almost everything you really have to know about survival. The important thing to remember when you are living through it, however, is that you have absolutely no idea quite how smart and strong and beautiful the pain will make you. So go forth and suffer ... you'll rule the world. — Shirley Manson

I think a lot of people in their lives feel like they don't fit in, even if it looks like they do. People feel like outsiders even if others think we, the lives we live, have everything. If they are popular or they have everything they are supposed to have. Even then, people still don't feel quite included. — Shirley Manson

People in day-to-day life tend to skim the surface of things and be polite and careful, and that's not the language I speak. I like talking about feelings, fears and memories, anguish and joy, and I find it in music. — Shirley Manson

I refuse to step inside the ring and fight like a gladiator against my own. I'm not playing that game. Any woman who has survived a year or more of making music has my undying respect. — Shirley Manson

There's a stereotype of what we are all meant to find attractive and erotic, but I don't neatly fall into those categories. Satin lingerie, a heart-shaped tub, flowers and champagne don't turn me on. You shouldn't be scrubbed clean before you have sex. I hate boys who are frightened of pee and shit and menstrual blood. I say no to boys who want to wake up next to a fully made-up woman. I say no to boys who prefer stockings and garters to perfect nudity. Who wants a boy who won't kiss you when you've just been sick? I want a man who will let me pee in his belly button. I want a man to accept the beast in me. I don't want a man who thinks the woman of his dreams doesn't go to the toilet. One does, you know. — Shirley Manson

Everybody's trying to be the biggest, because if you're not the biggest, you don't survive. — Shirley Manson

I don't find any kind of tension very productive, I find it destructive, actually. — Shirley Manson

You don't really hear a female perspective on the radio, because so many of the songs are being written by men. — Shirley Manson

At the end of the day, though, the band members have to be strong. It's down to the individuals in the unit. Listen to me, I'm talking like I'm in the army and this is my squadron. — Shirley Manson

I am a contradictory mess but I see it as my prerogative to change my mood like the weather. — Shirley Manson

We're living in a time when people are struggling to appear perfect. — Shirley Manson

I think it's a great thing to have failed in life and then pulled yourself up by the boot straps and actually done something, because then you appreciate it more. — Shirley Manson

I'd never imagined myself in a band. So the fact that I've had such a long career without really naturally pursuing it is really astounding. It's taken me a long time to accept what I do for a living and actually feel like I have anything of value to add to the equation. — Shirley Manson

Being a musician makes you very - musicians in general tend to be quite sensitive, I think, to the environment around them, which helps when you are trying to interact with others on screen, to be aware, to be sensitive, and to try to understand what's going on in the scene. — Shirley Manson

I am laughably aggressive, and the rest of the band is very laid back, so we mix well. — Shirley Manson

Humans all want to beat the clock but nobody ever does. — Shirley Manson

I have women who offer to sleep with me all the time. But not men. They're all talk and nay action - as we'd say in Scotland. — Shirley Manson

I'm a loud person; I love noise and aggression. I crave contact. — Shirley Manson

It's definitely an intrinsic part of my makeup that makes me want to see black when everyone else is seeing white. — Shirley Manson

I wanted to put out a solo record because I was stuck on a major label and sick of it. — Shirley Manson

I couldn't feel good about myself hanging out in Armani clothes when my girlfriend can't even pay her heating bill. I'd feel foul and I'd be embarrassed. — Shirley Manson

I like the feeling that I'm giving young women self-confidence. It sounds so cliched, but it can be very moving. — Shirley Manson

One day I realized that it didn't matter whether people loved me or not. — Shirley Manson

I've got a lot of stamina and I enjoy people, so having lots of people around doesn't freak me out. — Shirley Manson

I would say I'm pretty well at ease with my sexuality, but I'm an individual before I am a female. — Shirley Manson

I feel the same way I did when I was in school. I'm having the same insecurities. — Shirley Manson

It's really difficult to navigate attention and stardom and celebrity status and still try to maintain yourself and hold onto your intelligence and integrity. It's really challenging. — Shirley Manson

I love pop music. Who doesn't? — Shirley Manson

Pop music seems to be the way radio programming has chosen to support female artists. They have chosen not to support a more provocative voice from women, which I find disappointing. — Shirley Manson

Somehow or another, my mother taught me to push through my fear, always. Feel the fear and do it anyway. — Shirley Manson

The truth is, I've always been wracked with self-loathing and terrible, paralysing depression. — Shirley Manson

I get female groupies, but I don't get male groupies. I have women who offer to sleep with me all the time. But not men. They're all talk and nay action
as we'd say in Scotland. If I go anywhere near most of our male following, they are freaked. Absolutely freaked. I think my height has got a lot to do with it. I'm really tall. I'm five-eight, and with heels, I'm six foot, so people are like. 'Whoa, Amazon!' People are a wee taken aback by that 'cause I think people expect me to be small. — Shirley Manson

I want to hang out in Edinburgh with my friends and eat fish and chips wrapped in newspaper. — Shirley Manson

The sensation of never feeling good enough or pretty enough will always be there. It's a constant dialogue, and you just learn to be more powerful than that other voice. When you hear it come up, you shut it down. — Shirley Manson

I think it's about time the world embraced its geekiness and stopped trying to be cool. It's just ... you have way more fun as a geek than as a cool person. — Shirley Manson

You know, it doesn't matter how beautiful you are, if you don't have anything interesting to say, then you're still boring. — Shirley Manson

If Jennifer Lopez could write songs like Fiona Apple's, she wouldn't have to spend so many hours at the gym. — Shirley Manson

No, I like being a role model because I know how much comfort my musical idols brought me. — Shirley Manson

When somebody asks me a question, I try to be as straightforward about it as possible. I try not to overthink what I'm going to say in an interview. — Shirley Manson

I've always been an outsider. I am an outsider in Garbage. I'm the odd one out by default. — Shirley Manson

I think women in pop have been declawed and defanged, and they're just meant to look pretty and sing pretty. — Shirley Manson

I'm 45 years old. I used to be a club girl, but that's not my world anymore. That doesn't mean I can't make music that excites. I think it's inspiring to see an artist you grew up with take another crack. — Shirley Manson

I've got no timetable. I'm sort of sick of timetables, to be honest. — Shirley Manson

I plan on doing as much in my life as I possibly can. — Shirley Manson

I just want to live my life a little freely and not adhere to any schedule - just make music and have fun. — Shirley Manson

My solo album is dead and buried. We had the funeral. It was sad and I cried a lot but it made such a beautiful corpse that we had an open casket. — Shirley Manson

In terms of fitting in, you know, I don't have a lot of armor up. I'm a raw nerve and it's really uncomfortable for a lot of people. — Shirley Manson

I'm fairly in control and I don't like to flirt particularly. I mean, obviously if I meet someone who I think is hot, of course I'll want to flirt with him, But in general I don't use it in day-to-day life. — Shirley Manson

I am naive. I make mistakes - But I don't give a rat's arse how I am perceived! — Shirley Manson

Being a singer, being a performer, you have tricks, somehow, to calm yourself when things feel a little overwhelming. I don't do breathing exercises, per se, but I definitely have to have a sort of internal word with myself before things got completely out of hand and I fainted on the floor. — Shirley Manson

I have a temper on me that could hold back tides. — Shirley Manson

I mean, I tend to do my own thing, and that usually crosses purposes with everyone around me. — Shirley Manson

I was always embarrassed because my dad wore a suit and my mother wore flat pumps and a cozy jumper while my friends' parents were punks or hippies. — Shirley Manson

I was a redhead and a middle child; both can make you feel excluded. It's like fighting to be included, in the swim of things. After a while you start to develop a bit of a victim mentality, which isn't great for a happy life. — Shirley Manson

I say embrace the total geek in yourself and just enjoy it. Life is too short to be cool. — Shirley Manson

Mozart was a punk, which people seem to forget. He was a naughty, naughty boy. — Shirley Manson

In the '90s, the radio was still alive with all different kinds of points of view, and I think that's why people are longing for that time. It was the first time that alternative music broke through to the mainstream. — Shirley Manson

If you have any opinions at all or if you're even remotely verbal then they're going to call you fiery. — Shirley Manson

Starbucks is my main fix and it's usually you people working in there - sometimes they're actually shaking. It just makes me feel horrendous because I've been in that situation. — Shirley Manson

That's a difficult question, because to consider yourself a rebel is sort of ridiculous. — Shirley Manson

We should never listen to our feelings. They lead us astray. — Shirley Manson

I'm 41, I'm a woman not a kid. I have no interest in making silly pop music. — Shirley Manson

I have a lot of very close girlfriends and sisters - I'm from an all female family. My father often quips that even the cat was neutered! — Shirley Manson

I am greedy, and most importantly, game for what's next. — Shirley Manson

I think young artists are always inspiring because they are coming at worlds from a different point of view. — Shirley Manson

It is YOU who is so busy disrespecting artistry. You disrespect your own remarkable talents and more importantly you disrespect the talent, hard work, and tenacity of all artists when you go so rudely and savagely after such an accomplished and humble artist like BECK. — Shirley Manson

I don't think they can deal with someone being complex and contradictory; it's not acceptable, you have to be a cartoon, a stereotype. — Shirley Manson

Obviously, from the experience you get from making videos, you understand where the camera is and how some of the actual technicalities work and so on and so forth. — Shirley Manson

It's unhealthy for people to never express any kind of negativity or doubt. To have balance, you need to address that side of your thoughts as well as the positive. Otherwise, you tend toward crazy. — Shirley Manson

P.s. I am pretty certain Beyonce doesn't need you fighting any battles on her account. Seems like she's got everything covered perfectly well on her own. — Shirley Manson