Phair Quotes & Sayings

I am just your ordinary,
average every day sane psycho,
supergoddess. — Liz Phair

I'm just out of touch with new music in general, and I only know about it if I'm hanging out with someone that knows about it, or I catch it on YouTube. — Liz Phair

I think I write songs because of pent-up feelings. — Liz Phair

So how does Liz Phair feel about Lana Del Rey? Well, as a recording artist, I've been hated, I've been ridiculed, and conversely, hailed as the second coming. All that matters in the end is that I've been heard. — Liz Phair

When you love what you do, you're happy just doing it! — Liz Phair

When I was young, I used to need other people's albums and I got very involved with their music and it meant a lot to me. — Liz Phair

I was trying to break out of the suburbs, and when I did break out, I don't think I took my whole self with me - I think I played a role of being too cool and hip. — Liz Phair

When it's me in my living room, it's pretty pure, and then what gets recorded involves more people, and it keeps escalating from there. — Liz Phair

I'm competitive, so I don't like to feel marginalized by the people who sell a lot of records. — Liz Phair

Women's bodies are used to sell anything and everything because it works, it grabs people's attention, and advertisers aren't going to stop using something that works. — Liz Phair

I mean, I think about it, but I don't design my record to get a certain public response. — Liz Phair

I prance around and dance by myself to hip-hop songs in the mirror. — Liz Phair

I just don't fit into the box. — Liz Phair

Am I coasting on some early success? Yeah. It was a good lucky break for me. But I would rather earn my way back again than simply conform to what people are expecting. — Liz Phair

I'd like to do a tour with a bunch of people where it's just them and their guitars. It would be like Lilith Fair - only everyone plays alone, and it would be competitive. — Liz Phair

I mean, I kind of remember ... I'm 36 now, so it's kind of hard for me to relate to what it was like when I was 25, or 24, but I do remember a period in time when that's how I defined who I was, by the music I listened to and the movies I went to. — Liz Phair

My career has been riddled with controversy, which I never fully understand. — Liz Phair

Nothing feeds a hunger like a thirst — Liz Phair

It's important to have people who will say to you that you're really off the beaten track. — Liz Phair

I've lost touch with a lot of that boutique-type music just because of my age, and raising my son and the multiple jobs I have at this point. — Liz Phair

The other day I was reading a blog and I linked over to Streisand's Web site, and it was amazing politically. She's so insightful and incisive. And she also says whatever she wants. — Liz Phair

You have to do what you need to do as an artist. You have to have that courage. — Liz Phair

There's even more stuff that I'd like to release, but I'm scared to, that's really, um, nerdy ... not nerdy in a good way. Like, silly. — Liz Phair

It makes sense - you wanna gather a lot of people together, and Vegas really does that well. New York can, but you know the hassles. I've lived there. It's an entirely different beast. — Liz Phair

You know, you become an artist, you become an observer, of life, and you digest life by making art about it. — Liz Phair

You're really creative when you're in an environment that you don't know how to handle. So collaborating was like that for me. I think that was one of the reasons why I knew I was gonna get a challenging reaction. — Liz Phair

I'm really happy to be a mom, and I'm proud of the phase I'm in. — Liz Phair

I'm known for being annoyingly gender-focused. It's always been my platform. — Liz Phair

The license said you had to stick around until I was dead, but if you're tired of looking at my face I guess I already am. — Liz Phair

All parents gush about what it's like to be a parent. I love it. — Liz Phair

After my first record came out, I read everything. I was so amazed that I was in the press. — Liz Phair

I wear clothes that most people in the Midwest would probably deem inappropriate at my age. And I rock a bikini all summer long. I know that it's not normal, but I just don't care. I live once. — Liz Phair

There's nothing wrong at all with women wanting to be women. — Liz Phair

Like, I kind of developed my musical style in a vacuum. Even though I listen to a lot of stuff, the way I wrote was in my bedroom, really privately. It's still the way I write, actually. — Liz Phair

I'm really happy with my life now, but there's a lot of stuff I feel very sad about in ways I can't even control. — Liz Phair

Isn't this the best part of breakin' up? Finding someone else you can't get enough of. Someone who wants to be with you, too. — Liz Phair

I am comfortable performing now. I love it! — Liz Phair

I can't say I don't get nervous, but I really kind of enjoy performing now. — Liz Phair

I have my head screwed on right. I haven't been this way in a long time. — Liz Phair

My nails are a disaster. If I play guitar when my nails are long, I just tear them off. — Liz Phair

Just to prove i was right that it's harder to be friends than lovers and you shouldn't try and mix the two, cause if you do and then you're still unhappy, then you know that the problem is you. — Liz Phair

I don't think you can spend too much time as an artist believing what other people think. — Liz Phair

It's about the journey and the process. I do things because I love doing them, or trying them. — Liz Phair

Everything that people lob at you who don't know you, it all hurts. When you're doing something as simple as making music, which really, theoretically, shouldn't hurt anyone - I mean, it's a song! Step back for five seconds and laugh. — Liz Phair

That's exactly what's exciting for me - the idea of infiltrating the male structure and affecting change from within. — Liz Phair

Guys don't really don't wanna hear if it's really smart, and women feel uncomfortable if you reveal stuff they're going to have to remember they did themselves. — Liz Phair

I'm working on a proper rock record, a good, old-school rock record. Finally. — Liz Phair

I would argue that the uncomfortable feelings she elicits are simply the by-product of watching a woman wanting and taking like a man. — Liz Phair

Well, if you've got a one-in-a-million girl don't let her get away; cause the next one-in-a-million girl is a million girls away ... — Liz Phair

When I was 18, I took a trip to Thailand with a friend. We stayed for a month. Bangkok was very raw for a teenager: there were no cellphones, no Internet, and the only music I had with me was this cassette by Liz Phair. I was writing a lot of poetry, and she embodied a talky style of songwriting that I found very accessible. — Jenny Lewis

Proverb: The caterpillar thought the world was ending, then it turned into a butterfly, — Marian Phair

I don't mind people not liking me as long as there's mutual respect. — Liz Phair

I was raised to be a very intelligent housewife. — Liz Phair

I ended up becoming so self-conscious that my songs stopped being about my life and started being about what people thought of my music. And that was really bad. — Liz Phair

Wearing a veneer of perfection never did me any good. — Liz Phair

Young kids don't have their identity, so everything is so important. Now I'm mature. I know who I am and I know what my thing is and I know what I'm bringing. It's very clear and defined. — Liz Phair

I am a feminist, and I define myself: Be yourself, because if you can get away with it, that is the ultimate feminist act. — Liz Phair

I'm always champing at the bit to try everything new. It's a terrible quality that I have. — Liz Phair

It was a source of shame for my family that I was in rock and roll, which is so blue-collar. It just isn't done. And I felt it, too. — Liz Phair

I always give the encore over to chaos, so people can yell out requests and I can hack my way through a song that I don't really know anymore. — Liz Phair

I am just like you and everyone else. I am trying to live my life as best I can. — Liz Phair

The big news already broke. The file-sharing and all that stuff, it's a done deal. And I think figuring out how to make that a fair exchange for the people that make music is still an issue. — Liz Phair

I don't have the same access or time to gain access to music the way I used to. — Liz Phair

And, you know, I still haven't been contacted by Mick Jagger, either! — Liz Phair

Everyone wants to get into soundtracks. Everyone wants to do songs here and there. But, I think they want it for different reasons. I think I'm just tumbling through my life, enjoying playing with everybody. — Liz Phair

I just want to hear the true voices of women self-expressing - smart ones, stupid ones, ugly ones, beautiful ones, good ones, bad ones, fat ones, thin ones, all of it - until the profound silence that has resounded throughout history is filled with a healthy chorus coming from our side of the aisle. — Liz Phair

You been around enough to see that if you think you're it, you better check with me. — Liz Phair

Yeah, I like to be the maker of the art. And I like and want the money. But I don't really dig being famous. — Liz Phair

I don't think anything I do in life is planned. Sometimes I regret that and I feel like I try to take ahold of the wheel, but I'm also always super excited when things pop up spontaneously and when I'm a little bit out of my depth. I just find that that thrills me. — Liz Phair

Madonna is the speedboat, and the rest of us are just the Go-Gos on water skis. — Liz Phair

What does it mean when something changes how it's always been? — Liz Phair

People hang their hopes on you fitting into their CD collection in way that they have made a space for, but I'm playing a longer game than that. — Liz Phair

I can feel it in my bones: I'm gonna spend my whole life alone. — Liz Phair

Love is nothing, nothing, nothing like they say. — Liz Phair

When I use the Internet, it's pretty much strictly for music. Checking out other people's web sites, what's going on, listening to music. It's pretty much a musical thing for me. — Liz Phair

I remember even getting kicked out of a bar once because I was too loud and obnoxious. — Liz Phair

Now, in music, it seems more like the popular crowd suppresses anyone who is different. — Liz Phair

Lana Del Rey seems to be bothering everybody because she allegedly 'remade' herself from a folk singing, girl-next-door type into an electro-urban kitty cat on the prowl (of course I like her), and they feel she is inauthentic. — Liz Phair

I just want to make music and make a living. I just have to find the means of doing that. — Liz Phair

I don't like being approached by people who look at me too intensely, who needed something from me that I didn't have. I don't represent anything. — Liz Phair

I have that thrill-seeking mentality, so when people want to know why my incarnations keep changing, or why I'll do something different than I did before, it's that same impulse. — Liz Phair

Music is sound. It's a wave. It's going out and coming back, and it's bouncing off. — Liz Phair

I love stretching myself musically. — Liz Phair

That's what music is to me. Like, stuff that I really like to play loud. And I've got my quiet CDs, too, that I listen to around the house, but if you can't go there, then ... Everyone gets so upset with me, I can't win. — Liz Phair

It seems to me like the Internet allows you to break that structure a little bit. You know, here's your CD that's going into stores, here's your EP that you offer online, here's a subscription for songs you recorded on the road, here's your live stuff streaming. — Liz Phair

No matter how I do this, my best songs have profanity in them. — Liz Phair

My identity has everything to do with me and my instrument. It doesn't have to do with what production style I use, or how many people played on it, whether it's sparse or grandiose or whatever. And I'm social, frankly. — Liz Phair

I don't know why it surprises people that I surprise them. — Liz Phair

Women artists need to break barriers in order for women's experience to be valuable. — Liz Phair

No. You know what really bugs me about my videos? When they can't figure out what to do, they just have me change clothes five times. — Liz Phair

Composing gives me a chance to work in multiple dimensions and helps me pare down my melodies into what is essential. Learning new skills has always energized me and scoring has opened up a world of sonic possibilities. — Liz Phair

I think good art happens on that edge between comfortable and in a lot of pain, you know what I mean? — Liz Phair

I'm very cerebral. I like to think things through. — Liz Phair

It's nice to be liked, but it's better by far to get paid. — Liz Phair

I don't always trust my own instincts. It would be nice if someone else would tell me what I should do with my life! — Liz Phair

I don't know what the future holds. Anything is possible. — Liz Phair

I probably had some impact, because everyone keeps telling me that I did. I like to feel like I'm coming out with something to try to make room for other young women to make their art. — Liz Phair

I don't know; it just seemed like the cooler guys are playing Xbox. At least the ones I know. — Liz Phair

I blend my green drink every morning. I also fix my son a full-on American breakfast with bacon and toast. — Liz Phair

Picture being forced to talk endlessly about your feelings and listen and care when what you needed was just to get something done. — Liz Phair