Quotes from Juliana Hatfield

Keanu Reeves is, like, the worst actor I've ever seen. I can't believe he's a movie star.

I finished 'Beautiful Creature,' and I felt somewhat unfulfilled. I felt like this other side of me needed to be released. Some of the songs I left off the album weren't intense enough to be what I wanted. They weren't hard enough.

I think everyone's pretty much the same underneath. The collective unconscious is a real thing. There's only a few emotions, and we all have them. There's, like, seven emotions. So personal is universal. Everyone experiences confusion, joy and pain, just in different forms.

I've always been in this sort of perpetual state of existential longing. I feel like something's missing.

To make big steps, you've got to take action yourself and not listen to other people.

My songs are about not knowing who to be and not knowing how to act.

I have many moods, and there is no objective reality. And I kind of live by that.

I make music and I can't stop. It's a compulsion and an obsession and a curse.

You can learn so much just by doing, not by listening to anybody.

When I start writing, I'll have a vague concept or I'll just have a title, and the song just goes on its own direction. Usually it goes in many directions within each song. They get really convoluted sometimes.

Everything's been a struggle for me.

Playing a show is a monumental hassle. You've got to schlep all your heavy equipment into the van, then you've got to drive for five hours, then you have to schlep all the heavy equipment out of the van, onto the stage, set it up, do the sound check, hang around for three hours, then play the show, which is incredibly draining.

To me, success was not having to have a boss and not having a day job. I've been living my own version of success since the early '90s when I first got signed. I haven't had a job since then.

Once I picked up an electric guitar, I lost interest in piano, and I just wanted to rock. I studied piano for so long, I got burned out on it.

Songwriting is like editing. You write down all this stuff - all this bad, stupid stuff - and then you have to get rid of everything except the very best.

I find myself a fascinating subject.

I listen to NPR and baseball games when I'm in my car. I mean, exclusively NPR and baseball games, and that's it, as far as the radio.

I don't make money on the road, and so there's less and less incentive for me to do it when I don't have that adolescent desire for whatever it is, glory or fame.

I'm kind of an emotional exhibitionist.

I don't have anything to prove anymore. I don't have a record deal, no one has any expectations, I'm in a position of freedom. I don't need anyone's approval.