Quotes from Kim Gordon

In a lot of the art world, you have to present yourself as you know what you're doing at a young age. Music gave me another outlet. The 'no wave' bands were such an inspiration; it felt so free - once you start doing it, it's hard to stop. But I can't get away from art. It comes back around. I wouldn't be true to myself if I didn't pursue it.

I'm kind of a sloppy feminist. Any ideology makes me a little nervous because there's some point where it doesn't allow for the complexity of things.

Working on art, as opposed to being in a constant collaborative state, as in a band, is something that I've always done - to a smaller degree, but it always remained a part of my integral self.

It is fun to smash guitars.

My parents lived by Rancho Park. And my mom, later in life, got into playing golf. She and her male cronies would get up at five in the morning and sneak onto the back nine. I kind of just started getting into it. For a long time, I was really puzzled by why people liked it.

There's only so many small shows you can do. A lot of the smaller things are more side project things. Not everything is appropriate for Sonic Youth to do.

Sonic Youth, for better or worse, is/was a machine that carried me along through pregnancy, motherhood, and creative opportunities I never would have achieved on my own. I'm grateful and surprised that we were listened to, loved, ignored, and overrated.

I never really thought of myself as a musician. I'm not saying Sonic Youth was a conceptual-art project for me, but in a way, it was an extension of Warhol. Instead of making criticism about popular culture, as a lot of artists do, I worked within it to do something.

I can't think about whether I'll disappoint Sonic Youth fans. It's not like I want people to be disappointed, but I just can't control that.

I would be too self-conscious if I just thought of writing lyrics for a song. I have to trick myself into doing it.

I mean, who made up all the rules in the culture? Men-white male corporate society. So why wouldnt a woman want to rebel against that?

I love the way Lady Gaga finds humour in fashion, but it's still very stylised.

Unless you're singing something that's kind of in rhythm with the bass, the melodies, it's just difficult.

It's really hard for me to sing and play bass. Unless you're singing something that's kind of in rhythm with the bass, the melodies, it's just difficult.

Marriage is a long conversation, someone once said, and maybe so is a rock band's life. A few minutes later, both were done.

I see it as more of a teenage activity than, you know, she's only 11, but you know, I think it's great that she knows so many girls who want to play music. And I see it more as a teen activity than I do as going into music.

Someone once wrote that in between the lives we lead and the lives we fantasize about living is the place in our heads where most of us actually live.

People pay money to see others believe in themselves.

Still, I've always believed—still do—that the radical is far more interesting when it looks benign and ordinary on the outside.

The only really good performance is the one where you make yourself vulnerable, while pushing beyond your familiar comfort zone.

For me performing has a lot to do with being fearless. I wrote an article for Artforum in the mideighties that had a line in it that the rock critic Greil Marcus quoted a lot: "People pay money to see others believe in themselves." Meaning, the higher the chance you can fall down in public, the more value the culture places on what you do. Unlike, say, a writer or a painter, when you're onstage you can't hide from other people, or from yourself either.

I like being in a weak position, and making it strong.

At the end of the day, women are expected to hold up the world, not annihilate it.

Everything people call fabulous or amazing lasts for about ten minutes before the culture moves on to the next thing.