Quotes from Fiona Apple

I had really bad obsessive-compulsive disorder. At its worst, I was compelled to leave my house at three o'clock in the morning and go out in the alley because I just knew that the paper-towel roll I threw in the recycling bin was uncomfortable, like it was lying the wrong way, and I would be down in the garbage.

Five years from now I'm probably going to look back on the things I'm doing and cringe.

The truth is it's fun to be up there and know that you're in your underwear. Even though I know I'm exploiting my sexuality in a certain way, it's fun! It boosts my ego.

Hunger hurts, but starving works, when it costs too much to love.

Love is a hell you cannot bear.

I think that, y'know, they seem to really love music, which means they'll stick with it. I think that Hanson could be really good in a few years, actually!

I used to love to make things - you couldn't drag me away for dinner because I was always writing a story or something.

I was told so many times when I was a kid, 'I can't be friends with you, you're too intense, you're too sad all the time.' I really thought that when I made the first album that everyone would understand me, all the people who weren't my friends would become my friends.

Hearing my songs in public freaks me out a bit. There was one restaurant I really liked in L.A., but I had to stop going there when they started playing my music. It felt kinda awkward.

You think you're looking at things all the time, but you're not looking at things, you're looking at what your brain is interpreting through light and color. And who knows what everybody else sees?

When you're surrounded by all these people, it can be even lonelier than when you're by yourself. You can be in a huge crowd, but if you don't feel like you can trust anybody or talk to anybody, you feel like you're really alone.

I have a very steadfast tendency to parent myself, to monitor my development into the person I want to be. I've tried to keep the corruption minimal.

Because for whatever reason, even though I want to stay home all the time and be left alone, I want to tell the world who I am now.

What will an angel say that the devil wants to know?

I've always said I don't want to have kids. I don't want a kid at all, but I do like reverse-engineering myself; managing and parenting myself.

I still don't know how to drive. I don't go anywhere, really. My brother drives me. I walk around my neighborhood but I don't go anywhere, nor do I want to.

I also just accept that I might never want to write a song again.

I don't know if anybody wants to mix their politics with their entertainment.

I was never somebody who grew up going, 'I really want to be a singer in a band,' and I never had any ambition toward anything, really.

Everybody acts like I'm nuts. I'm not nuts I just want to feel it all.

My career has been: first you have to prove yourself, then there's the sophomore record, then there's this thing and that thing, and you always want to be understood.

I really don't think anything I do is a mistake. It could be if I didn't learn from it.

I just tend to do things to myself that I don't realize I'm doing. Sometimes I bite my lip so that it splits and hurts, and yet I can't stop. And sometimes I'd play shows on the last run, I'd scratch my neck while I was singing, and I'd horrified to see these red streaks of blood after.

I got a lot of problems, but I'm really good at intuiting what I need to do to be happy with whatever I create. I know when to stop myself, I know when to start, I know when to leave something alone. I guess I just kind of indulge that completely, and so I just take my time.