Quotes from Beth Hart

Fame doesn't matter; people approving of you doesn't matter. And if it does matter, you're in store for something very difficult and painful.

One of the beautiful things about music is it gives you an opportunity to learn how to tell the truth, and it's a life-long learning process.

I'm such an emotional performer, and my head is always like a rollercoaster, so if I'm in a good place and feeling grateful, that's when I notice that my shows come across as a lot more positive.

If I ever had to choose between having a good mind and good health with having big success, then there's no contest: I'd put my health first every time.

I love getting to have different food and getting to be around different people and different cultures and different ways people look at life. It's really kind of helped me open up my mind and see the world from different perspectives.

Etta James takes credit for writing some of the lyrics on 'I'd Rather Go Blind,' which I think are some of the most phenomenal lyrics I've ever heard. There's arguments now about who wrote it, but she always takes credit for it in her live performances.

The thing is, I'm not really a great pianist at all. But if God said I could either sing or play piano, and which would it be? I would definitely choose the piano.

I cook stuff that I picked up from my husband's mother. I thought that would be a good way to his heart, you know. I love to cook Italian and French, also.

It's very important for me to do things like talk therapy. That's where you begin to see the walls that your illness has put up as a way to protect yourself... but of course, those walls also keep us from getting to the truth of things.

I think that anytime that you can open your eyes and see all that you have and all that you've been blessed with, it's the greatest way to connect you with God, just being grateful rather than always wanting more, wanting to be different, wanting to be better.

There's stigmas attached to anything that makes you, in the public's eye, seem weak. So of course, you know, you're in a business where your image, and the way people perceive you, you are taught, is important.

My story is how to have a life while dealing with mental illness, and I've had a life. I've been blessed. It's been a different kind of life than what I planned on, but it's been a good life nonetheless.

I think that, being on the road, you've got your family with you, so there's no way that you can have a closer feeling to a group of people that you love than when you sit down and have a dinner or a lunch or a breakfast together.

Before I was on medication, the mania was so bad that I couldn't concentrate, so although I'd feel very creative, I could never really finish a piece of work because my mind was moving so fast.

I like swimming or go to the gym, but I am alone a lot, and that can get a little depressing.

Although I take the medication, which has made a huge impact on my life in a positive way, still, honestly, when I'm a bit sick is when I'm at my most creative.

When I'm going through something really difficult, I think it's what made me go to the piano for the first time when I was a child. I look at it as a place to pray.

If I'm in a good place, then I'm really open-minded to what's being presented, but if I'm in a bad place, I'm much more closed-minded.

I'd been trying to do this since I was 15, sending out the demo tapes and doing all the things that everyone told me that I should be doing. But no deal - like, never.

I never want to hear about going to hell if I did something wrong. But I do use Jesus as my curve point, and I think of his teachings when it comes to how I want to treat people.

I love being an American, and it's a beautiful country, but we are a bunch of whack jobs. We have got so much to learn.

I always think that you should never, ever force a producer to do something with a song that they don't think they can do something fantastic with, I think it's a stupid idea to force it, even if you think it's your best song.

My job is to work at song writing and singing and telling the truth in song writing. My job is to be courageous enough to go on stage and tell the truth, the same truth that's gone into my song writing.

I got into cello in the fourth grade, and I played that for years. I adored playing it. I got an opera coach when I was 12 because I really wanted to learn how to sing properly. The only proper way to sing, I thought at that age, was opera.