"I want to walk through life instead of being dragged through it."

"We are clothed and shaped by what we love"

"I think you become a true adult when you hit rock bottom"

"One look is worth 10,000 words"

"I wish people could achieve what they think would give them happiness in order for them to realize that that's not the way that happiness can be found"

"It's irrelevant what my favorite ice cream is!"

"I love Canadians, I am Canadian. I think the more places I go, the more different cultures I see, the more I love coming back here, so the whole concept of someone not being happy for someone else's success is not a new concept to me; and beyond that, understandably, the last thing Canadians saw of me was when I was 17 years old, and now they hear this, and for them that must've felt like 5 minutes, and I understand how different it must seem, but no one was walking alongside me for those 4 years, seeing what I saw and learning what I learned, so those that have the incentive and the curiosity to find out what happened in the past 4 years for me, they'll have those questions answered through the music and through me."

"God loves dirty feet too!"

“Christianity taught me to view God as vengeful and judgmental. Over the last few years, though, I've realized that God is compassionate and has no preference about how we live our lives. I think that is communicated through the fact that we're given free will. There are definite universal laws, the laws of consequence and cause and effect, but I don't think God prefers one choice over the other. He or she or it notes rather than judges. Once I realized that, it immediately made me feel more responsible for my own life. If God doesn't judge us, all of a sudden it puts the onus on us humans. We're the creative force. We're creating what our world looks like right now and will look like down the road."

"I think everyone's hungry for the truth"

"I think censorship is about fear. It's just fear being profected onto art."

"I have my moments, I know why people kill themselves, I know why people do drugs. I understand. I get it."

"I went through a period of not doing anything sterotypically feminine things: I didn't wear a dress for years, I didn't wear makeup for a long time, I grew my hair all over my body."

"I've seen people at my shows tapping into parts of themselves that they perhaps felt self-conscious about..but because I was doing it, they felt the freedom to do it too."

"The one thing I regret the most is not being able to walk down the street anymore and look people in the eye. But I can do it a little more now than I could a couple of years ago when things were a little crazier."

"What we think we can find outside of ourselves is already here."

"I firmly believe that the only reason why I'm on this planet, the only reason why I live, breathe and exist is, that it's my duty to be as honest as possible in my art."

"There's no way around pain. That's part of the charm of being alive."

"Too Much Mayo..You Are Under Arrest"

"Is anybody else being bitten by mosquitos right now? When you start getting them on the face its such a bitch!"

"And Stop. Maybe have kids...little itty ones that have soft parts on their heads that I can squish (laughing hysterically)"

"Have you ever been to Chip N' Dales?"

"Until Next Time My Sweets."

"Here's Some Fruit For You Animals"

"Confusion to me sometimes is the worst emotion to go through than anger or sadness, I don't know why, frustration and confusion are the two worst emotions for me and "Forgiven" allowed me to articulate it, to figure out why I was so confused when I was younger, what I believed in, what I thought God was or wasn't, what I thought was right or wrong, what I was made to feel guilty for that I could have been reveling in, certain things that were natural for you to go through, as a nine year old, you know where things that were made to be seem bad or wrong and I don't agree with it, I know I was going through with what was natural, so to write about and to sort of absolve myself of that was very freeing and it also was written at the same time where I was questioning my own spirituality and questioning what that word even meant."

"When I am on stage, it's very spiritual. I feel very close to God when I'm up there. Female artists come up to me and say, Yeah, we're taking over..and I shake my head and say, No we're not. We're joining."

"We're going to play a song and at the end, we're going to jam a little bit. I'll pick up on the juju in the room and do... whatever."

"When I was getting my immigration done, under American laws I was considered an 'alien with a special talent'. Er thanks."

"I've had all sorts of love, I've had evacuation love, dependency love and I used to be a control freak."

"If people don't allow themselves to be wounded and hurt and angry, they'll never get to the next step."

"The main advice I'd give to young musicians is don't be afraid to fuck up."

"The more I know the less tortured I am."

"Peace of mind for five minutes, that's what I crave."

"Don't ever mistrust those voices in your head."

"I don't believe in competition, especially in art." "Profanity is merely an expression of one's emotions."

"I think what winds up happening is that people dip their toes into the pool and it's cold so they just run away, as opposed to diving in and realizing that in five minutes it feels really great. "

"I would rather be regarded as a humanist rather than a feminist"

"So many times I've been just gripping the steering wheel and driving, and just have a piece of paper on my--where my horn is, and just writing sort of looking up and down. I've done that so much! It'll be worth the crash. "

"I don't consider myself to be part of any religion now, although I was brought up a Catholic, and that probably reflects in my music."

"These days I feel fundamentally peaceful."

"I was always sitting around the kitchen table till 3 or 4 in the morning with my family, just having intellectual discussions, you know so. You know important things like what to wear to school the next day haha, no we talked about everything you know everything, we'd talk about emotions, the world, we'd talk about our family and our perception of all the craziness around us."

"There is no better feeling than when you write something you know is a piece of you and that, at some point, is going to communicate with someone else."

"When I was living in Toronto and was prepared, emotionally, to write from a more honest place and actually back that up, I heard 'Little Earthquakes' and was really heartened by hearing that.."

"We were actually in a very decitant setting, I think Taylor, Nick and I were in a limo, in Chicago going to a radio interview and it was playing on the radio and I just laughed at my surroundings, I was like 'I'm in a limo now, this is soo out of hand now' " (The first time Alanis heard YOK on the radio)

"You can dress her up..(laughing) No, you can't even dress her up. I just spilled water all over me."

"I wish people could achieve what they think would give them happiness in order for them to realize that that's not the way that happiness can be found."

"One minute I'm the best album of the year, the next I'm the worst thing that has ever been created on the earth. So, if I want to go on that roller-coaster ride, then I'm an idiot"

"Sometimes on stage I'm like a mirror. My music becomes less about me and more about what the audience sees in me that reminds them of themselves. I sense that some are there to release their own tension and frustrations, and that's gratifying."

"I think there's been an element of my looking outside of myself a little more, and my albums are about expressing where I'm at in any period of time."

"I think the internet is the anti-christ, I am apprehensive to begin with, the whole technological evolution, but I just can't deal with that."

"I have an insational appetite for knowledge and answers, and I like communicating it once I discovered, or I like to communicate my lack of discovery of it I guess, sometimes, I don't know, I love it, it's what I feel I was meant to do on this earth"

"Most of the songs are, in a roundabout way, actually addressed to myself, there's a certain aspect of the songs that's very confessional, very unadulterated...It was a very unfettered, spiritual experience."

"I just spilled water all over me,"

"Having struggled with my view of my body for so long resulted in my having a kind of toxic relationship with exercise.. "When I was younger I just loved running and biking and swimming and playing, but as I went through the teen years and my relationship with my body became so confusing, my relationship with sports became confusing too. It was so liberating to do a triathlon and do it for the reasons I used to play sports when I was 12."

"My friends, who know me very well, are just soo happy that I am finally getting all of this out of my system."

"Oh, man, I wish I had me to listen to when I was 14."

"When it came time to think about an image, all I said is that I didn't want to be fake. And it's really great because we wound up with me."

"I was very intrigued by what celebrity status, fame, adulation could bring me, It was touted as something that would raise your self-esteem and provide you with eternal happiness. Food would taste better, people would be more exciting, relationships would be great."

"I had this insatiable desire to create and express and sing and dance and act and paint and draw and write poems. I just couldn't help it, it was dying to come out."

"I always believed in black and white; something was either great or horrible, including myself. And now it's just gray."

"I feel like I've gone from repression to explosion to contemplation,"

"I know I can't control the external world, which is the reception to which I create. There's an internal world, which is my personal development, creative development, and spiritual development. That's the only thing I can control. I can control how much knowledge I feed myself, but I can't control what happens around me with peoples perceptions of it."

"My whole philosophy on life is that I'm not about external appearance, what I have to say is far more important than how long my eyelashes are."

"People have to be validated when they go through an angry state. When you're hurt, your immediate emotion is to protect yourself and get really angry. But in my estimation, anger is a cowardly expression or extension of pain or sadness".

" A lot of people think it has to be greater than the truth in order for it to be charismatic and sought-after, the truth is if you are what you are and your path is such you will connect with a lot of people you will and if you don't you we're not suppose to "

" You don't really know how amazing things are unless you have that the contrast of things not having been amazing for a certain amount of time. I happen to like this theory"

"Any time you deprive yourself of food or anything for the sake of what society wants you to be, your system, or the universe, is going to make sure you get even more of it than you need "

" The subconscious is a great source for nasty thoughts and lyrics: especially for women because we like to explore our inner demons more than men do. MEN- hate to go through painful self-analysis, but woman are almost obsessed with it."

" I think that the more you open up, the least it has power over you It's the truth, and people may not agree with it, or may not want to hear it, But it's a really peaceful place for me to be "

"I was totally into psychology. If I wasn't a musician, I'd be a psychologist"

"I don't get intimidated by people because.... it's hard for me to put into words. I respect people. I'll meet someone and feel respectful and compatible with them, or I won't. It's not ever a matter of me thinking I'm inferior to them"

"Part of me just wants to say, Listen to this old record of mine, watch a couple of the videos, then maybe you'll understand."

"It's heartening to see that a lot of people are interested in listening to music that just isn't about heartbreak, that just isn't about a love relationship gone right or gone wrong, it's heartening to know that more people are open to being introspective and to hearing music that is going to require more of them, then just to listen."

"I started writting songs when I was really little because there were things I could say through songs that I couldn't verbalize any other way. Writting was something I had to do."

"I just wanna say that most people's growth is done in private, an artist's growth is done in public. And I thank Canada, the country, for accepting that in me."

"I don't think I'm the kind of artist who comes across as 'I'm a star, you can idolize me.' I come across as 'I'm human, you can relate to me.' I'm saying what alot of people would want to say but would be far too embarrassed to say it. I had been embarrassed to say it. I wrote from a very dysfunctional part of my subconscious that I rarely indulge."

"A long time ago I decided to take the positive things that my experiences had to offer, and not bother with the rest. I've always beleived you can make whatever you choose out of what life throws at you."

"I was just putting up with so much. I walk this fine line constantly of having respect and being diplomatic with people and then just standing up for myself, like where do you draw the line?"

"I was auditioning not only their musicianship, but also if they understood what I was singing in my songs. I mean, I never came out and posed the question 'Do you understand where I'm coming from?' But, I did get a sense from them whether they did. It's a very precious thing to me, the creation of art, and the process I go through to create is something I hold really dear."

"I know there are a million more songs. And a million more revelations and thoughts and confusions that I haven't even begun to write about."

"I've always been the kind of person that would rather write a book than read it, and write a song, rather than listen to one, and have a conversation rather than watch one on T.V."

"I started making music because I could."

"Right now, to be quite honest, I'm not scared of anything."

"I lost my virginity at 19, but I was very sexually active since 14, doing everything but. Isn't that odd?"

"Yeah, I am a hippy. I fluctuate between being very 1996 and very, um, 1970."

"I spent a couple of months writing songs that were very personal. Then they were played on this thing called the radio. That's it!"

"I am aware that there are people out there, but I don't read the letters. Yeah, I'm afraid of them."

"By no means is this record just a sexual, angry record."

"I've been writing songs since I was nine years old and just really enamerate with music, just so grateful for the fact that I can sing, and I used to write songs to entertain people, to take them away from their daily lives and as I got older, I felt it becoming more important to me to communicate to people and to able to that through music is the ultimate thing in the world, Because music to me is magic and communicating to me is probably the most important thing in my life, so to able to do that at the same time and then be on stage and have a physical release at the same time and connect with people, that is more gratifying then anything I can ever think of."

"My twenties have been the best years of my life."

"The main advice I'd give to young musicians is don't be afraid to phuck up."

"I've been surrounded by adults as far back as I can remember."
"I have mixed emotions about getting awards. I have difficulty with the concept of being judged. I don't feel I'm better than any other female artist. I'm just different. Everything we're all doing is valid."

"I don't think I'm the best, I just think I do it and that a lot of people are enjoying it for what it is and that's how I see myself. I see myself as someone that has been giving the opportunity to communicate my music to a lot of people, and that's it!"

"A lot of what I wrote about were difficult times from which I walked away a better person."

"We're going to play a song and at the end, we're going to jam a little bit. I'll pick up on the juju in the room and do ... whatever."

"When I am on stage, it's very spiritual. I feel very close to God when I'm up there."

"Female artists come up to me and say, Yeeeah, we're takin' over! and I shake my head and say, No we're not. We're joining."