PJ Harvey Quotes

If you want to be good at anything, you have to work hard at it. It doesn't just fall from the sky. I work every day at trying to improve my writing, and I really enjoy it. Nothing fascinates me more than putting words together, and seeing how a collection of words can produce quite a profound effect.

I'm doing quite a lot of painting on stones - little funny fish and animals.

It varies, I don't think there is any one set way of writing songs or coming up with ideas, it comes in so many ways you know.

I'm probably much more influenced by film-makers and painters than I am by other songwriters or poets.

I have learnt through doing interviews throughout my life that the way that somebody can write about something can change entirely how it was meant, or what actually happened.

If I ever meet a writer or a painter, I don't presuppose that they are like the work they are presenting.

My father is actually a quarry man - he deals in stone. He also at one point had a lot of sheep, he owned a sheep farm, but primarily the family business was in stone.

I make tiny wooden people with bits of hair. Puppets and things like that.

When I'm writing for rappers it's kinda like switching, "Okay, you're not PJ. Now you have to act like a rapper."

My mom is a sculptress.

I think Ive got a pretty good sense of humor.

I feel like it's very important that I'm doing what I'm doing, and I want to keep honoring that and try and do it as honestly as I can.

It [ "Not For Long"] was the biggest song that I've had, and I actually heard it on the radio multiple times.

If anything, I hope being an artist opens up more opportunities 'cause I feel there's a lot of things I could do, like musically and stylistic-wise that I can write, but I don't really have an avenue to show it 'cause most of the things I'm writing are in Hip Hop.

Never settle for anything less than you want.

I had a chip on my shoulders 'cause I felt like I was being overlooked.

In the past members of my family on both my mother's and father's side have fought in the war, in the first and second World Wars. Unfortunately, they're dead and I wasn't able to speak to them, but that was in our family history too.

Yeah, I mean I am somebody that makes an effort to go and see a lot of exhibitions, painting, drawing, sculpture.

But even when I do give interviews, I always come across as such a completely different person. It seems like there's no controlling it anyway.

I feel like I'm being put inside a box, and I'm not necessarily getting a chance. Like I'm not getting the shot that I deserve. So that's what Rare is about 'cause I feel because I am the way that I am, and I don't necessarily fit the mold of a lot of different artists that's out, it's like I'm not getting the chance to show what I can do. So, that's basically all the frustration of that, and everything is pretty much Rare for me anyway.

I'm always writing, the past 10 years. A lot has changed, in that it's something I do every day.

I think blues music is music of the soul. Of course, there are other forms. You could call some classical music blues music in that way.

Fly with me, touch the face of the true God. And then cry with joy at the depth of my love.

The craft, the writing of a song, is about creating a story, a life story, a world within three minutes, but that's the frame, if you like, the picture frame. That fascinates me.

Any of these contemporary war situations, whether civilian or soldier on either side - that's what I was interested in. The people who are being affected. Not so much the political speak at the top of the food chain, but the people who are affected by it on the ground.

I like things that are beaten up, that have lived a little. I like things that are real. I like things that are made out of wood or string. I never feel very responsive to plastic machinery.

I also like a lot of silence, and when you're touring, it's constantly noise, all the time, you're surrounded with 15 or 20 people the entire time. I find that tough.

I didn't know folk music growing up, no. It's something I've come to study, really, because I think there's so much to learn from traditional music in the sense of the way music began as a way of communication, the traveling storyteller, the bard, the minstrels.

I feel that my dreamscapes are part of my everyday life, and sometimes I can't tell the difference.

If you come at the record feeling really happy and optimistic, it can be incredibly beautiful and uplifting, and if you come at it in a bleak moment, it can feel like a very dark place to share. It's all down to the listener.

I think I'm a maker of songs, and songs are like films or a picture: You put them over there, and they have nothing to do with you.

You know, two people can say exactly the same words, saying the same story, and it would mean something entirely different.

Like I have to pretend like I'm a male rapper, that I got stacks and we're in the club, and what do I want to say. And then, when writing Rare I could just be PJ.

I think that's always very valuable: to keep the mind open to receiving all sorts of information, which can then be used in my work, but also just as a human being.

To think of myself as a role model is extremely flattering, but I could never accept that, because Im just learning like everybody else.

I studied art just short of the level where you can earn a degree.

Well, I'm quite a self-deprecating person.

Ideas for songs can come from something as simple as a photograph and letting my imagination run wild on an old photograph that I found, or to a film that I have seen or to just most of the time, just daily walking through life and keeping your eyes open.

Obviously, the emotions I want to convey through music are streamed through the way I interpret life.

I just started writing and writing for people. And then, like I guess after (a) year of getting some placements, I kinda got a shot to be an artist. Long story short I think, yeah.

There's a level of discipline I use as a writer, designed to get better at what I'm doing, that requires quite a lot of study and quite a lot of hard work as well.

I think I've been interested in music since I was little.

I'm finding my way, and I make mistakes.

I don't loathe interviews, I'm just one of those people who makes music because I find it difficult to talk.

I never feel that I have to adopt a character. It's more the way I choose to present the music and that's always based on what is right for the song.

The artists that I love- whether painters or filmmakers- it's because something resonates in me because I've felt it.

At this point in my life, I'm probably not gonna be able to stop writing because it's gonna help me be able to do what I need to do.

I feel like when I'm writing for other people, when I'm doing rap hooks, it's kinda like playing dress up for me...