Suzanne Vega Quotes

Don't make a threat and then not do it.

Some girls are taught to be sexy.

I think people are sexy when they have a sense of humor, when they are smart, when they have some sense of style, when they are kind, when they express their own opinions, when they are creative, when they have character.

I was the oldest child, and both my parents worked, so I had a great deal of responsibility from a very young age.

So you eat, you sleep, and then this wonderful child comes out, but you don't feel like you have any control over that process, over her, over her character and who she is.

Writing is always personal in some way but not always in a direct way.

If language were liquid, it would be rushing in. Instead here we are in a silence more eloquent than any word could ever be.

My intellect has always been more responsible than my emotions for how I respond to the world.

I wasn't afraid of going places or doing new things. I would do just about anything or go anywhere. I'd get a notion in my mind and just follow it.

Don't uncork what you can't contain

I was always inventing characters and making up stories.

I always thought that if I was popular I must be doing something wrong.

A lot of my writing is not terribly civilized. Sometimes I listen to songs by very smart writers who assume that the world is a civil place with certain formalities that people follow, but I don't see things that way. My own experience tells me that life is not like that. That's why I write the way I do.

I loved the atmosphere of the dance studios - the wooden floors, the big mirrors, everyone dressed in pink or black tights, the musicians accompanying us - and the feeling of ritual the classes had.

You have to defend your honor. And your family.

I still feel conflicted because I don't always get to spend as much time with my daughter as I'd like, given my work.

I think that if you have a strong narrative, if the idea of the song can be boiled down to the basics, it won't change that much.

And I really wanted a driver's license. I was 43, had my learner's permit and had failed the test once already - but that was in Riverhead, on Long Island.

I didn't go out looking for fights as a kid, but if it was necessary, I'd fight. Fighting was a daily thing where we lived.

It's striking how commercially viable that impulse for instant intimacy is right now, especially in songs and writing.

How weird it was to drive streets I knew so well. What a different perspective.

It takes as much discipline to be a mother and a wife as it does to do anything else.

If you have to fight a crowd of boys, it's best to go for the biggest one. That way you won't have to fight them all. The others will see that you mean business and you will win their respect.

Girls are crazy and mean. They don't fight fair.

When I was pregnant, I felt filled with life, and I felt really happy. I ate well, and I slept well. I felt much more useful than I'd ever felt before.

Last year's troubles, They shine up so prettily, They gleam with a lustre they don't have today.

I still consider myself a feminist.

Writing in other voices is almost Japanese in the sense that theres a certain formality there which allows me to sidestep the embarrassment of directly expressing to complete strangers the most intimate details of my life.

I dont think gender is aesthetically defining for me.

Yes I think I'm okay, walked into the door again.

Kindness to me is only powerful if it has the cruel streak behind it. If someone is kind all the time under all circumstances, they're just simple-minded. Kindness is only worth something if you have the cruel streak to back it up.

I had some fears as a kid, but I was also relatively fearless. Maybe that's a result of living half the time in reality and the other half in fantasy.

To me, a feminist belong in the same category as a humanist or an advocate for human rights. I don't see why someone who's a feminist should be thought of differently.

I fingerpick a lot because I can get more of a range of feeling from the guitar than I can when I bash away with a pick.

My mother wanted me to understand that as a woman I could do pretty much whatever I wanted to, that I didn't have to use sex or sexuality to define myself.

The first song I wrote was the first song I remember thinking, "Well, maybe I can do something here." The very first one. By the second one I knew I could do something.

I like to write about things that are extreme in some form. I like to write about something I feel I have to write about.

But I never want to get to the point where I write a safe song or one that represents my sense of a subject in order to appear civilized.

That said, I've never thought the fact that I'm a woman was important to my work.

My name is Luka I live on the second floor. I live upstairs from you, yes, I think you've seen me before.