Nellie McKay Quotes

You know, if I can survive marching band, I can survive anything.

My mom. She really encouraged me. That's the trouble with education: Unless you have a really supportive parent, you get left behind.

I really don't care what people say. It's amazing that feminism continues to exist at all, considering how much counter-feminism is out there.

There's a side of me that identifies with Aileen Wuornos.

Love is such a fleeting emotion. It's such a small part of the things you do in your life.

I feel like you should always be questioning the genre you're doing. If you're doing something that sounds like a lullaby, it can be good to make it about someone stalking someone.

I'm glad I got a record contract, because all of a sudden everything you were doing before that made you a stupid person now makes you a smart person.

I was approaching adolescence. For some reason, I guess my mother thought it would be less crazy out in the suburbs, which it wasn't. I just think adolescence is hard for anyone.

I think people at most record labels really like music, but it's hard because everything is so subjective, and everyone's so creative in their own right.

Just like everything, even the most fun and creative endeavor requires work to be successful, and I'm so sick of working. I'm a lazy person at heart. I never meant to be a go-getter.

I have trouble with any kind of focus or concentrating, or getting anything done at all, really.

I think there are nice things about every era. I wish we could just take the nice things.

In the hierarchy of instruments, if you're a harpist, you're considered someone with a brain much more than if you're a singer.

Music can make the cerebral accessible, the subconscious hummable. It communicates our shared needs and desires as sentient beings better than any other medium.

You can criticize something you strive for, and you can avoid something you dream about.

Less money for public media means less access to the arts.

The civilised cultures are the most cruel. It's the same with education - often it breeds sadistic forms of cruelty.

I kind of go for the MGM version of every musical style.

I never know how to get off the phone, so I'm terribly admiring of people who can.

I will say that art may well be the only thing that lasts, so I guess it's worth trying.

Public radio is the last oasis of free and independent music. For satellite radio channels, you have to subscribe; commercial stations are as corporate as basic cable.

In New York City, when they develop something, they never use the old buildings. It's so wasteful. Why not use what's there?