Healing for me is being able to sit next to the butcher and say 'Yes, I’m sitting next to the butcher now,' instead of saying 'there is no butcher'.
Tori AmosRead
I don't want to sit on the sidelines and not value the gift of being here. Instead of the idea of time ticking away, the grains of sand running out, I try to think of time as giving me another grain of sand, another gift. So time passing is an accumulation, rather than a diminishing.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes valuing time as a gift rather than a loss.
Tori Amos reflects on the nature of time, suggesting that instead of viewing it as something that depletes, we should see it as a precious accumulation of moments. This perspective encourages us to appreciate our existence and the opportunities each moment brings, prompting us to engage fully in life rather than remain passive observers.
In practice
In a graduation speech to encourage students to value their time ahead.
Healing for me is being able to sit next to the butcher and say 'Yes, I’m sitting next to the butcher now,' instead of saying 'there is no butcher'.
When you stop putting yourself on the line, and you don't touch your own heart, how do you expect to touch other people?
If you can't create physical life, you find a life force. If that's in music, that's in music. I started to find this deep, primitive rhythm, and I started to move to it. And I held hands with sorrow, and I danced with her, and we giggled a bit.
I don't mind a dirty girl. But what I find tragic is when we, as women, become not the subject of our own story but someone else's object.
For many years, I shut down that place inside myself that needed to rage, cry, ask questions and basically just express herself. I made a conscious choice when I put (the song) 'Me and a Gun' on the record not to stay a victim anymore.
From in the shadow she calls. And in the shadow she finds a way, finds a way. And in the shadow she crawls, clutching her faded photograph. My image under her thumb. Yes with a message for my heart. She’s been everybody else’s girl maybe one day she’ll be her own.
How odd to watch a mortal kindle / Then to dwindle day by day / Knowing their bright souls are tinder / And the wind will have its way
I want to be like one of those little fainting goats that get scared and then just fall over. I want to go and go and then drop dead in the middle of something I'm loving to do. And if that doesn't happen, if I wind up sitting in a wheelchair, at least I'll have my high heels on.
One of the shocks of a 50th birthday is realizing the fundamental fact that your youth is irrevocably over.
I'm getting to a point where everything is becoming streamlined in my life. I'm learning how to stand onstage for two hours and play in front of thousands of people as if I am completely in the moment every moment.
You have left me so long to struggle against death, alone, that I feel and see only death! I feel like death!
Well I was born a rambler friends, and I intend to die that way. It could be twenty years from now it could be most any day. But if there ain't no whiskey and wimen lord behind those heavenly doors, I'm gonna take my chances down below and of that you can be sure.
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