PJ Harvey Quotes - Page 2

I'm not an autobiographical writer, but I am a writer who deals with human emotion on all levels.

I think of myself as a songwriter, a weaver of story and imagination in a way that a novelist might write a book.

I firmly disbelieve that one has to be a tortured soul to write good music.

Some people, like Leonard Cohen, write one album every 10 years, and labor over a song for five years at a time.

I've always felt that I'm affected by the world, by the way we treat each other, by the way different countries treat each other. I've always been very affected by politics, society, but I never got to a place as a writer where I felt like I could begin to deal with such things and do it well.

My town was even smaller. Only six hundred people. We didn't have a grocery store.

I find it hard myself to feel justified to sing in a very politically direct way about war or social conditions because I feel so ignorant of a lot of it.

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 tried to use words that were dealing with the emotional quality that any human being could recognize in the way that they felt about their country. It's to do with the world we live in. That world is a brutal one and full of war. It's also full of many wonderful things and love and hope

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's so interesting to me how songs take on a shape and body of their own and grow.

Ever since time began: What song is not about love? Whether it's about love from man to woman or parent to child, or grandmother to granddaughter... It just goes on and on. Or whether it's the love of one's country.

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.

I've so much left to explore, it's enormously exciting to me. It's a passion. I just try and get better at what I do, and I study it very hard, like it is my life degree.

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.

I just love having no clothes on outside, and the only time to do that is when the sun's shining. It's a wonderful sensation to not have any clothes on.

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.

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

People like Howlin' Wolf, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, John Lee Hooker, Nina Simone, Captain Beefheart - all of these artists were what I grew up listening to every day of my life. And there's a very healthy music scene in the west country of England, where I grew up.

You shouldn't separate the piece from the way it's intended. I always feel like words shouldn't be unraveled from the music. They're all linked so much together.

I think you have to be very careful getting the balance right if you're going to talk about grand themes like war, death and nationhood. You need to use the right language or don't do it at all.

People want to build musicians into mythical beings.

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 don't like things to be handed to me on a plate; that means nothing. I like to go through layers of unraveling and every time I listen to something, it makes me feel something different. Now I'm aware of the conflict that's going on, but at the time I just let what was happening happen.

We just kind of lost our way. But we were looking to be free. One day we'll float. Take life as it comes.