Florence Welch Quotes

Hands up if you’re ready to do something you’ll regret this weekend. Go forth! You have my blessing.

I think I should get a bigger between-the-song persona, so then I'm not wandering around the stage like some mad old auntie that's saying hello to people and falling over.

I like a house party and fancy dress, a big fan of fancy dress, like dress up, costume parties.

When I'm singing I'm always trying to get to the highest point possible. I'd fly to the top of Buckingham Palace to sing to the queen.

I was a heavy heart to carry My beloved was weighed down My arms around his neck My fingers laced to crown. I was a heavy heart to carry My feet dragged across ground And he took me to the river Where he slowly let me drown My love has concrete feet My love's an iron ball Wrapped around your ankles Over the waterfall

I try to maintain a healthy dose of daydreaming, to remain sane.

Having a soul, they say, is like taking sadness and turning it into something beautiful.

If you do something with your whole heart and it's a mistake, you can live with that.

I want my music to sound like throwing yourself out of a tree, or off a tall building, or as if you’re being sucked down into the ocean and you can’t breathe… It’s something overwhelming and all-encompassing that fills you up, and you’re either going to explode with it, or you’re just going to disappear.

I like the idea of not being afraid of letting your imagination rule you, to feel the freedom of expression, to let creativity be your overwhelming drive rather than other things.

Sometimes I find that music is so much more attractive than love. I don’t know… It’s like some kind of euphoria, that love can’t bring to you.

You should have high expectations for yourself and others should come second.

I have this sensation of being in flight all the time, but being on stage is like creating a sanctuary in which you can completely lose yourself. The bits of your personality that you keep under wraps in ordinary life, you can let them run free.

I’m attracted to the idea of drowning. Or rather the idea of jumping off and being enveloped by something, not bad or good, just enveloping. When I was a kid, I had a moment when I got under the water, lying on the pool floor, and felt I could breathe. I’ve been trying to recreate that feeling ever since.

For me, ‘Dog Days’ symbolizes apocalyptic euphoria, chaotic freedom and running really, really fast with your eyes closed.

Love is horrible. I mean, when you're in love, it's like a sickness. Such madness.

Worst nightmares can also appear with your eyes open.

Music to me is so internal. It's physical and it's emotional. Whereas fashion is so much about the external that it's almost like a break. It's not inner turmoil. It's total escapism.

When you're heartbroken, you're at your most creative - you have to channel all your energies into something else to not think about it. Contentment is a creativity killer, but don't worry - I'm very capable of making myself discontented.

'Spectrum' is in part a disco song. But we play it hard, and it's a real euphoric, wailing tune. It's kind of like a total house anthem, in a way, but it seems to be going down really well. We've got all the grunge kids going mad for disco house raves.

A lot of the songs on the new album are about imaginary things, things that you can't touch - ghosts and rumors, my dead grandmother, things visiting you in a dream.

I tend to lose myself in the moment. I’m not very good at holding back. I don’t know how to do this without feeling everything. My emotions are the tool I use to perform.

I definitely have a real self-destructive streak.

I've got quite a vivid imagination and I'm easily overwhelmed by sensations and things that are beautiful or scary. I don't think I've ever seen a ghost - I think I'm probably haunted by my own ghosts than real ones.

My room is like an antique shop, full of junk, and weird stuff. There's a big sword in there. And a taxidermy bird, and a couple of birdcages. And a lot of newspaper cuttings. I used to have a weird thing about cutting out morbid headlines from newspapers, and collecting them. I was fascinated with drowning, which is kind of strange.

I get in fights with my sister all the time. She comes on the road with me and we fight - like sisters do.

It's always darkness before the dawn.

I can't wait to get on stage, because there you don't worry about whether you'll ever get married because your life is insane, or whether you'll ever have another boyfriend again, you don't worry about the typical boundaries of how your life has to be.

I always seem to feel that everything is about to cave in on me. I think that maybe music is my protection from that and in some senses it's an outlet to turn it into something euphoric: embracing the eventual decline.

I spent my 16th birthday high as a kite, jumping out of a tree topless in my local park just because it felt amazing hitting the ground.

I think music should be scary. Music is an exorcism.

Where's my heart at? Aw. Um, in my chest. I think it's in there - on the right hand side. Sometimes it's in my mouth and sometimes I can feel it in my stomach, when I get really nervous. So it's pretty physical.

I'd gone from being this art student messing about with music to this girl with a record deal, magazine front covers and all this hype. In many ways, it was everything I ever wanted, but when it happened all I felt was total, paralysing fear.

I'm pretty obsessed with Stevie Nicks from her style to her voice. I like watching her on YouTube and her old performances, the way she moves and everything.

My style of playing is more enthusiasm and instinct than skill.

I'm down to bleach my eyebrows again. I tell you what, though - that didn't go down well with my boyfriend. Girls love it. Guys, not so into it.

I think I just have a problem generally in life of wanting more of everything - more emotion, more drama, more glitz.

I feel things in quite an intense way. I'm not actually the most intense person.

I can't ever seem to shake the feeling that when things are really good it essentially means that things are going to go really bad. When I feel calm and settled, there is always an underlying feeling of impending doom... I don't think that it's healthy.

I can't just have one painting - I need to cover the wall in paintings. It's the same with my music. I want to mix everything together to create more.

I was always that girl growing up who you could find dancing down supermarket aisles. It's that sense of not feeling inhibited. Dancing in supermarkets is my favorite thing.

You live and you learn.

I was having a conversation with my father and he was talking about this thing - strangeness and charm. It's actually the name of the two smallest particles that there are when you split the atom, so I wrote a song around it. I even managed to fit the word 'hydrogen' in there. Isn't that a nice thing for scientists to call them though?

It’s good to be vulnerable in amongst the grandeur; you shouldn’t lose that sense of intimacy and vulnerability with people.

The stage is the place I feel comfortable - it's almost as if real life is where I feel most nervous. Conversations are a lot more nerve-wracking.

At the beginning of my career I was going through a really weird phase of dressing in boys clothes. I would only wear one American Apparel T-shirt and shorts and brogues the whole year round. Not the same T-shirt, obviously, but one style of American Apparel T-shirt. I think I was going through a tomboy stage.

I've built my wardrobe color palette around red, so I'm happy with it, but I do get pangs when I see beautiful brunettes. I've already been blue, green, black, and blonde.

Maybe in music you're making an auditory environment and maybe you change your environment around you to suit your own way.

I didn't want to become a personality, I wanted to be a musician, but because I didn't have an album to stand by yet it was hard for people to see that. But now, two albums in, I'm happy with things.

I'm a light sleeper. I've never been one of those people who can put their head down and suddenly everything disappears. Nighttime is the time I get most scared, anxious or worried. In those darker moments before waking or sleeping is when I feel most, I don't know, I can turn on myself, and my imagination can take me dark places.