1.
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.
Suzanne Vega
2.
Writing is always personal in some way but not always in a direct way.
Suzanne Vega
3.
If language were liquid, it would be rushing in. Instead here we are in a silence more eloquent than any word could ever be.
Suzanne Vega
4.
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.
Suzanne Vega
5.
I always thought that if I was popular I must be doing something wrong.
Suzanne Vega
6.
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.
Suzanne Vega
7.
A lot of my writing is not terribly civilized.
Suzanne Vega
8.
There are no rules in fights with girls. Just hurting.
Suzanne Vega
9.
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.
Suzanne Vega
10.
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.
Suzanne Vega
11.
I was always inventing characters and making up stories.
Suzanne Vega
12.
I dont think gender is aesthetically defining for me.
Suzanne Vega
13.
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.
Suzanne Vega
14.
Don't uncork what you can't contain
Suzanne Vega
15.
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.
Suzanne Vega
16.
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.
Suzanne Vega
17.
It takes as much discipline to be a mother and a wife as it does to do anything else.
Suzanne Vega
18.
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.
Suzanne Vega
19.
In the end, my pursuit of the elusive New York State driver's license became about much more than a divorced woman's learning to drive for the first time.
Suzanne Vega
20.
You have to defend your honor. And your family.
Suzanne Vega
21.
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.
Suzanne Vega
22.
How weird it was to drive streets I knew so well. What a different perspective.
Suzanne Vega
23.
I still consider myself a feminist.
Suzanne Vega
24.
My intellect has always been more responsible than my emotions for how I respond to the world.
Suzanne Vega
25.
The thing that is most interesting about people is the way they are when no one is looking at them or the way they are when they are in private.
Suzanne Vega
26.
Girls are crazy and mean. They don't fight fair.
Suzanne Vega
27.
Mother my friends are no longer my friends
And the games we once played have no meaning
I've gone serious and shy and they can't figure why
So they've left me to my own daydreaming.
Suzanne Vega
28.
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.
Suzanne Vega
29.
Don't make a threat and then not do it.
Suzanne Vega
30.
Yes I think I'm okay, walked into the door again.
Suzanne Vega
31.
I'd like to meet you
In a timeless placeless place
Somewhere out of context
And beyond all consequences.
Suzanne Vega
32.
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.
Suzanne Vega
33.
Solitude stands by the window
She turns her head as I walk in the room
I can see by her eyes she's been waiting
Standing in the slant of the late afternoon
Suzanne Vega
34.
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.
Suzanne Vega
35.
My name is Luka I live on the second floor. I live upstairs from you, yes, I think you've seen me before.
Suzanne Vega
36.
Last year's troubles, They shine up so prettily, They gleam with a lustre they don't have today.
Suzanne Vega
37.
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.
Suzanne Vega
38.
It's striking how commercially viable that impulse for instant intimacy is right now, especially in songs and writing.
Suzanne Vega
39.
That said, I've never thought the fact that I'm a woman was important to my work.
Suzanne Vega
40.
Today I am
a small blue thing
Like a marble
or an eye
Suzanne Vega
41.
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.
Suzanne Vega
42.
I was the oldest child, and both my parents worked, so I had a great deal of responsibility from a very young age.
Suzanne Vega
43.
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.
Suzanne Vega
44.
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.
Suzanne Vega
45.
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.
Suzanne Vega
46.
Some girls are taught to be sexy.
Suzanne Vega
47.
Of course, sometimes when you write personally, you are also writing about society, obliquely reflecting topical issues, but not in a way that people would expect you to or in the way that someone trying to make a point would.
Suzanne Vega
48.
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.
Suzanne Vega
49.
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.
Suzanne Vega
