Alanis Morissette

I try to keep a low profile in general. Not with my art, but just as a person.

We'll love you just the way you are if you're perfect.

Beauty is now defined by your bones sticking out of your decolletage. For that to be the standard is really perilous for women.

Do I appreciate the idea of jealousy, revenge and all these so-called dark qualities? Yes. Do I write these songs in order to engage in some public war with someone? No.

My message to anyone who's afraid that they can't write music when they're happy is 'Just trust the passion.' The passion can write a lot of things.

I didn't want to be one of those women who wake up at 63 years old and realize they've missed the window of opportunity for marriage and children.

I was so ready to become a mom. Actually, I was ready secondarily to become a mom. I was so ready to have the intimacy and commitment of marriage.

Courage and willingness to just go for it, whether it is a conversation or a spontaneous trip or trying new things that are scary - it is a really attractive quality.

A good man often appears gauche simply because he does not take advantage of the myriad mean little chances of making himself look stylish. Preferring truth to form, he is not constantly at work upon the facade of his appearance.

I still indulge in a glass of wine or chocolate - treats are mandatory. Without deviating from the day-to-day healthy diet once in a while, it wouldn't be sustainable for me, and that's what I wanted: an approach to eating to last my entire life.

For four to six months at a time, I would barely eat. I lived on a diet of Melba toast, carrots, and black coffee.

The spirituality that I experience sometimes touches on religion, in that I resonate with the thread of continuity that permeates through all religions. But in terms of it being a concretized, organized part of my life, it's not.

I think a common misperception about attuning and tending to a child's needs so constantly is that they don't grow in their independence, but I think that the opposite is true.

Getting married and starting a family has been a lifelong goal and one that I have persevered through different paths up to it!

And if I had a preference, it would be to be able to not be in the studio until 4 in the morning.

We're taught to be ashamed of confusion, anger, fear and sadness, and to me they're of equal value to happiness, excitement and inspiration.

Canada has a passive-aggressive culture, with a lot of sarcasm and righteousness. That went with my weird messianic complex. The ego is a fascinating monster. I was taught from a young age that I had to serve, so that turned into me thinking I had to save the planet.

As a teen, I was both anorexic and bulimic.