Suzanne Vega Quotes

Don’t make a threat and then not do it.

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

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.

Don’t uncork what you can’t contain

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.

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.

Some girls are taught to be sexy.

I always thought that if I was popular I must be doing something wrong.

There are no rules in fights with girls. Just hurting.

Writing in other voices is almost Japanese in the sense that there’s a certain formality there which allows me to sidestep the embarrassment of directly expressing to complete strangers the most intimate details of my life.

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.

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.

My name is Luka I live on the second floor. I live upstairs from you, yes, I think you’ve seen me before.

It takes as much discipline to be a mother and a wife as it does to do anything else.

I’d like to meet you
In a timeless placeless place
Somewhere out of context
And beyond all consequences.

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.

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.

Yes I think I’m okay, walked into the door again.

You have to defend your honor. And your family.

Last year’s troubles, They shine up so prettily, They gleam with a lustre they don’t have today.

I wouldn’t characterize my work, however, as directly political.

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.

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.

I still consider myself a feminist.

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.

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.

How weird it was to drive streets I knew so well. What a different perspective.

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.

My intellect has always been more responsible than my emotions for how I respond to the world.

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.

If language were liquid, it would be rushing in. Instead here we are in a silence more eloquent than any word could ever be.

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.