Here are some quotes:

1) FAMILY AND FRIENDS

-Alanis reflected: "I don't think there's such thing as a dysfunction-free family. My parents, I love them, I'd jump in front of a truck for them. But no matter what family you're in, there are going to be some obstacles, and I'd be lying if I said there weren't any."

-Alanis on her twin Wade: "He's the kind of guy who can accomplish anything he sets his mind to. He's one of the most spiritual persons that I know, and we're very cerebrally connected in that way. He�s also very musical, but he's more of an introvert musical person. I don't think he'd necessarily want to share it with the world... but he's great, he's one of my best friends."

-Alanis spoke: "Someone like Glen Ballard and I will always connect on a very cerebral, intellectual and emotional level. I think if, as the saying goes, you can count your true friends on one hand, then you're lucky."


2) DEFENCE MECHANISMS

-Alanis admitted: "Drugs were never a problem to me, because my getting into drugs would have meant that I wasn't perfect."

-Alanis was asked what was her defence mechanism. She answered: "I do a lot of yoga and meditation. Getting centred. It takes me to what I call the fourth dimension, it brings me back to the truth. And the truth is not what has come along with all this craziness."


3) ADVICE TO FOLLOWERS

-Alanis laughed: "The main advice that I would give to young musicians is don't be afraid to fuck up. I sure did!"

-Alanis once advised: "Don't ever mistrust those voices in your head."

-Alanis counselled: "For people who don't have supportive parents or anyone around them, I wouldn't say run away from home, but try as much as you can to listen to that inner voice which says to look out for yourself."


4) ALANIS ON LIFE

-Alanis on life: "I think that it is inevitable that you go through the hard, fucked-up stuff. If you're alive on this earth, it's going to happen, so I'm not worried."

-Alanis declared: "People have always said I was an old soul. They said I was always a little more intense and introspective than everyone was used to seeing girls be, so they didn't know where to categorize me. It all boils down to the fact that I want to walk through life instead of being dragged through it."

-Alanis deliberated:"There's no way around pain. That's part of the charm of being alive."

-Alanis declared: "My whole philosophy on life is that I am not about my external appearance. What I have to say is far more important that how long my eyelashes are."

-Alanis said: "There's not a blue-print for the way I want to live my life. I feel I'm drawing it up right now, but there's really nothing to base it on, you know, there's no handbook on how to deal with road life and external success...much less not to dispel the illusion without seeming spoiled and ungrateful."


5) ALANIS ON LIFE EXPERIENCES

-Alanis pondered: "I never regret anything I do. It's a part of who I am now, and I like who I am now."

-Alanis remarked: "The reason I've arrived at the place I'm at right now personally and spiritually is because I made so many mistakes. And I don't regret any of them."

-Alanis declared: "A long time ago, I've decided to take the positive things that my experiences have had to offer and not bother with the rest. I've always believed you can make whatever you choose out of what life throws at you."

-Alanis reflected: "I think you become a true adult when you can hit rock bottom and then walk away from that experience and transcend it. And until that happens I think you're not fully alive."

-"At that age, you don't know what self-esteem is."

-Alanis contemplated: "As you get older, you get confident that whether people approve of something doesn't really make a difference."


6) IMAGE AND STYLE

-Alanis on fashion: "I don't walk around with heels that are uncomfortable and skirts that are too tight and makeup that's hideous and cleavage sticking out--and worrying about my weight all the time. Now I'm just what I am."

-Alanis on image: "I've been told a few times now that I don't look like my songs. People expect me to have purple hair and a pierced nose and boobs. Then they meet me and I'm just...me. I hate to let anyone down, but I'm not the cleavage sort of aesthetic babe. I've been down that road before, and that's not what I'm about."

-Alanis on society standards: "We're all different. As soon as you compare yourself to a standard, there's going to be 99% of people who fall short. So does that mean 99% of the people on this earth are meant to feel terrible? Standards are created as another obstacle for us mere mortals to overcome and transcend."


7) ALANIS ON HER TEENAGE YEARS

-Alanis and her brothers attended Glebe collegiate, Ottawa's most influential high school. She was enrolled in the Advanced Learning program, and she was a straight-A, honour roll student. She got into the University of Toronto, Carleton University and the University of Ottawa.

-Alanis admitted: "When I was 16 or 17 I was in control of what I was doing in one way, but I didn't stop to think why I was doing it."

-Alanis sighed: "That whole teenage era I would not repeat for a million dollars. I'm glad I went through it and it contributed to who I was as a person. But I would never want to go back to that time."

-Alanis claimed: "I think the norm in the Eighties was to be something you weren't. I fell directly into that category."

-Alanis on her teenage mind set: "I had a perfectionist, over-achieving mind set. And anyone will tell you that if you have that, you are going to be letting yourself down all the time."


8) CONNECTING

-Alanis thought: "The touring has shown me that a lot of people have felt the exact same things that I talk about in my music. That's the connection every artist wants to make, it's what I live for."

-Alanis ruminated: "People relate to me. I don't think I'm the kind of artist who comes across as �I'm a star, you can idolize me.' I come a cross as �I'm human, you can relate to me.'"

-According to Alanis: "Music and art are like conversations for me. It's my drug of choice. Having a mind-fuck of a conversation is for me the ultimate connection."


9) RELIGION

-Alanis mused: "Organized religion is very stringent in most cases. While there are a lot of beautiful things within an organized religion, there are a lot of things that led humans to believe that they couldn't celebrate certain things which were irreverent, that were just human and normal. Testing their moral fibre is their way of figuring out if you are a moral person."

-Alanis confessed: "I remained a virgin because I somehow thought that was the sign of a good Catholic little girl. There was one side of me that was crazy and deviant, and another side that was very held back...for the sake of being a good Catholic girl."


10) ALANIS ON HER MENTORS

-Alanis on Madonna: "I think of Madonna as a mentor who's willing to support me and my music."

-Alanis on John Lennon: "Anything that he does, I've always loved."

-Alanis on Little Earthquakes by Tori Amos: "I cried the first time I heard it."

-Alanis on David Bowie: "I love him just because he has absolutely no regard for whether people love him or not."


11) PEOPLE ON ALANIS

-Laury Schedler on Alanis: "She was a listener, rather than a talker..She didn't talk about herself a lot. She didn't like to brag about anything. And if you asked her how things were going, she'd say �Great! Amazing!' And I loved that."

-Dave Coulier on Alanis: "She has a great sense of humour..She's very introspective, but at the same time a bright and happy person."

-Stephan Klovan on Alanis when he first met her: "She was like 12 going on 30. I found her very mature."

-Madonna on Alanis: "She reminds me of me when I started out: slightly awkward but extremely self-possessed and straightforward. There's a sense of excitement and giddiness in the air around her...like anything's possible, and the sky's the limit."

-Glen Ballard on Alanis: "What struck me about Alanis was that she was so incredibly self possessed. I just connected with her as a person. She was so intelligent and ready to take a chance on doing something that might have no commercial application. Although there was some question about what she wanted to do musically, she knew what she didn't want to do, which was anything that wasn't authentic and from the heart,


12) PASTIMES

-Alanis was asked what she did in her free time. She replied: "I paint, I write, I try to get into nature as much as I can...I get together with my friends as much as I can and we have these deep, intellectual conversations."

-Alanis laughed: "I think the Internet is the Antichrist! I'm apprehensive about this whole technological evolution"

-Alanis declared: "I insulate myself with the people I love. I spend a lot more time on my own than I ever have."


12) ANGER, RELEASE AND REPRESSION


-"People have to be validated when they go through an angry state. When you're hurt, your immediate emotion is to protect yourself and get really angry. But in my estimation, anger is a cowardly expression or extension of pain and sadness."

-"I think anger is part of everyone, but I wouldn't describe myself as angry. I still get angry and frustrated about life from time to time. That's only normal."

-"Society has a history of repressing female emotions. Those emotions are just as valid as happiness."

-"You Oughta Know has an intense sexual theme because I'm venting a lot of frustration that was bottled up inside of me. If anything, the song is about letting yourself go and releasing all your self-imposed mechanisms of control."

-"I think my personality has always been predominantly positive, which is cool and part of me. But I think I also denied myself a whole spectrum of emotions. I did not really accept myself as three-dimensional. I guess now I'm making up for it."


13) HEALTH AND FITNESS

-Alanis on dieting: "Any time you deprive yourself of food or anything for the sake of what society wants you to be, your system, or the universe, is going to make sure you get even more of it than you need."

-Alanis meditated: "Meditation taught me how to get back to the fundamental truth. We get distracted by all that is outside ourselves in this desperate race to "get" something that will make us feel whole and connected. We seek bliss through things (money, status, adulation, other people, etc.) when all we have to do is be still. Because what we so desire is in the silence. It is us."

-Alanis never smokes, drinks, surfs the net or does drugs. She rarely watches TV, reads magazines or listens to the radio. She does admit to be a sexual person.


14) PSYCHO-BABBLE

-Alanis analysed: "The subconscious is a great source for nasty thoughts and lyrics: especially for women because we like to explore our inner demons more than men do. Men hate to go through painful self-analysis but women are almost obsessed with it."

-Alanis spoke: "I know I can't control the external world, which is the reception to what I create. There's an internal world, which is my personal, creative and spiritual development. That's the only thing I can control. I can control how much knowledge I feed myself, but I can't control what happens around me with people's perceptions of it."

-Alanis on the external: "The external world is a lot of illusion, it's what people fabricate because it's in keeping with what their perception of success is."

-Alanis was asked about her opinions on the people who criticized her. She replied: "Light energy is not very loud. Darkness is very, very loud. I have to keep that in mind and remind myself of that."

-Alanis on honesty: "I didn't know what integrity meant when I was younger. But now it simply means you write from the purest place you can tap into. For me, it's a stream-of-consciousness place where I feel like I'm not even writing, the words just come out. Integrity in the music industry means writing from a purely motivated place, motivated by your own evolution and expression, regardless of whether society or people are going to love or hate it, or be indifferent."


15) WEALTH AND FAME

-Alanis was asked if she enjoyed her fame. She reflected: "It's an illusion because fame describes an artificial situation. Your work is known but you yourself are completely distant from your audience. There's a gap there which creates a false sense of mystery. That's what fame is. It distorts your perception."

-Alanis laughed: "My manager laughs at me because I still shop like I'm poor. The only money that I've really spent is on a house in LA which is not exactly palatial. I'm not motivated by the money. I just hope I'll never forget what it's like to feel down and desperate."

-Alanis was asked if she gave her brothers money. She answered: "It's a weird thing when you have money because you're put in this position where you have to make the decisions in a paternal kind of way. You don't really want to give someone money when they're kind of young because you don't want to deprive them of what they could feel by earning their own money--I give to the point where I don't think they would feel deprived of that feeling of earning. But it's a fine line."

-Alanis bought her parents a house. They didn't ask her for it. They were just really grateful.


16) EXTERNAL ADULATION

-Alanis on celebrity outings: "It's very artificial and embarrassing to find yourself in that type of lifestyle. I don't see myself ever becoming a celebrity in that sense. It's not what I'm about."

-Alanis' opinions on success were very different when she was a teen: "When you're 14 and crave music, you believe that if you achieve celebrity and external status then your self-esteem will skyrocket and everyone will love you and you'll get approval. I learned very quickly that the opposite is true. You haven't built such a firm foundation of yourself, and then you throw yourself into this crazy business that looks down on you. Now I feel this real peace with what motivates me. As long as I'm growing and I like what I do, then that's ok."


17) SOCIETY

-Alanis on society: "Society leads you to believe that if you achieve success, whether it is winning awards or selling millions of records, everything is great and you get approval from people...and then you achieve it and nothing is different."

-Alanis advised: "I was realizing that just because society condones something or just because all these adults were giving me advice, that doesn't make what you're doing right. When you make that realization, whether you're 15 or 50, it's pretty amazing. It's going to result in everything being broken down. I recommend it to everybody."


18) LYRICS

-All I Really Want: "And I am frightened by the corrupted ways of this land/ If only I could meet the Maker/ And I am fascinated by the spiritual man/ I'm humbled by his humble nature"

-Perfect: "I'll live through you, I'll make you what I never was, if you're the best, then maybe so am I, compared to him, compared to her..."

-Right Through You: "Now that I'm Miss Thing/ Now that I'm a zillionaire/You scan the credits for your name/ And wonder why it's not there"

-Forgiven: "What I learned I rejected, but I believe again, I will suffer the consequences of this inquisition.."

-Head over Feet: "You're the best listener that I've ever met/ You're my best friend/ Best friend with benefits/ What took me so long.."

-Mary Jane: "Well it's full speed baby/ In the wrong direction/ There's a few more bruises/ If that's the way/ You insist on heading.."

-Wake Up: "There's an obvious attraction to the path of least resistance in your life... There's an obvious aversion no amount of my insistence/Could make you try tonight."


19) AWARDS AND COMPETITION

-Alanis at the MTV video awards: "I just wish shows like this could be less about competition and more about the acknowledgement and acceptance of our artistic differences...and maybe some day it will."

-Alanis on competition: "The whole concept of competition is a weird concept to me. Whether writing from a personal, stream-of-consciousness standpoint or from a purely entertaining place, I can't see why it would have to be compared."


20) COMFORT

-Alanis revealed: "I love doing things that scare me. Because it makes me feel alive and challenged. It makes me feel like I'm growing. Not all of us can be out of our comfort zone 24 hours a day. For whatever reason, I'm happiest when I'm out of my comfort zone."

-Alanis on life on the road: "There was a point when I was constantly out of my comfort zone."


21) HUMILITY


-Alanis observed: "People misconstrued my quiet confidence and the fact that I'm an intense listener for my not having much to say. Then, when I do speak, I have a lot to say because I've been observing so much. I walk this fine line constantly of having respect and being diplomatic with people and then just standing up for myself. Where do you draw the line?"

-Alanis contemplated: "There's a fine line between humility and depriving yourself from how far you've come creatively. I walk that line all the time."


22) JLP

-Alanis on Jagged Little Pill: "I wrote it from a very dysfunctional part of my subconscious that I rarely indulge."

-Alanis and Glen: "It was the most spiritual experience either of us ever had in music. The whole thing was very accelerated and stream of consciousness."

-Alanis on You Oughta Know: "The record is my story. By no means is this record just a sexual, angry record. That song wasn't written for revenge, it was written for the sake of release. I'm actually a pretty rational, calm person."

-Alanis on life lessons: "A lot of times when you're immersed in something painful, you don't realize there's any lesson. A lot of what I wrote about was difficult times from which I walked away a better person."

-Alanis on self-indulgence: "I thought what I was doing when I made his album was extremely self-indulgent. But ultimately that's what every artist has to be."


23) SEX AND LOVE

-Alanis declared: "I demand a lot from men and don't want to be dominated or seduced in the typical ways. Every time a woman wants to assert herself and have an equal relationship she's automatically considered to be a bitch or a ball-breaker. That's the double standard that still exists in our society. Men have to realize that the price of an equal and open relationship is the willingness to listen to and understand women who are determined and self-confident and who are not willing to lie down and get fucked. I don't think it's being aggressive or man-hating to suggest that a lot of men don't treat women properly."

-Alanis mused: "The orgasm is one of the most important forms of emotional and physical release that we have."

-Alanis admitted: "I was a very sexual person and I was active without losing my virginity until I was 19. That was symbolic of my repressive tendencies. I was enjoying myself without letting loose, without fully releasing myself." "I have never met a man who loved virtue more than he loved sex." Ok, Alanis didn't say that, Confucius did. I couldn't resist! ;)


24) RELATIONSHIPS

-Alanis pondered: "When you have a good relationship with yourself, it's only then that you can have a good relationship with other people."

-Alanis proclaimed: "At one point in your life, everyone is co-dependant or obsessed with someone: you make me feel worthy, without you I am nothing. Hopefully, people grow out of it--I have. But at some point, everyone is obsessed with somebody."


25) MISCELANEOUS (some may repeat)

-Profanity is merely an expression of one's emotions.

-As for me, I believe that anger is a cowardly extension of sorrow.

-It's much easier to be angry at someone than to feel sorry for what they have done

-I would rather be regarded as a humanist instead of a feminist.

-There was one side of me that was crazy and deviant and another side that was very held back...for the sake of being the good, Catholic girl...

-I never regret anything I do. It's part of who I am now, and I like who I am now.

-Sometimes, Glen and I are just having a conversation... and we make that conversation a song

-You guys are just so sweet

-Yes, I am a champion at battling against your demons

-I think what winds up happening is that people dip their toes into the pool and it's cold so they just run away, as opposed to diving in and realising that in five minutes it feels really great.

-I want to be walked in life instead of dragged through it

-Peace of mind for five minutes... that's what I crave

-There's no way around pain, that's part of the charm of being alive.

-I think you become a true adult when you hit rock bottom.

-I love conversation, I love truth, I love fear, I love red wine, I lovenature.

-So many times I've been just gripping the steering wheel and driving, and just have a piece of paper on my--where my horn is, and just writing sort of looking up and down. I've done that so much! It'll be worth the crash.

-I've been told a few times that I don't look like my songs. People expect me to have purple hair and a pierced nose and boobs. Then they meet me, and I'm just me.

-Don't ever mistrust those voices in your head.

-There's no way around pain. That's part of the charm of being alive

-There will be people who do not like or give a sh*t about your music and what you are saying.

-I like people in Brazil because they speak looking in the eyes

-What I have to say is far more important than how long my eyelashes are

-The main advice I'd like to give to young micisians is Don't be afraid to fuck up.

-People have always said I was an old soul

-My twenties have been the best years of my life. (already after one year)

-I'm saying what a lot of people would want to say but are too embarrassed

-I think it is inevitable that you go through the hard fucked-up stuff. If you're alive on this earth, it's going to happen, so I'm not worried.

-I know I can't control the external world, which is the reception to which I create. There's an internal world, which is my personal development, creative development, and spiritual development. That's the only thing I can control. I can control how much knowledge I feed myself, but I can't control what happens around me with peoples perceptions of it.

-My whole philosophy on life is that I'm not about external appearance, what I have to say is far more important than how long my eyelashes are.

-We're all different. As soon as you compare yourself to a standard, There's going to be 99% of people who fall short. So does that mean 99% of the people on this earth are meant to feel terrible? Standards are created as another obstacle for us mere mortals to overcome and transcend

-People have to be validated when they go through an angry state. When you're hurt, your immediate emotion is to protect yourself and get really angry. But in my estimation, anger is a cowardly expression or extension of pain or sadness

-At one point in your life, everyone is co-dependent or obsessed with someone: you make me feel worthy, without you I am nothing. Hopefully, people grow out of it - I have. But at some point, everyone is obsessed with somebody

-A lot of people think it has to be greater than the truth in order for it to be charismatic and sought-after, the truth is if you are what you are and your path is such you will connect with a lot of people you will and if you don't you we're not suppose to

-You don't really know how amazing things are unless you have that the contrast of things not having been amazing for a certain amount of time. I happen to like this theory

-Any time you deprive yourself of food or anything for the sake of what society wants you to be, your system, or the universe, is going to make sure you get even more of it than you need

-The subconscious is a great source for nasty thoughts and lyrics: especially for women because we like to explore our inner demons more than men do. MEN- hate to go through painful self-analysis, but woman are almost obsessed with it.

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