QUOTES FROM TORI
TORI'S ADVICE TO A FAN (survivor I presume)
"You know, he can never take your soul. there can be scars, but he will never take your soul. Your soul is yours. You take it back okay? You keep your soul."
-Syracuse, NY, 5/98
A QUOTE FROM TORI ON THE COLORADO SCHOOL SHOOTINGS
". . .anger originates from envy and outrage: not being seen; not being
heard. Your worst enemies are made when you ignore people."
FROM: WOMEN, SEX AND ROCK `N' ROLL: IN THEIR OWN WORDS by Liz
Evans (Harper Collins, 1994)
"... who's to say what I'd be writing about if I didn't have my
background? Yet at the same time, this is only a taste of what
the church has done for thousands of years. Our whole Goddess
culture has been destroyed, and what has the female deity role
model become? The Virgin Mary! And for our Goddess, who is our
mother of fertility and passion, to be a virgin -- well, what do
we have to live up to? From the starting block, from get-go,
we're minus ten!"
"`Cornflake Girl'... deals with it too. There's a book by Alice
Walker called ~Possessing the Secret of Joy~, and it's about
mothers taking their daughters to the butcher to have their
genitalia removed... Now if we lined all the boys up and cut
their penises off, I don't think it would be lunch as usual! ...
Obviously the whole society is involved, but when is a generation
of women going to rise up, not to fight, not to war, but to
honour themselves and each other?"
"... I used to get really pissed off that my life was so dictated
by when this Jesus guy was born and when he was dying every year.
I felt really resentful that I couldn't get on with my own life,
because I was so busy with his. Of course the real energy of
Jesus had nothing to do with it... There would be prayer
meetings at our house, and I'd think, `How do I escape this?' My
song Icicle has a lot to do with it. It's about how this girl
masturbates just to survive!"
"Now I realize that I do have a choice with my sexual role and
sexuality has so much more to do with things other than penises
and vaginas. It has to do with my connection to the universe and
the earth and my whole being..."
"I don't want to be normal, because normal is about the status
quo, which I don't want to be a part of."
"... the only place where I've never felt guilty or shameful is
when I've been playing. It's the only place where I've felt in
touch with my sexuality and my spirituality and my emotions..."
FROM WHAT! MAGAZINE; UNKNOWN DATE IN 1996
~On Boys For Pele~
"The whole record is about stealing fire and stealing fire from
the men in my life. I wasn't able to admit that at first....."
"Pele is a volcano goddess and the idea is that, pyro that I am,
I seem to be lighting myself on fire and not able to find my
passion. The men in my life and what they gave and didn't give
brought me to that."
"I just trusted that, God, if I'm so consumed by this, someone
else is going to want to come to the party, too. And if they
don't, well, it's a party I had to go to."
TORI'S INTRODUCTION TO NEIL GAIMAN'S NOVEL "DEATH: THE HIGH COST OF LIVING"
It's funny but on good days I don't think of her so much. In fact
never. I never just say hi when the sun is on my tongue and my belly's
all warm. On bad days I talk to Death constantly, not about suicide
because honestly that's not dramatic enough. Most of us love the stage
and suicide is definitely your last performance and being addicted to
the stage, suicide was never an option - plus people get to look you
over and stare at your fatty bits and you can't cross your legs to
give that flattering thigh angle and that's depressing.
So we talk. She says things no one else seems to come up with, like
let's have a hot dog and then it's like nothing's impossible. She told
me once there is a part of her in everyone though Neil believes I'm
more Delirium than Tori. Death taught me to accept that, you know,
wear your butterflies with pride. And when I do accept that, I know
Death is somewhere inside me. She was the kind of girl all the girls
wanted to be, I believe, because of her acceptance of 'what is.' She
keeps reminding me there is change in the 'what is' but change cannot
be made till you accept the 'what is.' Like yesterday, all the
recording machines were breaking down again. We almost lost a master
take and the band leaves tomorrow and we can't do anymore music till
we resolve this. We're in the middle of nowhere in the desert and my
being wants to go crawl under a cactus and wish it away. Instead, I
dyed my hair and she visited me and I started to accept the mess I'm
in. I know that mess spelled backwards is ssem and I felt much better
armed with that information. Over the last few hours I've allowed
myself to feel defeated, and just like she said if you allow yourself
to feel the way you really feel, maybe you won't be afraid of that
feeling anymore. When you're on your knees you're closer to the
ground. t h i n g s s e e m n e a r e r s o m e h o w
If all I can say is I'm not in this swamp, I'm not in this swamp then
there is not a rope in front of me and there is not an alligator
behind me and there is not a girl sitting at the edge eating a hot dog
and if I believe that, then dying would be the only answer because
then Death couldn't come and say Peachy to me anymore and after all
she has a brother who believes in hope.
