Marianne Faithfull Quotes

“There are so many myths out there about Marianne Faithfull, I had to, um, detach. But I can turn it on because Marianne Faithfull is really an attitude, you know.”

“You do not seem to realize that beauty is a liability ratherthanan asset - that in view of the fact that spirit creates formwe are justified in supposingthat you must have brains. For you, a symbol of theunit, stiff and sharp,conscious of surpassing by dint of native superiority andliking for everythingself-dependent, anything anambitious civilization might produce: for you, unaided, toattempt through sheerreserve, to confuse presumptions resulting fromobservation, is idle. You cannot make usthink you a delightful happen-so. But rose, if you arebrilliant, itis not because your petals are the without-which-nothingof pre-eminence. Would you not, minusthorns, be a what-is-this, a mereperculiarity? They are not proof against a worm, theelements, or mildew;but what about the predatory hand? What is brilliancewithout co-ordination? Guarding theinfinitesimal pieces of your mind, compelling audience tothe remark that it is better to be forgotten than to be re-membered too violently,your thorns are the best part of you.”

“Love as much as you can from wherever you are.”

“Psychology which explains everything, explains nothing.”

“Men in our culture have been spoiled, treated with false reverence instead of respect.”

“And Marianne, who had the knack of finding her way in every house to the library, however it might be avoided by the family in general, soon procured herself a book.”

“We don't know how to be women because we were taught it was not OK to be girls. Our most natural impulses were thwarted and distorted.”

“If a man is unmarried, he is called a bachelor. If a woman is unmarried, she is called a spinster or an old maid. What is it about an unmarried woman that poses such a threat to the patriarchal order? Mainly, it is that women are no one's property when we're unmarried. We're under no one's control, and neither are our children. There is no telling what we might do or say.”

“First we are tested on our strengths, then we our strengths are tested”

“I conquered outer worlds just as he had. I expressed masculine strength and power just as he had. But it didn't bring me closer to him or to others like him because I had become one of the guys, and that's not what most men are looking for. He had never loved me for being a great guy.”