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Amanda Palmer QUOTES

Amanda Palmer QUOTES

1 " When we ask for anything, we're almost always asking for help, in some form; help with money, permission, acceptance, advancement, help with our hearts...

Brene Brown has found through her research that women tend to feel shame around the idea of being 'never enough'... at home, at work, in bed, never pretty enough, never smart enough, never thin enough, never good enough...

Men tend to feel shame around the fear of being perceived as weak, or more academically, 'fear of being called a pussy'.

Both sexes get trapped in the same box for different reasons.

If I ask for help...
I am not enough.

If I ask for help...
I'm weak.

It's no wonder so many of us don't bother to ask, it's too painful. "

― Amanda Palmer , The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

2 " And another local journalist wrote an op-ed wondering if this trend of empathy had gone too far.
Wondering if this trend of empathy had gone too far?
To erase the possibility of empathy is also to erase the possibility of understanding. "

― Amanda Palmer , The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

3 " The pattern's laid out on the bed
With dozens of colors of thread
But you've got the needle
I guess that's the point in the end "

― Amanda Palmer

4 " You can’t ask authentically and gracefully without truly being able to accept “No” for an answer. Because if you’re not truly willing to accept “No” for an answer, you’re not really asking, you’re demanding — you’re begging. At least, that’s how I’ve come to understand asking. "

― Amanda Palmer

5 " ​
Whatever we are given is supposed to be given away, not kept. "

― Amanda Palmer , The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

6 " To erase the possibility of empathy is to erase the possibility of understanding.
To erase the possibility of empathy is also to erase the possibility of art. Theater, fiction, horror stories, love stories. This is what art does. Good or bad, it imagines the insides, the heart of the other, whether that heart is full of light or trapped in darkness. "

― Amanda Palmer , The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

7 " The field of asking is fundamentally improvisational. It thrives not in the creation of rules and etiquette but in the smashing of that etiquette.

Which is to say: there are no rules.
Or, rather, there are plenty of rules, but they ask, on bended knees, to be broken. "

― Amanda Palmer , The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

8 " Brené Brown writes: In a 2011 study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, researchers found that, as far as the brain is concerned, physical pain and intense experiences of social rejection hurt in the same way…Neuroscience advances confirm what we’ve known all along: emotions can hurt and cause pain. And just as we often struggle to define physical pain, describing emotional pain is difficult. Shame is particularly hard because it hates having words wrapped around it. It hates being spoken. "

― Amanda Palmer , The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

9 " Brené Brown has found through her research that women tend to feel shame around the idea of being “never enough”: at home, at work, in bed. Never pretty enough, never smart enough, never thin enough, never good enough. Men tend to feel shame around the fear of being “perceived as weak,” or more academically: fear of being called a pussy. Both sexes get trapped in the same box, for different reasons. If I ask for help, I am not enough. If I ask for help, I am weak. It’s no wonder so many of us just don’t bother to ask. It’s too painful. "

― Amanda Palmer , The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

10 " Sometimes it was like Neil was from an alien planet, where people never asked for or shared anything emotional without deeply apologizing first. He assured me that he was simply British. And that we Americans, with all of our loud oversharing and need for random hugs and free admissions to people we've just met of deep, traumatic childhood wounds looks just as alien to them. "

― Amanda Palmer , The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

11 " Asking for help with shame says:
You have the power over me.
Asking with condescension says:
I have the power over you.
But asking for help with gratitude says:
We have the power to help each other. "

― Amanda Palmer , The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

12 " I boarded the plane and kept writing, unable to stop. the ink flowing to the blank pages to the book were my lifeline. My IV, my only escape from collapsing. In that moment I understood something about my writer husband, that i had never understood before: i had a small glimpse on the act of writing something down as a direct, very viable escape from pain. I had no desire to publish this writing, I wasn´t thinking about an audience. I just needed to do it. Or else I´d weep and not being able to stop weeping. For the first time I experienced the physical truth of what was it like to dwell in the act of creation as an escape hatch from an unbearable reality. "

― Amanda Palmer , The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

13 " From what I've seen, it isn't so much the act of asking that paralyzes us--it's what lies beneath: the fear of being vulnerable, the fear of rejection, the fear of looking needy or weak. The fear of being seen as a burdensome member of the community instead of a productive one.

It points, fundamentally, to our separation from one another. "

― Amanda Palmer , The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

14 " i carried the child for six hours on a big jet plane to the other side of the country, where he is going to spend the next few weeks meeting his extended west coast tribe.
i am not working here. it is hard. when I delve into despair, remind me that it is fine that i'm not working or touring and that i am a fucking new mother who is allowed to take six months off to nurse and cuddle a baby. my good friend Andrew O'Neill once told me something about our mutual hero Henry Rollins. Henry, he said, takes an inhale year (reading, learning, traveling, absorbing) and then an exhale year (touring, working, speaking, art-assaulting).
if I ask you, please. remind me.
this is an inhale year.
this is an inhale year.
over and out. "

― Amanda Palmer

15 " That night changed my life: I was finally experiencing, in person, the songs that had been the soundtrack of my life for the past few years, the lyric-images I'd memorized after hours of headphone-listening on walks to school, the words that had been direct-deposited into my heart though the channel of my ears---I was hearing them here, now, in a moment that would never exist again. "

― Amanda Palmer , The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

16 " The Fraud Police are the imaginary, terrifying force of 'real' grown-ups who you believe - at some subconscious level - are going to come knocking on your door in the middle of the night, saying:
We've been watching you, and we have evidence that you have NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE DOING. You stand accused of the crime of completely winging it, you are guilty of making shit up as you go along, you do not actually deserve your job, we are taking everything away and we are TELLING EVERYBODY. "

― Amanda Palmer , The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

17 " There’s a difference between wanting to be looked at and wanting to be seen.

When you are looked at, your eyes can be closed. You suck energy, you steal the spotlight. When you are seen, your eyes must be open, and you are seeing and recognizing your witness. You accept energy and you generate energy. You create light.

One is exhibitionism, the other is connection.

Not everybody wants to be looked at.

Everybody wants to be seen. "

― Amanda Palmer , The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

18 " I want to live and work alone. If we get married, do I have to live with you? No, he said. Will you marry me? Do I have to act like a wife? I don’t really want to be a wife. No, you don’t need to be a wife, he said. Will you marry me? If we get married, will we be able to sleep with other people? Yep, he said. Will you marry me? Can I maintain total control of my life? I need total control of my life. Yes, darling. I’m not trying to control you. At all. Will you marry me? I probably don’t want kids. That’s fine. I already have three. They’re great. Will you marry me? If I marry you and it doesn’t work, can we just get divorced? Sure, he said brightly. "

― Amanda Palmer , The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

19 " There’s no “correct path” to becoming a real artist. You might think you’ll gain legitimacy by going to art school, getting published, getting signed to a record label. But it’s all bullshit, and it’s all in your head. You’re an artist when you say you are. And you’re a good artist when you make somebody else experience or feel something deep or unexpected. "

― Amanda Palmer , The Art of Asking; or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

20 " You know what’s really cool? Wake up every morning, decide what you feel like doing, and do it. "

― Amanda Palmer