Jewel Kilcher Quotations

I have kept this page largely because the ideas are wonderful, but because of time constraints imposed on my own life, there will be no further updates to this page. Her words stand on their own merits.

      
C: "I mean what things might have made a difference for you, and what things,
that if someone is ten years younger than you are- you're about 22/23- is 12 or
13 and watching this TV and watching you, and desperately feels a creative
spirit, you know.  What do they need, you know, what mistakes did you make or
what did you learn along the way?  ...you know, becoming a teenager at 13 and
22?"
J: "I think that um, two things.  Knowing there really aren't mistakes, to be
very adventurous and brave in your life.  Love bravely, live bravely, be
courageous, there's really nothing to lose.  There's no wrong you can't make
right again, so be kinder to yourself, you know, have fun, take chances. 
There's no bounds."
               -Charlie Rose and Jewel Kilcher from an interview on the Charlie Rose
                Show.
        
  
"I felt in my life very suffocated and smothered by my circumstance.  Your life
becomes what you believe.  I was living in a house with my mom and my younger
brother and we were all sharing rent and wasn't really making rent.  Didn't get
to eat, I scraped food off of people's plates where I waitressed, I stole
toilet paper from fast food restaurants...  I got fired from my last job and
that was it.  My mom was like we're just going to do what we love, and we're
gonna just have faith.  So I lived in my van, and she lived in her van.  And I
decided, fine, I'll die, but I want to go to college.  I'll die, I don't want
to go to work and waitress.  I want to do what I love only.  I love singing, I
never really thought I could make a living at it, it was dreaming.  Zen,
Buddha, God, Jesus, Trees, whatever is out there, what I want is.  I want to
make a living doing what I love, you know?"
        -Jewel Kilcher from the CBS 1997 Grammy Awards Preview show  (pt 1)
        
        
        
"We live our lives in front of each other.  When I was living in my car and
record labels started coming down, I listened back the tapes and I wasn't good,
you know what I mean, but I was really sincere.  And that's what people really
wanted.  And all you can do is be honest, I think, you know as long as you're
working toward it, you're going to make mistakes but that's alright.
It's like a jalopy winning the Indy 5000.  It's a tremendous honor, really a
tremendous honor.  I feel silly, I think I'm the big dork up there, you know?
(laughs)  It's something I wasn't even planning or counting on or even hoping
for.  Even a nomination is I'll never get one nomination.  Ah, so it's
stunning.  It takes a variety of artists to move and change society because
everybody's at a different place to be touched.  Um, so I'll feel good that
anybody wins, really honestly.
You always feel better when you sing.  Music touches people's hearts.  You
know, it doesn't go through your mental capacity, it just moves you and it will
let you cry.  It's worth it doing a show and when you touch a crowd and move
yourself at the same time.  You change lives and you change the world."
        -Jewel Kilcher from the CBS 1997 Grammy Awards Preview Show  (pt2)
        
        
        
H: You know there's sort of this thing that's been made, you were living in a
car and you were struggling and you were working in coffee houses.  Was there
any romance in that struggle, was there anything that was pleasing or was it
all just struggle?
J: I'm in love with the fight.
H: With the fight?
J: Everybody is, not _a_ fight but the good fight.
H: Right.
J: You know, once you start working for yourself, you know...  working for
bosses where you get sexually harrassed while waitressing... no, that wasn't a
good fight.
H: (jokingly) I know, that used to happen to me, ah...
J: (jokingly) I can tell.
H: ...constantly.
J: But when it was in my car and it came down to, like I'm going to die or do
something I love because I could not longer face consciousness everyday doing
something that doesn't fill me with any passion... because people shouldn't
compromise their pride and health just to have roofs over their heads.  And
when you get to that point where you're willing to die for it, nothing else
matters.  It's very hard to starve you know?
H: I don't think most people look at it in terms of that, I think they don't...
uh... when people try and get a roof over their head or things like that it's
not so much about compromising their integrity as much as it is about just
protecting their basic needs, you know... food, water...
J: No, but that _does_ compromise your integrity.
H: You think?
J: It does compromise your pride.  It's when you control one another...
H: So you would advocate for people who have jobs they don't like, to get rid
of that, to get rid of the debt... get in a car and drive and see what they
want to do...
J: I think each person knows what's good for them.  I don't think you need to
be drastic.  But it's finding where's passion in your life.  We can't live
without dreams, we _are_ spiritual people, it's undeniable.  You know what I
mean?  And we can't live without that.  It's really what feeds us and we
shouldn't spend our energy worrying about survival.  We should worry more
about...  We're creative human beings.  We create cures for diseases, we create
arts, we move and change people, and we kill people.  You know what I mean?
We should be thoughtful.
H: And yet then, how do you explain the TV show 'Wheel of Fortune?'
J: (laughs)  Thoughtlessness!
                 -substituting host for the Tom Snyder Show (Jon Stewart) and Jewel Kilcher
              (Jan 24 1997)
        
        
        
H: But I always feel like we can't have a society just filled with dreamers and
people of creativity, because you know you need someone to clean up after you,
after you've been dreaming.
J: But you see, that's the thing... cynicism isn't smarter, it's only safer.
You know what I mean?
H: Sorry?
J: Cynicism isn't smarter, it's only safer.  There's nothing fluffy about
optimism.
H: Wait a minute, where's my pen?  Jeez!
J: (laughs) Shut up...
H: Wait... cynicism isn't, eh, smarter... it's only...
J: (laughs) safer.
H: I don't mean that cynically, I mean that actually pragmatically.  I mean
that more in pragmatic in the sense of...
J: But people have the idea that optimism is fluffy, like you're going to have
all these people like walking around in hippy clothing and utopia.  No it's
very practical.  It's just a matter of people being more fulfilled and more
whole as human beings.  Going this...  I _know_ my feelings, I know what I'm
talking about.  I know how to relate to you without hurting you.  No, it's
very... it's all very practical.  It'll make the world run better, you know?
H: (laughs)
J: (smiles) It's all fluffiness.
H: I'm seeing infomercial and you in Hawaii with a big crowd...
J: (laughs) with a hair care commercial...
H: Exactly.
        -substituting host for the Tom Snyder Show (Jon Stewart) and Jewel
         Kilcher 
                (Jan 24 1997)
        
        
        
"How does it happen, how do you write a song?"
"It comes from an emotion- I get an emotion in myself, and then I pick words
that match that cord or vibration or whatever it is, as long as it's that
color.  And if the word doesn't fit in... you know... if it doesn't *exactly*
give you that twinge, or that feeling of relief, then it's the wrong word,
and you just come in around it.  It happens pretty quick."
               -Lauren Hutton and Jewel Kilcher


"One of my favorite works was Plato's "Symposium"... and I really liked it
because it suggested in that that through love and through beauty we achieve
immortality, only because as art [it is] one of the most conscious and honest
expressions of ourselves...  But if we really put all of our passion into 
something, it will breathe, like a good sculpture, like a good Michelangelo, or
Klimt I love.  So what a beautiful thing to make your life your artwork, you
know... and to really pull in every experience you want and need and take that
kind of conscious control over it."
               -Jewel Kilcher on the subject of immortality  (From the LH Show)


"Do you believe in reincarnation, of a Way?"
"Do I?"
"You said your mother was an old soul..."
"I believe in reincarnation...  I don't have any strict belief system... I
believe in charm... I believe in magic... I believe in hope..."
"Do you believe in women in government?"
"I believe in everything, I'm not particularly a feminist... I consider myself
a humanist.  I don't like drawing the lines between us anymore. I recognize
its value in history and I'm very thankful for it, but I'm also tired of
being angry.  I'm tired of separating us anymore.  There's all thought
possible, there's all realities possible and I don't find one inconsistent or
one that can't work with another."
               -Lauren Hutton and Jewel Kilcher
  

In the tenth grade, I was fascinated with the question "what was immortality?" 
I read numerous philosophies, but the theory which has stayed with me was that
of Plato, the Symposium.  The idea that through Love and Beauty we achieve
immortality.  Putting all our soul in our work makes it not only alive with
passion and emotion, but also it exists as one of the truest and most honest
expressions of self.  Making life a beautiful art, the art then retaining life. 
I still believe Beauty is one of the most important and difficult things to
create and express.   
               -Jewel Kilcher on "Painters"
 


"I love life and I love that about people... I adore the human experience, I
really adore the darknesses... I love the contradictions of people... I don't
mind being sexy and girlish and womanly, and all those things at the same
time...  smart and very naive, you know those kinds of things, I like them 
about people...  I like our rough edges."
               -Jewel Kilcher after reading her poem "Las Vegas"  (From the LH Show)



"We become what we're told... you know... the song "Daddy" in my music is
a song about that... you become... you have soft bellies as a child and if
your parents are one way, you become it.  And we're very influenced, we're
very influence-able and tender, and to realize that we should protect 
ourselves...  Innocence isn't something that's lost, it's something that's
maintained and we should maintain our innocence."
               -Jewel Kilcher, from the Lauren Hutton Show
 


"What's the story behind 'Daddy?'"    
"Daddy, my poor father.  We live in a small town in Alaska and everyone thinks
it's about him, it's actually about when I was seven years old and went to 
a friend's house for dinner... and... we went to the kid's room to watch TV and
we watched my favorite show which was the Jeffersons... and... the father 
came in the middle of the show and turned the TV off and punished the children
because they weren't allowed to watch black people on TV.  And I had never
heard of such a thing in my life.  And I wrote the song years later wondering
if they had become like they were told.  Cause we're not started like that,
it's not natural.  We learn it."
               -Lauren Hutton and Jewel Kilcher

 

"You have to realize: ok, I don't know how to solve a political problem, I
don't know how to solve the pollution problem... all I know is in my own life,
I need to figure out some sense of purpose, I need to figure out how to
be happy... and I'm willing to give up looking at all you and trying to do 
everyone else's laundry and look at myself and what do I need...  and that's
*profound*.  We point so many fingers and go 'this person isn't... are you 
blah blah blah?"  If we all just took care of ourselves it'd be very
efficient...  all I can do ultimately in my own life... all I can speak
is from my experience."
               -Jewel Kilcher, from the Lauren Hutton Show

 

"Reality is a funny thing, you know...  Reality is what you believe; believe
it to be.  It's what you put your thought and energy into, because your hands
physically manifest thought.  So your world becomes what you feel and what
you think."
               -Jewel Kilcher, from the Lauren Hutton Show



"It was such a shock to realize, that when I was living in my van and praying
to Buddhism, whatever, anything: please let the dream come true for me, please
let me support myself by living my passion, let me eat every day doing 
something that I love... that *moved* people.  That actually reminded people to
live that in their own lives, and people who came to my little show, where
seventy people fit in a club, you know, go, 'you know I hadn't written poetry
since I was eight years old 'cause my dad said it was stupid, but here's my
first poem I want to give you'...  and it still makes me cry, and when I sing
that's why I sing, because I was given a great gift that I get to live the
way I actually want, and that's beautiful."
               -Jewel Kilcher, from the Lauren Hutton Show

  

"We are each others angels in the way that we answer each others
prayers and we can also make each others lives miserable."
        -Jewel Kilcher



"In nature, where everything has such intrinsic balance, spirituality
should reflect the same balance, and you should live in balance with your
sexuality, with your mind, with your intellect, with your heart, as with
your spirit."
        -Jewel Kilcher, from Special to The Globe and Mail, Dec 7 1998



"In silence you hear who you are becoming.  You create yourself."
      -Jewel Kilcher



        The things you fear
              are undefeatable
        Not by their nature
              but by your approach
        -Jewel Kilcher



"In the end only kindness matters."
              -Jewel Kilcher


        
"My fellow music lovers-
        
I can't begin to portray to you the feeling of a dream coming true- I know it
sounds corny, but it's so true. And useful. I was just a girl who was tired of
waitressing and people believed in me and fed me by coming to my shows. Without
my friends in San Diego, and now this incredible new group of people across the
country I would still be hungry in my van. Now I'm just hungry in a rent-a-car
in 48 states in 40 days- but my heart loves it! 24 hours of this a day is
better than three hours of waitressing. Sometimes record labels think they sell
albums- but they don't- they help, but it's you guys who help me. So often our
dreams become our hobbies and it deadens our passions. I love my life and want
to thank you all. I know our lives are separate and that none of you have to
care about my happiness, but that you do things like taking the time to call
radio stations means a lot to me. I hope I can give back as much as I'm given.
I wrote a song I'd like to dedicate to you all. It's called 'Deep Water.' I
hope you can all hear it one day."
        -Jewel Kilcher