Lisa Marie Presley Quotes

• "After my father died, I stayed relatively sane for two years, although I did lose my noodle at summer camp right after my dad's death. But when I hit 12, 13, that was it. I hated my mom's boyfriend, and there was a lot of control on me. I didn't like that, so I rebelled."
• "Anything my father did for me or gave me was done out of love. I'm sure I had moments when I was a snot. But my mom was there to smack me back to the other side."
• "Being Elvis Presley's daughter is a whole lot of pressure. It's been a constant burden in my life."
• "Demented. My sense of humor is only based on irony and insanity. Something completely nosequitor will make me die laughing."
• "Facing the press is endlessly daunting for me. But I am learning to use it to my advantage. If the tabloids come up with the latest ridiculous lie about me - and they always do - then now I can rectify it the following week in a proper interview with a serious newspaper. That's a novelty."
• "For some reason, when I turned 30 I became a teenager again and it wasn't really by my own will, it just happened. I married and had my first baby at 21, so I had it together early on. But I started acting about 15 again when I turned 30. So I guess that makes me 19 now."
• "Having kids was the smartest thing I've ever done. They're little sponges who come into the world with a clean, shiny slate and such pureness. I'm interested in having more kids."
• "How many people have a family grave in the backyard? I'm sure I'll end up there, or I'll shrink my head and put it in a glass box in the living room. I'll get more tourists to Graceland that way."
• "I also did a record because, as I've said, music has had such a huge impact on me all my life, and my hope was to affect others musically the way I was affected."
• "I did go through a Goth thing, but that was a long time ago. I just like artists that shake it up, that piss people off or make people think or rattle the cage somehow."
• "I didn't make this record to set the record straight or anything. I just wanted to put something out there, and I'm glad I have. I'd be having much more fun with all this if I was in the least bit vain or desperate for attention, but I'm not, so, you know .."
• "I do feel relieved. I do feel like I did what I needed to do for myself, and for whoever's out there who wants to be moved by me. I aimed it at people who are willing to be moved by music as I have in my life. It's more about the music for me. It is a relief."
• "I do like to write nasty songs. It's a useful weapon to have, and it's cathartic as well, because I create art out of anger, something positive out of something negative."
• "I don't deal well with admiration if it's for something I haven't done. Other than exist."
• "I don't do yoga. I bite the hella outta my nails. I smoke, I eat all the wrong food, I don't exercise."
• "I don't respond to music that's not honest, and music's had a huge influence on my whole life. It's gotten me through everything. I don't respond to music that's full of crap . Since it's also a therapeutic and cathartic thing for me to write, I'm not going to go halfway or be some puffball."
• "I dropped out of school in the 11th grade because there was no purpose in it for me. I'm not proud of this, and I'm not trying to promote it."
• "I got an early education on how bad men and women can act. Most of those people were sucking the life out of him."
• "I guess having kids when you're young, you have to grow up with them. I had my daughter at 21. They had to watch me go through stuff. It's like, "I'm still finding my way, and I made a lot of mistakes.""
• "I guess I don't get inspired to write when I'm happy. And I don't respond to music that I don't feel was honestly pulled from a genuine place. I'm very much influenced by Roger Waters and Pink Floyd."
• "I had anything but a happy childhood. Two words: lonely and deep. I was very lonely and way too deep for someone so young."
• "I had no interest in hanging out with other celebrity kids, and I was certainly no cheerleader, so I started mixing with outsiders. I was very into all kinds of experimentation."
• "I have a lot of memories, but I don't go into capitalizing on that. Something's got to be my own. I'm not doing the record to sit here and broadcast my memories of my father."
• "I have a tendency to kick it up. I like to rattle the cage."
• "I have never met a man who could cope with me - who I am, the Presley name. I was always the dominant one in any relationship, and it's unnatural for the woman to be the ... breadwinner ... Which is why I ended up marrying someone even more famous than myself."
• "I knew that because of who I am, and the situation I'm in, that I'd attract more critics than your average person, and that was a little intimidating, but I wanted to get out there and pay my dues."
• "I like Jailhouse Rock and Love Me Tender. The black-and-white films. With music, I tend more toward the '70s stuff because I was at the shows for those, so they bring back memories."
• "I liked an Aretha Franklin song and I went into the studio to do a cover to see if I could sing. I basically walked in there and said, 'Let's just try this, and if I can't, let's just walk out of here and act like nothing happened.' You know, I'm pretty brutally honest with myself."
• "I live with selected people I've sort of made into my family and that's my kind of fortress. I know that I'm safe, despite what else is going on in the outside world."
• "I never not wanted to be a singer. Since I was 3, I knew this was what I wanted to do. Well, I can't say I wanted to do it, but I fantasized and thought about it all the time. I never thought it would actually happen."
• "I really went back through a lot of the dark corridors of my life in this. I wanted people to know who I am based on my music, not on what they read in the tabloids."
• "I remember him watching me through the crack of a door singing with a hairbrush. I was in front of his mirror. I think he wanted me to sing. He would get me on the table and make me sing sometimes or play the piano. He was very encouraging on that front."
• "I think I've failed every test I've ever taken. If there was a failure I would have been it."
• "I use songs as weapons. I've written some really good, nasty songs about people I've been involved with and then I make sure they hear it somehow."
• "I want a fingerprint of my own and I want credibility, and that's all I want. I just want some substance to my existence."
• "I wanted to come through with my own voice and, hopefully, have it affect people. I want people to know that I'm not an Elvis impersonator."
• "I wanted to put something real out there to end 35 years of speculation. My hope is that I can break through my legacy and earn my own credentials as an artist. Not for some stupid superficial reason, like I want to be a pop icon, but because it would make me feel more like I could hold my head up."
• "I was quite the spoiled brat. I have quite a temper, obviously inherited from my father, and I became very good at ordering everyone around. I was the princess; the staff were absolutely terrified of me."
• "I was very much a daddy's girl, and was pretty tyrannical when he was sleeping. If I could get into trouble, I would. I didn't have a lot of respect for those people because I saw a lot of debauchery and decadence going on. People trying to hid it from me, but I was onto them."
• "I was very protective of my father and I didn't like these people who hung around outside all day. They creeped me out."
• "I won't say who my songs are about. But the record was written over a four-year period. I can sit and write about something that happened 10 years ago or two hours ago."
• "I write about subjects that are close to my heart, but not every one of them is necessarily about the men in my life. Maybe two or three at most ... That's why I called it To Whom It May Concern. Go speculate."
• "I'll be comfortable on stage if people come because they like the album and they really want to see me. Not because they look at it as a curiosity, or they're really skeptical."
• "I'll say it loud and say it proud. I'm completely insane."
• "I'm a hypochondriac. Yesterday it was brain damage from the vodka the night before. Today, heart attack - my arm and chest started hurting at the same time."
• "I'm doing it because music's been such a profound influence on me and my whole life and gotten me through everything. I thought I could use this album as a vehicle, an outlet of whatever I've been through, and I wanted to see if I could affect others. It's as simple as that."
• "I'm female, thank God, because if I was male this really would be difficult. And, of course, I don't attempt to sound like my father - I do my own thing."
• "I'm just not interested in selling out to get on the charts and make people happy."
• "I'm like a lion - I roar. If someone betrays me, I won't be a victim. I don't sulk, I get angry. I go immediately into retaliation. But it always comes from insecurity or pain."
• "I'm more of a tomboy than anything and then you see your name on these Top 50 Most Beautiful People lists and you're like, "What?""
• "I'm more prone to his '70s material, which is what I was around for and watched a lot. I listen to a lot of that stuff. It probably influenced me quite a bit. I'm more drawn to the darker, sadder songs."
• "I'm not a big mover. Apparently I do have some mannerisms on stage."
• "I'm not doing this to be a pop star. I've had plenty of money and attention. I'm doing it for credibility."
• "I'm not eager to jump into marriage again. I'm in the corner right now, wearing my dunce cap. That area is obviously a nightmare."
• "I'm not interested in attention and I don't like being gawked at. I have no interest in standing out from the crowd whatsoever. If anything, my instinct is to hide, to be reclusive."
• "I'm sure there's no way to escape the fact that I was heavily influenced by him. I was only around his music and him most of the early part of my life. It's impossible not to have been inspired or influenced."
• "I'm the bravest that I've ever been right now. Don't ask me where I got these balls: I have no idea."
• "I'm trying to have my own thing, and I don't know if it's even possible. I didn't realize so many people actually think I'm trying to be like my dad. I read comments like 'She's no Elvis.' I'm not trying to be. I never set out to be."
• "I've been chased through airports with a screaming baby because the photographers are ruthless, and they want the picture."
• "I've been through enough in my time where I've needed to outlet it. If I can do that in a way where I'm going to touch others and affect others then I'd rather do it like that."
• "I've been writing this record for the past five years, and I've written about things that happened during that period."
• "I've produced something that was mine, that I'm proud of, so it helps me hold my head up a bit higher. It's not based on some other B.S. that I'm getting attention. I get attention for the right reasons, which makes me happy with the record."
• "If I put out something that is actually credible, and recognised as such, then I feel a little more justified as a human, you know."
• "If I'm alone too long I think too much, and I'm not interested in doing that. That won't lead anywhere good, I'm sure. If I'm busy I tend to stay out of trouble. An idle mind is the devil's playground."
• "If people are expecting me to be like my dad they're going to be disappointed. I'm nothing like him. I'm in a completely different category."
• "It's rewarding in that I can hold my head up a little higher because people are not just looking at me because of my marriages or the tabloids or because of my lineage. A lot of times people like the music. It's much more gratifying than being stared at for being an animal in a cage."
• "Look at the amounts Ben Affleck has lavished on J-Lo. When Nic opens his wallet, moths fly out."
• "Mostly singing was cathartic, writing was cathartic, therapeutic. I don't think I had a goal, particularly, to sing or put it out there for anybody."
• "Music has always gotten me through life, particularly honest, real music."
• "Music has had a profound effect on me all my life. I wanted to be able to give that to others, believe it or not."
• "Music's always been such a big part of my life - it's always got me through everything and it always moves me - so I wanted to move others in some way, or touch them, and use my art with my own fingerprint in it."
• "My relationship with my mother is fine. It took us a while to get there, but it's fine. Because we're completely the opposites of each other, so we didn't find our place with one another until about a year and a half ago. It's been a bit, like, a hit-and-miss situation."
• "On my US tour maybe three out of 30 shows there was an Elvis impersonator in the crowd but that's it. I usually get younger fans, and those that come that are of an older generation end up walking out because it's too loud."
• "Perhaps I should go on record now and say that there are no songs on this album that refer in any way to Michael Jackson. Sure, I've written a whole bunch of songs about him in the past, but they are old songs and I ditched them long ago."
• "Power or celebrity, you walk a really fine line. It's a struggle to keep your sanity, to keep on a straight line."
• "Scientology explains to me the answers to life, the mind, people, insanity, man, in a way that, to me, is applicable. It doesn't use fear, or suppression or the devil - it's not repressive. Mainly, it's a way for me to figure out who I am. It's a lot of self-discovery; it's not someone you follow or praise."
• "Scientology is an encyclopaedia for life. It's non-denominational, it doesn't judge, it's a lot about self-discovery, and it helped me so much for one reason: it works. It helped me through my drugs, and it helps me still. It's my main anchor in life."
• "Stardom is difficult. It is a lonely, alienated position. You sometimes put yourself on a different plane than everyone else. That causes problems."
• "The lyrics are more conceptual than anything. They're not particularly about a person. They're just metaphorical, conceptual, of a time and place, ideal, life, that I once knew."
• "The reason I did this, and the reason the record is called To Whom It May Concern, is that there are going to be people who will immediately judge me, or label me, or try to shut me down right out of the gate. And it's them versus someone who's moved by the music."
• "When they divorced, I would go out on the road more and miss more school, which I liked. People say I didn't get to see him very much, but I was with him quite a bit. All of a sudden, a car would show up at school, and he was calling for me to go out on the road."
• "With a lot of hair and make-up then I'm possibly, remotely attractive. But it's rare, I don't think I'm ugly but I'm nothing particularly special. I'm not a yoga and health girl. I don't exercise that much and I eat crap and smoke and bite my nails."