MARTHA WAINWRIGHT

I've always had a tendency to push the envelope as far as it can go without hurting someone's feelings.

I was not that pretty a girl and I was never pursued as a teenager or young woman, so I was used to having no shame and trying to get people to love me.

You have to be willing to give a lot to be in a relationship with me because a lot of the time it's about me.

I'm in hotel rooms night after night, playing a lot of the same venues as my dad and carrying the guitar that used to be his. We're the same person. I don't know if he realises how much of a legacy he has left to his children.

I have a tendency to run after people who are completely unattainable and uninterested and make a complete fool of myself.

You know, people always ask me how I describe my music. First of all I tell them that's their job and then that also one day I hope to have things referred to as Martha Wainwright -esque.

I've learnt to hide my tears on stage. They make people uncomfortable.

My childhood definitely revolved around my relationship with my brother. I wanted to be different. I wanted to find my way of being as intriguing and interesting as he was.

I'm trying to solidify a long-term career, because I have no other skills and no other abilities.

I might not be beautiful, but I'm very interesting!

Being a woman in music and having kids, it's very hard to do both without neglecting one a bit.

I've always been given respect because I'm kind of mannish, and I'm not a great beauty. I've never played the coquette card because I'm no good at it.

I was kind of a misfit, and when my mother died, I had to become an adult, something that I never thought I would ever be.

I wanted to be heard myself, which is hard in a household of people who were very showy. It forced me to find myself and define a personality and a way of being different, and that's a thing that's going to help me to survive in a world of many people playing the guitar.

I don't like talking about music.

I think my mother was always worried about me when she was alive.

I've spent the first part of my life in the shadow of my family. I'm not going to live in the shadow of my husband.

I'm not very prolific. I'm not good at sitting down as an artist and saying 'Okay, I need to put in my four hours today.'

I have learned to write about things that are personal without objectifying anybody or anything, and that's been an important lesson for me. It's useful not to dump on people while simultaneously expressing a truth or a feeling if it's necessary, without diluting the intensity of the lyric.

I went to college and stage school, and thought about acting, but... I just don't like actors very much! They're not as fun as musicians.

It's better to embrace your roots than it is to fight it, because then you're just fighting something that you're not going to win. We're like a band of gypsies, and it makes sense.

When I listen to my songs, they seem like pieces of music or art, like a painting that you look at. The reality is that, yes, when I wrote the songs upstairs or wherever, I was writing very specifically about my life or a specific subject matter that's very personal. I've never shied away from that. The vocals and the performance that come after the record, I don't think of that as confessional, but the core of the music is completely. It makes sense that people would see that as being the main thing. I guess not everyone is able to speak so candidly.

I tried to find a way out in many ways, but it all caught up with me. Once I realised I could sing and write songs, it was just so much easier to do than anything else!

It can often happen that motherhood can really stop a lot of women in their tracks and I wanted to try and keep working through that as much as I could.

I play in bars all the time in the States, so I'm kind of used to it. I've just got off the road with the family in Australia, and I enjoyed it but it feels really good to be getting back to doing this stuff.