In a recent interview with WTF with Marc Maron podcast, grunge icon Courtney Love talked about her plans for a new album. Sharing that she’s almost done with the project, Love also revealed that a song about her late husband, Kurt Cobain, will not be included.
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She says she doesn’t want that single track to overshadow her larger body of work, what she calls her magnum opus. But regardless, the two will be linked forever.
Love, of course, is the talented rocker at the side of Cobain when his band, Nirvana, and her band, Hole, were atop the world in the ’90s. But since his death, she’s had to deal with threats, finger-pointing, and nasty rumors. All this despite boasting many rock hits to date.
But here, we going to dive into what Love has said throughout her career outside of her song lyrics. What are her thoughts on life and love, her craft, and the world at large?
Let’s dive into the 35 Courtney Love quotes.
1. “I’m not a woman. I’m a force of nature.”
2. “I don’t mean to be a diva, but some days you wake up and you’re Barbara Streisand.”
3. “I want every girl in the world to pick up a guitar and start screaming.”
4. “Being offended is part of being in the real world.”
5. “Only dumb people are happy.”
6. “The Kurt thing has burdened me so much.”
7. “Being famous is just like being in high school. But I’m not interested in being the cheerleader. I’m not interested in being Gwen Stefani. She’s the cheerleader, and I’m out in the smoker shed.”
8. “Rock is all about writing your own script; it’s all about pioneering.”
9. “Being a rock star is like being a cult leader—you really have to be in your own religion.”
10. “We went through ten years of the Limp Bizkit thing, and I didn’t know what to do.”
11. “I like there to be some testosterone in rock, and it’s like I’m the one in the dress who has to provide it.
12. “I did not want to make the widow record. I still haven’t made the widow record.
13. “You need to write on your own and produce your own life.”
14. “What makes the most money for this business? Dead rock stars.”
15. “My number one thing to work on is not being reactive—but appropriateness doesn’t come easily to me sometimes.”
16. “The only thing that’s really riled me up in the last ten years has been the White Stripes. That’s the one band that’s gotten me competitive, and that’s good.”
17. “I might lie a lot but never in my lyrics.”
18. “But, you know, all good rock is easy.”
19. “I like all the angels around because they protect me and my daughter. I mean, her Dad’s an angel.”
20. “Much of my high-jinx have been drug-related. When you’re under 30, whatever, but once you’re past 40 it’s just ugly.”
21. “It’s a radical time for musicians, a really revolutionary time, and I believe revolutions like Napster are a lot more fun than cash, which by the way we don’t have at major labels anyway, so we might as well get with it and get in the game.”
22. “I’m driven. I am. I’m driven for some reason. But I don’t know where I’m going.”
23. “In rock stardom, there’s an absolute economic upside to self-destruction.”
24. “My mentors are people like Cameron Crowe and Carrie Fisher.”
25. “He was so gorgeous… Kurt. I don’t know how I got lucky that way.”
26. “I like to behave in an extremely normal, wholesome manner for the most part in my daily life. Even if mentally I’m consumed with sick visions of violence, terror, sex, and death.”
27. “I’ll always prefer to play with women and hang out with women, and I’ll always be a feminist.”
28. “Kurt had this dumb suicidal ideation—that’s what I called it. I thought if we could live through this, we could live through anything.”
29. “I’m clean and sober for over a year and no one seems to care! They’re like, ‘Oh, her dramatic weight gain.’ So, stop making fun of me!”
30. “I think Andy Kaufman is to comedy what the Velvet Underground was to music—it’s like, 80 thousand records sold, but everybody who bought one started a band.”
31. “You gotta be able to change worlds.”
32. “I surrounded myself with women when I was growing up because I had this horrible psycho father. Now I’m trying to really appreciate and like men more.”
33. “I am just the classic person who wants to learn stuff. I want good tutors, and with Kurt, I had the best.”
34. “Drugs have nothing to do with the creation of music. In fact, they are dumb and self-indulgent. Kind of like sucking your thumb!”
35. “But let me tell you something. Gloria Steinem never helped me out; Larry Flynt did.”
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