I knew that if I wanted to stop being a pushover I had to get comfortable with small rejections myself. That took some work, but because of it I can now say no to other people with a clear conscience.

Beth Ditto

Categorized in : People Rejection Clear Conscience

I want to make the IKEA of clothes for fat girls and boys. Cheap, affordable, basic - but ethically made. Basics, you know? Like Spanx - I'm still confused as to why retailers haven't ripped them off yet and done it well. It's because they don't understand the basics behind it. I love Spanx. I'm wearing 'em right now!

confused girl boys

My mother told me Homer Ditto was not my father. Nope. Mom had had a fling with some other guy who was my dad. Some dude who didn't stick around too long who Mom was happy to get rid of. She chose Homer, and Homer chose me, so he lent me his name even though I didn't have his blood.

dad mom mother

I think if the world were a fair and just place, there wouldn't e... by Beth Ditto

I think if the world were a fair and just place, there wouldn't even need to be a gay label.

gay needs thinking

My life hasn't been conventional and it hasn't been linear. I've had to make it up as I've gone along, which has taught me a lot. If you don't accept the obvious options that are laid out for you, it's up to you to work out where you're going and to create your own specific rules and goals.

taught work-out goal

Just like my straight friends, I am repeatedly asked when I plan to have kids, and have been told many times, by various branches of my bloodline, that "even lesbians can have babies these days."

branches baby kids

In moments when I question if I should be having kids, I think of all those phone calls from my sister-in-law, in which, 3,000 miles away, I hear my nephews screaming for her attention. I tell her I have to go because I am packing to leave for Europe, and her tone flatlines: "That must be nice."

nice kids thinking

I don't love the word luxury because it feels Bougy to me. by Beth Ditto

I don't love the word luxury because it feels Bougy to me.

luxury feels

I've never had a very quiet voice. I tried in choir to make it smaller, and it just didn't work out. And I listened to a lot of soul music when I was growing up on my own accord. But I was mostly into Mama Cass and Gladys Knight, and they all had big voices too; just different than mine.

quiet-voice growing-up knights

I've had people ask me in interviews what it's like to have money, but that's not how it is. I have a middle-class life. I have a room in London but not a house, nor a BMW.

bmw class people

I'm constantly thinking about what I'll do next. I never count on music being a career of longevity. I mean, longevity is key, and I hope that it lasts, but you just don't know, because it's not in your hands, you don't make the decision.

keys mean thinking

A weird thing about Gossip that I've always said: "If I weren't in this band, I would never listen to it." But I would go see it. It's a band you would go see that you don't necessarily listen to.

gossip weird-things band

I'm a feminist, of course, and I feel as if I'm very politically correct, although I do question what's PC and what's not - I don't just accept what I'm told.

feminist accepting feels

I worshipped Ethel Merman and I worshipped Ethel Merman a lot. It's incredible - Ethel Merman was a conventional singer. Her naming her child Ethel Merman, Jr., was, to me, one of the coolest feminist things.

singers feminist children

High school wasn't so bad though because, by then, I had worked out that there were far more nerdy kids and poor kids than there were rich, popular kids, so, at the very least, we had them outnumbered.

rich kids school

The thing about being on the majors, from the beginning, going into this, I was like, "I'm not going to be treated like a factory," because that's never the way it was done before. You're talking about a major label, we're talking about serious business; you're not an artist anymore, you're a business, you have to work in terms of product, you have to release a product, and I don't really think that way at all.

artist talking thinking

Do I ever think Gossip will be really massive in America? No, I don't think it'll happen - and that's fine. It's kind of nice because I get to experience everything at once. I get to come home and it not be weird, like in Paris or something. It is nice to be completely anonymous.

nice home thinking

I think from a major-label perspective, if you were on the flip side of things and that's the world you were used to working in, your interpretation could be, "Oh, they're having trouble writing songs," when really it's like, "No, I'm not ready to write songs, I don't want to write a song right now, if I did write a song, it would be forced."

writing song thinking

I hate to do what I'm told, that's why I'm not good at 9-to-5s. by Beth Ditto

I hate to do what I'm told, that's why I'm not good at 9-to-5s.

i-hate hate

Someone told me once that Lucinda Williams takes six years between albums, and that's what stuck to me; it's like, you really are a factory. You don't do things to make them, on your own time.

albums six years

When you get a certain amount of media attention, I think people are like, "Where's your other album?"

media people thinking