Sinead O'Connor: There's a weighing kind of overemphasis on sexuality,...

I don't believe in any kind of artistic snobbery or musical snobbery. You know, to me, the sexiest and the most spiritual words ever uttered in rock and roll are wop babaloo balop bam boom.

Sinead O'Connor

rocks spiritual believe

I grew up in a situation of extreme abuse, but there was no chance to talk about it, so music became the escape if you like.

Sinead O'Connor

abuse grew-up chance

I don't do anything in order to cause trouble. It just so happens that what I do naturally causes trouble. I'm proud to be a troublemaker.

Sinead O'Connor

causes proud order

I understand that we are actually complicated people but we are also dreadfully simple.

Sinead O'Connor

simple complicated people

I have also Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and I wouldn't have survived that if not for music. So I think for me, music was a soothing thing and it was also a place where you could say all the stuff that you couldn't say anywhere else.

Sinead O'Connor

stress stuff thinking

Women are to be valued for so much more than their sexuality. We aren’t merely objects of desire.

Sinead O'Connor

objects-of-desire sexuality desire

Islam - a religion horribly misrepresented by terrorists, which is like the IRA saying they represented Irish people. Islam is a BEAUTIFUL religion. would make you cry it's so beautiful... and gentle.

Sinead O'Connor

islam beautiful people

In my belief, there's one spirit. I prefer to call it the Holy Spirit. I don't think it matters if you call it God or Allah or Jesus or Fred or David or too early in the morning or whatever.

Sinead O'Connor

morning jesus thinking

Maybe it was mean, but I really don't think so. You asked for the truth and I told you.

Sinead O'Connor

truth mean thinking

The important thing about "brave" is, it doesn't mean you're not terrified.

Sinead O'Connor

important brave mean

At some point the entire population of the earth is gonna have to look back at the kind of essence of spirituality which is basically caring about each other.

Sinead O'Connor

population caring essence

When you dishonor the the utter glory and majesty of black people, you lie. Your heart lies to you and you let it

Sinead O'Connor

heart lying people

Forgiveness is the most important thing. We all have to forgive what was done to us - the Irish people have to forgive. The African people. The Jewish people. We all have to forgive and understand the only way to stop the cycle of hate and abuse is not to allow yourself to get caught in it.

Sinead O'Connor

hate people thinking

When I kissed you, you didn't mind. I thought I tasted of too many cigarettes, but you tasted like wine.

Sinead O'Connor

honesty wine mind

You have to hide what you are and it's really stressful and very bad for your self esteem. Because it's not obvious to people that you are ill, they treat you as if you're a pain in the ass, then you beat yourself up and you are already beating yourself up as a part of mental illness.

Sinead O'Connor

pain self-esteem people

We have a tradition of passing our history orally and singing a lot of it and writing songs about it and there's kind of a calling in Irish voices when they're singing in their Irish accent.

Sinead O'Connor

voice writing song

You must not try to be too pure, you must fly closer to the sea.

Sinead O'Connor

pure sea trying

I love songs, and I love songwriting, and there's a standard of songwriting within Chicago blues in particular. I don't like the sad blues, necessarily; the Chicago blues is what I like, which is the kind of blues you can dance to.

Sinead O'Connor

chicago kind song

What pisses me off is when I've got seven or eight record company fat pig men sitting there telling me what to wear.

Sinead O'Connor

women eight pigs

I was getting a lot of pressure from people in show business about my being overweight because of medication, I was on 200 mg of amitriptiline. When I said this to my doctor, for some reason she took me completely off medication and she didn't really supervise properly.

Sinead O'Connor

doctors pressure people

There's a weighing kind of overemphasis on sexuality, which disempowers music generally, because it silences all the other voices; it makes music a very powerless force for changing the world.