Rememberings

by Sinéad O'Connor

But if you could talk about music you wouldn’t need music,

I think you’ll see in this book a girl who does find herself, not by success in the music industry but by taking the opportunity to sensibly and truly lose her marbles. The thing being that after losing them, one finds them and plays the game better.

If I hope for anything as an artist, it’s that I inspire certain people to be who they really are.

People don’t talk, so their feelings fly into musical things. It said, The ghosts are things people don’t want to remember.

J. told me I was never to believe any kind of love was wrong if it was true love and to always be brave enough to tell someone I loved them, because it was brave of me to have told him, and it had made him feel very happy.

not wanting to say painful things that could result in more pain.

We’ve more chance of actually raising our mother from the dead some Easter Sunday than ever getting back what we really lost. Which is ourselves, years before now.

His answers are always silent. It took me a while to come to grips with that. I got annoyed in the early days. I thought the silence meant He didn’t care. So I’d scream more until I was all screamed out and could only be silent myself. I thought you were supposed to hear His voice like in all the stories. I found out the fact is that He can’t speak because He’s crying so much Himself. Who can speak when they’re weeping?

being around her makes me like myself better. Because she likes me,

It is hard for children of abuse to be around each other. Triggers and reminders.

We really are a very messed-up family. We don’t even suit that word, family. It should be a comforting word. But it’s not. It’s a painful, stabbing word. Cuts the heart into pieces. And all the more because it’s too late to go back and do anything differently.

“Do h-England own h-Ireland?” I said, “No.” (There wasn’t time to go into it.) “Well, den,” he said, “nobody own God too.”

But he’s not a snaky person; he’s an innocent. That’s why he can’t bear the world.

I’ve come to realize that if not for nerds, no records would ever be made. There’d just be a load of stoned musicians and coked-up record executives, the latter too busy pleading not guilty to aggravated sexual harassment on the grounds of being over-coked, and getting away with it, to be of any service in the recording process.

I have known him since I was eighteen and he was twenty-eight. And that’s a long set of years. He has always been there for me as a friend even when I’ve been wrong. He has always been my rock. And has always taken care of me.

I’ve never once heard a raised voice in their house that wasn’t singing.

we learn I am banned from NBC for life. This hurts me a lot less than rapes hurt those Irish children. And a lot less than Terry dying. Which happens on the following Monday anyway.

I’ve done only one holy thing in my life and that was sing. Only the business of music is so unholy. After a while they begin to clash. You just can’t work right because you’re in the wrong environment.

My spirit isn’t suited for the business of music.

To women who berate my choice and say I’m trying to conform to Eastern men’s idea of beauty, I point out their bleached-blond hair is the same as a hijab—only theirs conforms to Western men’s idea of beauty. And I suggest if they really don’t like hijab they should shave their heads.

I mean, none of the reporters ever ask him, “Sir, what is wrong with you?” Negligence. The desire to be polite, it’s killing them. And it goes on and on. No matter what he does.