Loving Amy Quotes

“I’d stopped trying to work out what was going on in Amy’s mind. To try and make sense of everything was both exhausting and impossible. Whatever Amy felt at any given moment, those feelings were real to her and she acted on them. But to be around her often felt as though I’d been given a role in a melodrama where she was playing the lead part. I went along with it and reluctantly accepted that that was the way Amy expressed herself. But then, a lot of the time Amy was playing a character I didn’t recognise. Her brother rarely let her get away with this and would often confront her about the multitude of personas she brought out at any given time. ‘Who are you now?’ he’d ask her. But all she ever did was pause momentarily before carrying on.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“Regrettably, all that happened was that Blake became another man over whom Amy sought control but who ended up controlling her. Blake clearly loved Amy but I don’t believe he was ever emotionally there for her. That the media built Blake up to be an evil monster was laughable to me. He was a baby boy who had never grown up himself and who demanded unhealthy amounts of attention. Every time he pulled away from Amy, she chased him. It was infatuation. As far as I could see, their relationship had very little to do with kindness or care at that stage and everything to do with co-dependency.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“She was twenty, emotionally immature, and out there on her own. I don’t think Amy ever really got to know herself; regrettably she never got appreciate herself or feel comfortable with herself.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“There was little continuity to their lives, which only became more fragmented when we separated. To Amy, ‘family’ had become more of a romantic idea than something immediate or tangible. It was me, Alex and her now, and she became fiercely protective of that unit. But my feeling was by then that she’d lost faith in family life completely, if she ever really knew what it was.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“Other children seemed to develop a pack mentality around Amy, probably because it was the easiest way to force her back.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“She could barely find her place in the world, let alone at home.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“Seeing it now, it was Amy experimenting with herself. It was a persona that she went on to embellish, but there was no doubt in my mind that having a public face exacerbated an inner conflict for Amy. She was naturally provocative because it attracted attention, but once she’d got that attention she couldn’t control what happened next and then she shied away from it.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“As a mum you never stop worrying about your kids, but I had spent years either saving Amy from disaster or diverting her with the hope that she’d grab an opportunity and run with it, but nothing ever seemed to work. However much time and energy I ploughed into her, Amy wanted more; whatever I gave, it never seemed to be enough. Of course, my mother’s instinct was to carry on rescuing Amy no matter what. Isn’t that what love is? In years to come, my notion of what love is would be tested way beyond that of most parents. In those days, though, I willed myself not to lose faith in her, nor in myself in the process, but I had to accept there was no rulebook made for Amy.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“Amy always tried to maintain some semblance of dignity in front of me. Even so, I never met the same Amy more than once. On some days she behaved like a small child, sucking her thumb, talking in a baby voice and sitting on my knee; at other times she'd adopt the aggressive, butch act, the Rizzo character - the girl who had 'out-Jaggered Jagger'. The more vulnerable she felt, the more pronounced that persona would become. I think she brought her characters out as coping mechanisms, to get her through anxious moments or stressful situations.

In all honesty there was rarely a time at Camden Square when Amy was a whole person. Rather, she continued to be this fragmented girl, a series of creations I suppose I'd become accustomed to.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“Sometimes we figure her out; at other times she is the ball of confusion she always was.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“My God, Amy never held back in presenting herself to the world superficially - taking her clothes off, being the life and soul of the party - but she could never sit with herself long enough to face herself.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“Underneath, I longed to be plain old Janis Winehouse again, the pharmacist from north London who lived an ordinary if topsy-turvy life but who was proud of everything she’d achieved and loved her kids with all her heart.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“I saw a girl whose life was overwhelming her, more than she had ever anticipated.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“She was impossible to pin down, and it struck me that she was living her life as if she wasn’t connected to it. She’d simply lost any emotional connection with herself.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“She wasn’t usually the kind of girl to let things go to her head but success and the public attention that came with it created a fear in her far deeper than the euphoria of winning. All this expectation placed on a girl who couldn't even convince herself that she could deliver, let alone anyone else.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“Inside, Amy never really forgot who she was either; I think it was the recognition that this life in the spotlight was one great illusion that became the most dissatisfying for her. It was all she’d ever wished for, but the reality was so different from how she’d imagined it.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“...the Amy I knew was a regular tomboy; now it was as if she’d turned up in fancy dress. Did Amy even know who she was anymore? In the hectic life she’d now been catapulted into, I don’t believe she ever had enough time to find out.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“There were aspects of her spiralling problems that were difficult to understand, but they were always made worse by the lies she told to the people who loved her most. And, worst of all, the lies Amy told herself.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“I suspect that she was both exhilarated and completely terrified that life was moving so fast for her.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“I’d watched my daughter hatch into this butterfly. Now, just like a butterfly, she flitted around and only landed near me now and again. Every time I saw her she’d settle for a moment, then she’d be off.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“She was twenty, emotionally immature, and out there on her own. I don’t think Amy ever really got to know herself; regrettably she never got to appreciate herself or feel comfortable with herself.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“There’s no doubt Amy met the world with all guns blazing, but, if I’m honest, I’m not sure what people made of her. Everybody expected to see this rotund American black woman in her forties, but what they got was Amy - short, curvy, Jewish, white and only just turned twenty. What a living, breathing contradiction my daughter was.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“I boiled for days. Not only did I hate the fact that she’d married Blake, but I hated the fact that of all the places on the planet, she’d chosen Miami. Not for a moment do I think that Amy would have made the connection. She was in her own ‘Amy bubble’ without a care for anyone other than herself.

Miami? When I had landed there thirty-five years earlier it had been about me finding freedom and fulfilment through working and experiencing the world. I have held onto that positive experience throughout my entire life, steadily improving my confidence and my self-respect no matter what. Now here was Amy, with more professional and financial power than I could ever have imagined, and what was she doing? Throwing it all away by getting hitched to some no-hoper.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“As a mum you never stop worrying about your kids, but I had spent years either saving Amy from disaster or diverting her with the hope that she’d grab an opportunity and run with it, but nothing ever seemed to work. However much time and energy I ploughed into her, Amy wanted more; whatever I gave, it never seemed to be enough. Of course, my mother’s instinct was to carry on rescuing Amy no matter what. Isn’t that what love is? In years to come, my notion of what love is would be tested way beyond that of most parents. In those days, though, I willed myself not to lose faith in her, nor in myself in the porcee, but I had to accept there was no rulebook made for Amy.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“Amy achieved pop stardom by rebelling against the manufactured world of pop music. In the end, she rebelled against everything else too, and turned it inwards on herself.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“Amy came into my life like a whirlwind and changed it for ever.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“She became wildly sentimental and wildy ill-natured. She’d sit in front of me, her short skirt riding up her legs and her sharp bones protruding from her knees. I could see it happening. I could see her tiny body disintegrating, but there was nothing I could do. As her mother, I was completely helpless. I could ring her and I could visit her, but I couldn’t save her. I knew that if I tried to I would lose myself too.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“Amy’s passing did not follow a clear line. It was jumbled, and her life was unfinished- not life’s natural order at all. She left no answers, only questions, and in the years since her death I’ve found myself trying to make sense of the frayed ends of her extraordinary existence.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story

“I worry about the day when Amy stops being alive in my head and in my heart. I don’t want that day to ever come. I don’t think it ever will. I loved her. I will always love her, and I miss everything about her. Amy, bless her, was larger than life.”
― Janis Winehouse, Loving Amy: A Mother's Story