I said to my teacher, ‘I can’t be a singer because I’m not pretty enough, and I’m fat.’ And she looked at me and said, ‘Tell that to Nell Carter, babe.’ That changed my life forever!
BETH DITTOGirls are taught to sing high and pretty, like Antony, not low and from the guts like Nina Simone. But we’re slowly trying to change that. There are so many things we’re not told growing up, and it’s our true feminist responsibility to take the truth to the people who need to hear it.
More Beth Ditto Quotes
-
-
I mean, if I was living to please people, I’d have never been in a band at all. I wouldn’t have anything awesome around. I’d just be bored.
BETH DITTO -
If you have a therapist who agrees with your every word, then your brain isn’t getting proper exercise.
BETH DITTO -
When I was a teenager I would lock myself in the bathroom for hours, bouffanting my hair like Patty Duke and trying to recreate Barbra Streisand’s flawless eyeliner, only to comb it all out and wash it all off before stepping out into the world a butchish bisexual teen.
BETH DITTO -
I have been 130 lbs. as well as 215 lbs. I have had blond, strawberry blond, green, pink and purple hair, and none of that has ever exempted me from having lewd comments flung at me in the street.
BETH DITTO -
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.
BETH DITTO -
To be thin and to stay really thin, sometimes some people literally do coke all the time. Some people smoke cigarettes instead of eating. That’s crazy. But that’s ‘okay’ because you look healthier.
BETH DITTO -
Barack Obama was amazing, but he wasn’t perfect. We all know that. He was the closest thing to perfect America’s ever had. We were basking in the glow. We forgot that there’s always going to be a backlash within a movement every time.
BETH DITTO -
A beautiful plant is like having a friend around the house.
BETH DITTO -
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.”
BETH DITTO -
Because I didn’t have any queer, lesbian, female role models I hated my own femininity and had to look deep within myself to create an identity that worked for me. Pop culture just doesn’t hand us enough variety to choose from.
BETH DITTO -
I have no control over what people think of me but I have 100% control of what I think of myself, and that is so important. And not just about your body, but so many ways of confidence. You’re constantly learning how to be confident, aren’t you?
BETH DITTO -
When you get a certain amount of media attention, I think people are like, “Where’s your other album?”
BETH DITTO -
When I moved out of my mom’s house at 18 I was almost as sad to leave her sewing machine behind as anything else.
BETH DITTO -
I hate to do what I’m told, that’s why I’m not good at 9-to-5s.
BETH DITTO -
As with most phobias, the fear of flying does make some sense, but if ever there was a fear worth quashing then this is it. After all, life is short, and there’s a great big world to explore out there.
BETH DITTO







