"No one tells me how to look. I wear clothes suited to what I'm doing."
"My grandmother - she single-handedly raised a family and went to college at a time when women just didn't do that." (when asked who she admires)
"We're very aware of how treacherous the music industry is, particularly nowadays. The industry doesn't want to encourage fan loyalty over the long term, they just want a quick hit."
"I have never had and probably will never have male groupies, because I think they know that I would eat them for breakfast."
"I think I encourage women to be who they want to be."
"Everybody likes to think of themselves as an individual, the same way we would like to think of ourselves as individuals."
"We're nothing like Curve....When a band is young and it hasn't made its own mark, then people will compare you to others. Always." (when compared to the band Curve)
"It's an exaggeration, I suppose, to a certain extent... No, I think it's the same person, it's just exaggerations of each part of your personality. But I think I am that arrogant f**ker that you see on stage!" (When asked if she is the same person on and off stage)
"Im not the kind of person who walks into a room and sees a steaming pile of shite and doesn't mention it. I like to bring subjects out into the open."
"I love kilts, they're really sexy. Unfortunately, they're so expensive, they're fast becoming extince among the common man. But every now and again you go to a party and there's a bonny lad in a kilt with no knickers on, and honey, there's nothing better than sticking your hand up a kilt and feeling a naked bottom."
Shirley tells a joke: "In Rome a rich man notices that every morning the Pope comes out of the Vatican and visits and blesses the poor people on the street. So one morning the man put on some old tattered clothes and awaits the Pope's visit. The Pope comes out and blesses the poor men and poor women and poor children. As he comes to the man who he instantly recognizes as a rich townsman he says, 'I thought I told you to fuck off.'"
"I always look after my underwear- you never know when it might come off."
When Shirley was asked to describe herself in 5 words: "I am a red head."
When asked about the band Chumbawumba: "Chumbawumba?" spits Manson, "What was it that someone did that was so terrible that the gods decided to inflict Chumbawumba on us? That record ['Tubthumping'] is like a curse on modern humanity. It's truly awful. That woman[Lou]'s vocal... that voice is like a fucking headmistress. It is Miss Jean Brodie! And that song's everywhere, all over the fucking world. You can see why the jocks have latched onto it in America. It's because it's so dunderheaded. It's just sweat, shorts, bad bloody hair, big teeth and... burgers! Horrible!"
"I know that my shelf life is limited - everybody's is - and I want to be able to ensure that when it's all over and done, I can step back and slip into my normal life without it having been ravaged. I don't want to be one of those sad fucks sitting on her couch at forty, not cleaning her toilet or hoovering her stairs because once upon a time someone used to do that for her. I really don't want to be disabled by this experience."
Question to Shirley- 'Why do you think it that you still suffer from - as you put it - "ugly syndrome"?' Shirley- "Well I'm so tired of defending that. It's people saying, Oh how can you think you're this or that when you've got all this? The point is, I suffer from it, I'm not going to make any more excuses for it. I don't think of myself as particularly attractive. I don't know why. If somebody out there can tell me why, please, I'm willing to listen. Or give me some pills and fix it. But if you can't give me a pill to fix it, then so be it. Leave it be."
"I'm charming and sweet and lovely, but I have short fuse."
"...everybody knows that nasty girls are the best shags."
"Boys like to use the word 'pussy', cos it's a soft, safe word, I like to use the word 'vagina', VAGINA, VAGINA, VAGINA!"
"I'm all the woman you'll ever need or want, so learn to appreciate me."
"I'm afraid of happy people. They're chemically imbalanced."
"I can't stand someone who can outdepress me."
"I really wouldn't recommend it to anyone to mess with me. Sometimes I'm surprised how dumb people can be."
"It's easy to be morose and hard to be happy."
"My father's given me one of the greatest gifts ever: an ability to think beyond my immediate material situation."
"I've become very self-sufficient, which is a good thing because I used to be very dependant and needy. I couldn't go into a shop! I swear to God, hee hee! People laugh at me, but I couldn't shop properly, I was so fucked up!"
"I want people to want to hang out with me. I'm really into people, they fascinate me."
"When people are so self-conscious about being cool, that's not cool. That person has been led."
"Aging isn't something that frightens me. Because I've become happier as I've got older, so I associate it with positive things."
"I want hips like a boy. Boys' bodies seem so easy and uncomplicated. They're so easy to dress and use and take care of."
"Somedays, it seems like I get random moods delivered in the post."
"I've been accused by male friends of thinking like a man - maybe it comes from being small-chested!"
"Siouxsie Sioux (from the band Siouxsie & the Banshees) was a goddess when I was 14, I wanted to be like that. She frightened me because she was so amazing. She wasn't girlie, she looked really hard and powerful and incredibly articulate."
"I'd want to sing about periods, but I don't think the boy's would be particularly interested in working all day in the studio on that kind of thing. We try to find common ground."
In the November 12th issue of Rolling Stone, Shirley Manson gives her comments on the Clinton Scandal and how Americans are reacting to it: "So what? He got a blow job. He fucked up. End of story. And they goon about how he can't be a moral compass for America? Show me one single individual who could be a moral compass of any country. There's no such thing. I'm deeply suspicious of all politicians, anyway. I don't look to them for moral leadership. Clinton is not as insular as previous presidents. He's respected internationally. He's done incredible things to stabilize your economic situation. If he has a weird Shakespearean-tragedy arrangement with his wife where she can tolerate his weakness for women, then who are we to point the finger? If they spent $40 million looking into my life, I would be hung, drawn and quartered. The only person I do have sympathy for is his daughter. I just want to know what the three of them...what nature of conversation they have about this. It's beautifully Shakespearean. He couldn't have written a more wonderful, complex play himself. It's got all the elements, all the characters - the peripheral characters, the secondary characters, the main stage. It's fantastic. It's a mixture of Macbeth and Lear. It's unbelievable."