A biography for Viv Albertinehasn’t been written yet.
“Female rage is not often acknowledged - never mind written about - so one of the questions I'm asking is, 'Are you allowed to be this angry as you grow older as a woman?' But I'm also trying to trace where my anger came from. Who made me the person that is still so raw and angry? I think that it's empowering to ask that question.”
“I have a lot of empathy, and I think that's where mothering starts. You are there to empathise and facilitate.”
“I get the same lurching thrill now when I'm about to sit down to an egg mayonnaise sandwich and a packet of plain crisps as I used to get when I fancied someone.”
“There's a fine line between brave and mad. But whatever I do, I go for it.”
“Doctors didn't know if I would survive. The cancer was too big to operate on, so they blitzed it with chemotherapy and radiotherapy.”
“Finding another person to love is finding another person to lose.”
“It is soul-destroying to have your work and physical appearance picked to pieces.”
“I hate to say it, but one of the worst things you could be called when I was younger was unfeminine.”
“I've burned all my bridges for the sake of getting as near as I can to the truth. And after years of searching for the truth, you find that that's all you can bear. The truth and nothing but the truth.”
“During my childhood and teenage years, everything I knew was at war. My mother and father were at war. My sister and I were at war. I was at war with my atypical nature, desperately trying to fit in and be normal. Even my genes were at war - the cool Swiss-German side versus the hot-headed Corsican.”
“Look at Kate Bush, Patti Smith, Yoko Ono - three really private people, but when they're on stage or when they're singing, they let go like no one else.”
“There was an angry wave in the '70s, a strong feminist angry wave. I remember thinking - oh my God - I thought it was the beginning of something, and it all went quiet.”
“I think sometimes men find it easier to be a carer than an accessory. I mean, most women I know in bands are pretty lonely. Guys don't want to travel around with you. I know loads of women who do it, but guys don't do it. They're not brought up for it.”
“I'd like to be with someone kind who can hold a conversation and is in my age group. If that's too much to ask, I'll do without.”
“I don't believe in an afterlife. You live on in the people you influence during your lifetime.”
“If my 18-year-old daughter asked me whether she should lead a truth-hunting, artistic, uncompromising life as I have done, I'd say no, don't do it. It's a difficult and lonely path for a woman.”
“I very much wanted a family and children. I came to it late in life.”
“I like to smell a book before I start it. I fold over the pages, write comments in the margins, leave it on the bed next to my pillow when I fall asleep.”
“Women are constantly taught to think about what other people are thinking, from those 'Jackie' magazine quizzes - 'What's he thinking?' - to being a grown adult.”
“I like writing because I can do it anywhere, and I don't need money to do it.”