Quotes by Melanie Martinez

Cry Baby is very close to my heart. I feel like I am her in a lot of ways. I want to continue making music from her perspective.

I really loved taking photos when I was younger. I think my love for photography sparked my love for creating the visuals to support my music.

I've always been a fan of telling honest stories.

I'm just happy I got to express who I am as an artist and touch people's hearts.

To me, I absolutely cannot stand Twitter. I hate it more than anything.

It's one thing to ask for a picture, but to just take a picture of me is kinda weird, guys.

Please understand that I make music to express myself, and if you know anything about me, you know that I'm nothing but honest.

It's really hard for me to finish a song unless I have a strong visual in my head while I'm writing it.

I want to put out as many albums as I can before I die.

I didn't have any real idea that I was going to be an artist; I had no idea what that meant.

I liked singing and just took a chance with it.

I'm happy that I don't have to do covers anymore, because that's not what I do.

I'm not necessarily a happy singer. That's not who I am as an artist.

I've always been super into photography and the visuals that support my music.

I auditioned for 'The Voice' because I really wanted to try and figure out a way to get myself out there. I really couldn't imagine doing anything else -- music was the only thing that I really clung to.

I wanted people to understand that I have my own music, and I didn't want to sing other people's songs at shows.

I always have felt that I was six years old.

Growing up, I always took things too personal and was very emotional, and I got made fun of for it.

I would love to collab with The Weeknd, for sure.

Remember that I am a human.

When I started, I was very unsure of who I was. There were a lot of things in the songs that I didn't realize I was saying. But more and more, it fell into place... I got more comfortable in my skin.

I definitely think it's cool being Puerto Rican and Dominican, but I feel it has no influence on my music.

I don't like a lot of pop music. But I like the idea of pop music.

I think if you're going to cover a song, you should definitely take it apart and put it back together as if you wrote it. I don't think you should sing it the same way that the artist sang it -- that's kind of pointless.

With 'Pity Party,' it's the first time seeing my vision come to life in front of my face. I'm super happy about it.

I'm really stubborn, and I'm okay with that.

I think that 'Cry Baby' came from a nickname I was called as a kid.

My parents were super strict, so I didn't have a lot of freedom to hang out at parties or anything like that. I didn't get invited, and I didn't have many friends.

There's a heavy hip-hop influence in my music, some trap influence, but it's always lyrical.

Working on this album has been very emotional and super personal, and creating this character 'Cry Baby' helped me deal with my own insecurities.

I got a lot of very bad hate on social media from some people from my school. I think people thought I changed because they saw me on TV. They weren't close enough to know that I was still the same human being... When I walked at graduation, I got booed. It was kind of stupid.

My whole mission in general, ever since I was fourteen, was to write music that would help people heal.

I used music as therapy and embraced being a cry baby.

I wrote about scenarios that I was going through and then disguised them.

I was always called a cry baby, and I was one. I cried a lot as a child. In fact, I still cry a few times a day. I'm still a cry baby.

I only wear vintage clothing. I'm pretty obsessed with things in the '60s, like fashion and music, too.

I'll always cling to these little girl dresses at vintage shops, and I can never wear them because they're so tiny!

I always cling to things that remind me of being a kid again.

I have to stop eating so much grilled cheese and chocolate chip cookies and start really working on everything!

Once I was done making my album 'Cry Baby,' I knew I wanted to make a vintage-inspired baby bottle perfume.

I had a lot of Barbies growing up, and a lot of porcelain dolls, but I was scared of them. I was so scared of them, I would try to turn their head away and would make my mom take them out of my room.

I had been writing songs for awhile -- since I was 14 -- and playing guitar, but I never really knew how to go about making an actual career.

I always try, when I'm singing songs, to interpret them the way that I would've arranged them. I think about the melody first, and then I pull out my guitar and start singing it.

I love directing my music videos and writing video treatments, and I think it's all just because I love the visual aspect of it as well.

I went to the carnival a lot. The carousel was my favorite ride as a kid.

I don't really think about what people think of my music, and how they listen to it or what my demographic is.

And still as an adult like I do as well, you know what I mean like I literally just cried in the first interview that I had today. Like, I'm just a very emotional human.

I really like milk. I'm a dairy queen.

The way that I dress is the way I've always dressed. The way I've eaten is how I've always eaten. I dress like a 5-year-old, and I eat like a 5-year-old.

I definitely fall in love quickly, and I'm very in love with being in love. But it is hard for me to write about love.

I just don't really get to watch a lot of movies, like recently at least I haven't been able to but I did watch The Exorcist for the first time ever, recently, and it didn't scare me like I thought it was gonna scare me.

Make sure this music industry is what you love to do, and you can't imagine doing anything else.

I'm a perfectionist, and even if something comes out great, it's still not perfect, you know?

It's just interesting how people relate my success when I would like to think that I worked my ass off for a reason and that it's about the music and not because I was on a TV show.

I love Sia and how she hides her face. If I could pull off doing that, I totally would.

I always mention toy sounds when I go into any session.

I stay away from the title of 'role model.' I want to be a more realistic role model -- not a perfect Barbie role model.

Eventually, I started writing down a bunch of titles that related to childhood themes and would pair it with an adult situation that either I was going through or someone else in my life was going through.

'Cry Baby' is like this fairytale version of me. A lot of it is based on real events, and some of it is made up to make it more whimsical.

I'm obsessed with the venue and the people so it's going to be really fun.The last couple of tours I didn't have anything like that because of the budget, so I'm super excited because this is really going to bring the album to life.

I look at music like an art form, so it's almost like painting for me, you know?

I want my music to be treated as a book or a movie. It's not about the one single: it's about the bigger picture.

When I'm done with my last album, I want to make a movie with Tim Burton telling the story of all of the albums connected. That's my biggest dream.

I definitely feel like if I put out a song that was like me being super vulnerable, people would look as me as weak. I don't know if that has to do with me being a girl, or if that really has to do with anything, but I'm sure.

My favorite performance would definitely be Toxic, which was my blind audition song. It was the start of it all and it was a song I had been covering before the show, so it was very dear to my heart.

I think the transition between singing covers on a reality show to being able to do my own thing was really exciting. I'm no longer singing covers every second, and people are actually getting to hear my own original music.

Cry Baby is just a character in this world that I'm trying to create, and the music videos are really important to me, and I've fought to obviously get all of them approved.

When I first started writing the album, Cry Baby was a song that I really wanted to write because it represented all of these personal insecurities that I had for a long time.

Cry Baby is a character so I think that the next album is going to be about a specific thing in her life or another place in her world. It's going to be a bit deeper into a bigger picture.

It's just weird because like when I was writing Cry Baby I like...the only thing that I was thinking about, when writing it, was the concepts and the visuals, and the way that it sounded kind of happened naturally.

Cry Baby wasn't necessarily a baby theme but I understand what they're saying. So like, Cry Baby is definitely a remaining character throughout all of my albums.

I have a few songs that I'm figuring out and writing. I'm still figuring out the whole concept and how it's gonna connect to Cry Baby, but I have some ideas, yes.

I'm insane, I'm emotional, but I'd rather be that than a robot. So that's definitely something that I wanted to get out there. Especially with Cry Baby's story, because the album is about Cry Baby but I realized that me and her went through the same change.

I think because Dollhouse was the first story that I put out. It was the first thing that people were able to listen to and find the aesthetic of my music, so I figured we could use that as a title.

Dollhouse was definitely inspired by the whole Edward Scissorhands vibe where all of the houses are perfect, but inside each home there are very messed up families.

I think honestly when I was younger I use to love going to carnivals in Long Island. I use to love carnival season; I would drive to every town going to carnivals. That was definitely a favorite memory.

I think that every decision I make in my life is based off of an emotion -- and it definitely hurts me in some situations, and helps in some situations, like obviously writing and stuff is my favourite thing to do because I get to use all of my emotions and express them in that way.

I'm pretty excited for people to listen to the story of each song. It's definitely like a giant book with different stories in it. They are all very child-like but also a balance between light and dark.

I go with what I like and I generally just cling to things that are pastel and remind me of being a little kid. It's just what it is right now, but I go through phases.

I'm happy that I get to work with people that I enjoy being around. It's really cool when people understand and want to help your vision and are like rooting for you. I just, I love them a lot.

I never had a lot of friends growing up so having this insane amount of love and support really means a lot to me.

I've had a lot of people come up to me after shows and tell me that Dollhouse really helped them with whatever they were going through with their families. I thought that was really amazing, that it could mean one thing for me but another thing for someone else.

I was very vocal about how I wanted to be portrayed on the show, and how I wanted the stage setup to be.

I think, being emotional is this thing that people think you're not strong. They don't look at you as a strong person, and it's weird 'cuz honestly being emotional has nothing to do with your strength.

Everyone got to choose what they wanted to wear on stage, and by the third time going into wardrobe the stylists already knew what I'd love and what I would never throw on my body in a million years. They were fantastic, and it was so lovely working with them.

There are obviously so many artists that are very inspiring, but I can't say that they like -- that I have someone in mind that is like a creative direction of where I want to go as an artist. I think I'm just doing my own thing.

Mark Ryden is my favorite visual artist.

There are a lot of people who go their whole lives without truly knowing what love is, or ever experiencing that.

I grew up on Long Island. It was pretty normal.

The behind-the-scenes kind of process at TV, especially live television -- that was super scary, but I think it's made me more comfortable now. If I ever have to go on live TV, I at least remember what it was like when I was 16.

I've always written the storyboards for the music videos, and it's been hard working with directors trying to get them to understand what I'm thinking.

I wanted to play my original music, but it was really hard because a lot of the people who would come out to the shows found out about me through 'The Voice' and wanted to hear covers.

I have a song called 'Training Wheels,' and it's about being in love with someone and taking it to the next level by taking off the training wheels.

The Cry Baby character is so, like, based off of myself that it just really is just from personal experience. And when I was younger I was called a cry baby and made fun of for being super emotional and taking things way to personal.

I'm gonna write from personal experience, from emotion, from whatever the hell I'm feeling that day.

If I don't see a music video to it while writing it, I just scrap it immediately. It's very visual.

Eventually I realized that Cry Baby was a character that was based off of me, and that we had a lot of similarities.

I'm glad I got to introduce myself to America by doing a Britney Spears song, haha!

I like scaring myself.

The real me is this deep, kind of somber person. I can't really help that.

My two favorite parts of what I do are definitely writing the music and then writing and directing the videos to support each song. As well as doing my own makeup and styling for the videos.

I feel it's my job as the artist who is making the music to pair it with visuals that I see in my head while writing the music in the first place.

Doing music is time consuming, will drain you, and stress you out at times. But in the end if you love doing it, and you're putting out music you're proud of, it will never feel like work. It'll just feel like love.

You think I'm psycho, you think I'm gone
Tell the psychiatrist something is wrong
Over the bend, entirely bonkers
You like me best when I'm off my rocker
Tell you a secret, I'm not alarmed
So what if I'm crazy? The best people are.

When I was 16, I was watching '101 Dalmatians,' and my mom never let me bleach my hair, so I told her I was going to dye my hair like Cruella De Vil; she didn't believe me. I came home with my hair like this, and she didn't talk to me for, like, a week. It was really hilarious.

I believe everyone should be equal, and we should all love and support each other and express ourselves the way we want to express ourselves and be whoever we want. That's my motto.

Everyone is allowed to be vulnerable. I think women and men and dogs and cats and ants and aliens can all express themselves and be vulnerable.

I think that any female who gets asked if she's a feminist... it's silly... it's so interesting when people ask females if they're a feminist. Of course every female wants to be equal!

My music is like a baby pink frosted cake with sprinkles, but when you cut into it, there's a gooey, dark chocolate center.

Part of the problem with America is that letting go of emotions is viewed as a weakness, but it's my strength. That enabled me to write my songs.