105 Quotes by Dolores O'Riordan

When I got pregnant, I started singing again. It was my saving grace. I literally mean having this amazing human life, and our relationship in the sense of mother and child, redeemed my soul.

In 1997, we took time off, and that's when Oasis broke and Princess Diana died and I was home with my baby hating the music industry. People asked what I thought about the Spice Girls, and honestly, I was so happy to tell them I couldn't be bothered to care.

I was 19 when I wrote 'Dreams,' and that would have been when it started to happen. The band got signed, and I was probably beginning to see different things besides my small town of Ballybricken.

I lived in buses. I didn't really have anything else. I didn't feel like a female, and I ended up really kind of isolated. Everybody thinks you're so happy and so wealthy and such a big star, but you're really kind of lonely and don't know how to stop it.

People often ask me why I sing with a strong Irish accent. I suppose when I was five years old, I spoke with a strong Irish accent, so I sang with one, too.

I was so young when I got so famous, and then I kind of put up a wall around myself. I didn't really want to show people any fragilities or fears; I was trying to be this tough person that I felt was expected of me.

I didn't get a lot of attention from my dad when I was young. That's a big part of it for girls. Because your dad is the first love of your life. If he doesn't put you on his lap and give you a pet, you do end up not really liking yourself that much.

'Linger' was the first song I wrote after joining the Cranberries. I was 18, and the youngest member of the band was 16 at the time. We never imagined it'd be such a big hit.

When my grandfather died, I was on tour, and I didn't go to the funeral. I never got to say goodbye, and this is one of the problems of being in a rock band is that you're away, and your loved ones die, and you can't even see them.