23 Quotes by Janis Winehouse

Inside, Amy never really forgot who she was either; I think it was the recognition that this life in the spotlight was one great illusion that became the most dissatisfying for her. It was all she’d ever wished for, but the reality was so different from how she’d imagined it.

She wasn’t usually the kind of girl to let things go to her head but success and the public attention that came with it created a fear in her far deeper than the euphoria of winning. All this expectation placed on a girl who couldn't even convince herself that she could deliver, let alone anyone else.

She was impossible to pin down, and it struck me that she was living her life as if she wasn’t connected to it. She’d simply lost any emotional connection with herself.

I saw a girl whose life was overwhelming her, more than she had ever anticipated.

Underneath, I longed to be plain old Janis Winehouse again, the pharmacist from north London who lived an ordinary if topsy-turvy life but who was proud of everything she’d achieved and loved her kids with all her heart.

My God, Amy never held back in presenting herself to the world superficially - taking her clothes off, being the life and soul of the party - but she could never sit with herself long enough to face herself.

Sometimes we figure her out; at other times she is the ball of confusion she always was.

I worry about the day when Amy stops being alive in my head and in my heart. I don’t want that day to ever come. I don’t think it ever will. I loved her. I will always love her, and I miss everything about her. Amy, bless her, was larger than life.

Amy’s passing did not follow a clear line. It was jumbled, and her life was unfinished- not life’s natural order at all. She left no answers, only questions, and in the years since her death I’ve found myself trying to make sense of the frayed ends of her extraordinary existence.