As the voice of many of Fleetwood Mac’s greatest hits and a wonderfully witchy solo artist, Stevie Nicks has been a musical icon for five decades. The singer-songwriter is instantly recognizable for her distinctive vocals and boho style, and she’s won over multiple generations of fans in her many years in the spotlight.
Part of what makes Nicks so captivating is the fact that even when she’s not performing onstage, she has an ethereal, serene aura, and her views on love, art and style are totally of a piece with her singular musical creations.
We’ve gathered some of our favorite Stevie Nicks quotes from her years of interviews — all of which are sure to help you channel your inner Bella Donna.
What she’s said about love
- “I’m not in a relationship and haven’t been in one for a long time, because I have chosen to follow my musical muse all over the world. When I was 20, 30, 40, I always had a boyfriend — always. But I have decided I’m just going to be free and follow my muse and do whatever I want, because I’m 70 years old and I can.”
- “People would say to me: ‘It would be very hard to be Mr. Stevie Nicks.’ And I’m going: well, yeah, probably, unless you were just a really nice guy that was really confident in himself, not jealous of me, liked my friends, enjoyed my crazy life and had fun with it. And, of course, there are very few men like that. I’m an independent woman and am able to take care of myself, and that is not attractive to men.”
- “I am always a romantic and I’m never averse to the fact that it is possible that you might turn a street corner and walk into somebody that just catches your eye, because it’s happened to me a million times. So, could I fall in love and run away with somebody at 72 years old? Yeah. It’s probably not gonna happen, but it’s possible.”
- “When I’m 90 years old, I don’t wanna be laying in my big, gorgeous bedroom . . . with music playing and 15 little Chinese crested dogs and going like, ‘Ugh, I’m so broken-hearted that I didn’t find the one . . . And then I would have to answer myself and say, ‘Yes, but you did find several ‘the ones’ who you wrote really great songs about and that’s why you’re living in this absolutely spectacular house with everything that you want and anything that you could possibly wanna buy.”
- “I made a choice to not be married and not have children, because I wanted to be a big-time rock ‘n’ roll star. And people can get mad at me for saying this, but I did not feel that I could do both. I would have been, I think, a great mom, and I would not have put my career first once I had a baby . . . Even in my really bad, drugged-out days, I didn’t go away. I still toured, still did interviews. I never gave up the fight. That’s why I’m who I am today, because I didn’t leave. And I think I made the right choice.”
What she’s said about music
- “We want to have our serious side and all that, but you can’t take yourself too seriously. When you keep music in your life, I think it just changes you and pulls you out of a deep hole. Whenever I’m depressed, I just put music on.”
- “Everybody isn’t going to have it as easy as I did. I didn’t face a lot of the things that a lot of women have faced. I was very lucky. Christine McVie and I made a pact the day I joined Fleetwood Mac. She and I said, ‘We will never be treated like second-class citizens. We will never be not allowed to hang out in a room full of intelligent, crazy rock and roll stars, because we’re just as crazy and just as intelligent as they are.’ We just made that promise to each other that we would do everything we could do for women, that we would fight for everything that we wanted and get it. That our songs and our music would be equally as good as all the men surrounding us. And it was.”
- “People reach a point where they’re, like, ‘I just don’t want to do this anymore.’ And it really never occurred to me, because I definitely still want to — I want to sing.”
- “There is no age limit on how good of a writer you can be. I hear all these older songwriters go, like, ‘I can’t write love songs anymore.’ And I’m, like, ‘Well, that’s just stupid.’ Because you have memories for days. Go open your memory library and check in there.”
- “I tell the truth, always . . . And that, I think, is a really good place to start as a writer, and I think that’s maybe why my songs connect with people — is because I’m telling them their own story. Everything that happens to me, basically happens to everybody else, in just different ways, different forms, but nevertheless, it’s the same premise.”
What she’s said about style
- “I could never go onstage in street clothes because it’s not who I am. I could never go out there in a pair of jeans and a denim jacket. I mean, I don’t do casual very well. Even my normal life, I’m in cashmere pants and a cashmere sweater and cashmere thoughts.”
- “We have to float in like goddesses, because that is how we want to be treated. And we will never not be invited to the party, because we are women.”
- “I try to be as elegant as I can. But on the same, on the other side of that, that rock singer comes through and that masculine side comes through also. You know, you don’t want to be so masculine that you leave feminine and elegant behind. So you try to find a nice way to blend them all.”
- “I have to have a uniform, and I’ve always been that way.”
- “Personally, I think that sexy is keeping yourself mysterious. I’m really an old-fashioned girl, and I think I’m totally sexy.”
