QUOTABLE QUOTES

After graciously winning the Grammy award, Cyndi takes a few moments to expound on the
fundamental misconceptions of Einstein's views on quantum mechanics and the unified field theory. 
Unfortunately, this was cut out of the final airing.

So much of Cyndi's charm stems from what she says.  Therefore, I think it appropriate to share with you some of my favorite things I've heard her say.  Some are serious, but most are humorous.  A lot of these won't make any sense whatsoever if you haven't heard them in context, but for those who have, I hope to highlight these moments that are special to me.  Unfortunately, as is the case with so much of what Cyndi says, the way she says it is what makes it so incredibly funny or charming and I cannot reproduce that here, but those who have seen or heard the clips I have noted here will know exactly what I'm talking about.  Of course, lines from movies and such were written for her, but again, just the way she says this stuff is what makes it so precious.  OK, enough of my yappin' and let's get to her yappin'...

"Humor is a great vehicle for getting a message across.  If you get too serious, you could die of starch."
                    -classic Cyndi wisdom
"I'm in the business where you get the business all the time."
                    -from Four On The Floor
"How many pumpkin-colored sweaters can one man own?"
                    -from Off & Running, referring to Jack's wardrobe
"Sometimes when I'm singing I feel like I'm floating.   I feel like I'm like this tall and I feel like I could do anything.  I think that's why I've always sang because I'm addicted to it because it feels like flying.  If you're lucky you take people on the flight with you.  If you're lucky you can create a space and bring other people inside.  It's like an inner space that goes outside, it's very scientific."   (laughs)
                    -from an interview segment on the 12 Deadly Cyns video collection
"Question number 2..."
"You always number what you say?"
                    -from Vibes, interrupting Nick
"What, do you think that feminism means you hate men?"
                    -Cyndi puts Dr. Ruth in her place!
"What do you like to do when you're not working?  What do you like to do to relax?"
"Well...  I like to sleep."
                    -From an early Johnny Carson interview
"I'm a recovering Catholic."
                    -from the Straightforward interview
(in a comical British accent) "You know I do speak the Queens English.  It's just the wrong Queens that's all.  It's over the 59th Street Bridge.  It's not over the Atlantic Ocean."
                    -from the Bravo Profile
"Kiss my bumper."
                    -from the 12 Deadly Cyns video collection, said as she was driving home and getting stressed by the traffic
"I've always wondered what it would be like if somebody from outer space landed with three heads.  Then all of a sudden everybody else wouldn't look so bad, huh?  Well, OK you're a little different from me but, hey, ya got one head..."
                    -VH1 All Access interview
"What am I, his mother?"
                    -from Off & Running, after she's been pretending to be this kid's mother for nearly the whole movie
"I used to get spanked.  Yeah, my mother used to line us up and we'd get it with the belt.  I think she was into music 'cause we were all different sizes like a xylophone.  But I've been through therapy, I'm OK now."
                    -said during a break on a live TV performance
"Wanna wear my tiara?  It's bejeweled!"
                    -from the award-winning episode of Mad About You
"I am also an Emmy winning actress.  Except that I gotta tell ya, it was for comedy and I've been practicing for most of my life because every job I've ever had they'd always say the same thing, 'Hey Lauper, what are ya, some kind of comedienne?' and who knew?"
                    -between-song banter during an outdoor acoustic performance
"Together we do great strides, seperate we're fucked."
                    -from HX Magazine interview, June 2002
"Hey, I read comics."
                    -from Off & Running, explaining her knowledge of Mjolnir, Thor's hammer
"We're having a lot of trouble because the Netherlands and Holland aren't getting along..."
                    -from a Dutch interview circa 1986
"Have you ever been worried about your second album and the so-called sophmore jinx?  How do you deal with that?"
"Well, I was gonna call it the third record.  Cyndi Lauper 3, y'know, and I figured I'd work on the second now.  Actually, True Colors, for all we know could be the third record.  So I wasn't too worried about it 'cause I figured, put out '3' first and then put out '2' later."
                    -from an interview following the release of True Colors
"I just gotta ask ya somethin'...  What crawled up your butt?"
                    -from the Emmy-winning episode of Mad About You
"...It's God telling me through my own lyric to shut the fuck up, I don't know these people.  And did I say that word?  'Cause I don't curse anymore."
"You don't?"
"No, I forgot."  (laughing)
                    -from the Bravo Profile
"When I sing I don't feel like it's me.  I feel I am fabulous, like I'm 10 feet tall.  I am the greatest.  I am the strongest.  I am Samson.  I'm whoever I want to be."
                    -from Lifetime's Intimate Portrait
"Can you punctuate this sentence?"
"Where John had had had Mary had had had had had had had the teacher's approval"
                    -being the "grumanitarian" (a humanitarian with a passion for grammar) that she is, Cyndi quizzes Arsenio Hall
                     (email me for the correct answer...this is pretty cool)
"They kept screaming, 'The Kinks, The Kinks, The Kinks!'  So I looked at them really snotty and I said, 'Ah ya liked that one?  Well, you're gonna love this one,' and I picked up my ukelele and I started playing He's So Unusual, and I did the Helen Kane voice... ...y'know?  And they looked at me like...  Immediately, I never heard 10,000 people that loud booing.  And, boy, if you thought the quarters were pelting before...  And of course like a moron I'm looking at the quarters and going, 'Laundry.  If I get these quarters...laundry, laundry."
                    -talking about their experience opening for the Kinks back in the day
"What's happening here?  A minute ago you were ready to disappear down my throat!"
                    -from Vibes, after a romantic moment with Jeff Goldbum is suddenly cut short
"I get the greatest feeling when I'm singing.  It's other-worldly.  Your feet are anchored into the Earth and into this energy force that comes up through your feet and goes up the top of your head and maybe you're holding hands with the angels or the stars, I have no idea."
                    -from VH1's Behind The Music
"On my mother's second marriage she married a real nut.  She married someone who was a cross between Freddy Krueger and Don Rickles."
                    -from a 1993 interview talking about her abusive stepfather
"Sometimes my mind boggles.  It's so deep my mind actually boggles."
                    -from a 1983 interview
"I have to always remember that I did something, for my life, that was quite a miracle, and I'm so extraordinarly grateful for that."
                    -reflecting on her early years of super success
"Nobody can tell ya how to quite deal with that.  Nobody can really tell you ahead of time what it feels like to be pushed this way and pushed that way.  You're so pushed and pulled you can't even function anymore."
                    -talking about her crazy early years
"She said, 'Cyndi, is that song about...that?  Down there?'  She would always say, 'down there.'" (laughs)
                    -talking about her mother's reaction when she found out what She Bop was about
"Boy am I glad I won.  Otherwise this tiara would've looked awfully stupid."
                    -taking the stage, donning a tiara, to win the Best Female Video Award in 1984
"I didn't want to shoot my whole wad, but wanted to put something out and picked the ones that people were singing along with."
                    -from Rolling Stone.com article talking about the Shine EP
"What's your problem?  Aside from your face..."
                    -from Vibes, talking to a very misanthropic Googy Gress
"People used to throw rocks at me for my clothes.  Now they wanna know where I buy 'em, right?"
                    -an early comment on her transcendence from misfit to trendsetter
"I went to fashion industries for a year in high school and I got zero there, I flunked out, so I had to have my revenge on fashion and I had it for awhile in the '80s.  Big revenge.   Flunkin' me out, I'll show you."
                    -from the Bravo Profile
"I tried to do what the business required and I tried to answer the calling of my soul.  I tried really hard, but I couldn't make it, I couldn't show up.  After a while, at that point, I just receded, receded, receded, receded...  And I kept thinking, 'Why am I here?' and that's when I went back and did Hat Full Of Stars.  I had to reconsider why I entered the business.  It's not really a business for me, it's a vocation."
                    -talking about her situation after the A Night To Remember album
"I'm not a car."
                    -her signature dodgy response when asked about her age
"Because of Chernobyl the water is not so good, so they gave us this bottled water that tasted a little weird.  If I was thirsty they'd say, 'Drink the vodka.'  So I'd drink the vodka and after a while my tongue was swollen and I was so thirsty and they kept giving me the vodka.  And they had mystery meat with Jell-O on it.  Then they had these reindeer nosettes.  I said, 'Around Christmas time too, how could you?'"
                    -talking about her visit to Russia
"Jack!"
"What?"
"You're touching me."
                    -from Off & Running, after she allows Jack to sleep in the same bed with her as long as he doesn't touch her
"It sounds to me on True Colors... ...that you rediscovered a great deal of the child in yourself."
"I've always had that ability to remember.  It was a gift, I guess, because lot of people forget about how they felt and I never did.  It's very easy for me to regress.  It's very comfortable."
                    -from an interview following the release of True Colors
"I understand the emotional point 'cause that's where I come from.  All of those feelings that pull me here and pull me there all over the place...  I think that's why I sing the way I do."
                    -from the Bravo Profile
"When I got hoarse, the manager would say, 'Drink this. Joplin used to drink this,' and I used to say, 'Joplin? Joplin's dead!'"
                    -from Lifetime's Intimate Portrait
"If I was gonna get married I wanted to get married in the voice of church...I mean the church of voice.  See, I even think dyslexic."
                    -from the Straightforward interview, referring to her choice to have Little Richard minister her wedding
"This whole next experience happened one day when I was coming home from shopping...   (someone in the audience yells for her to speak in French)  Speak French? (turns to her guitarist) Ohhhh, I'm in trouble now.  (quickly turning back to the audience)  Soufflé!"
                    -from the Live In Paris concert
"And you're available in the next few months, I can count on you?"
"You can count on me, draw on me, anything you want."
                    -Sylvia (Cyndi) tries mixing business with pleasure in Vibes
"This song I was singing and actually fell off the stage at a show I was playing in Oklahoma...  And then I thought, well, apparently, it's harder to be me than I thought."
                    -introduction to "It's Hard To Be Me" at the Tower Records performance 10/25/02
"All I did was...  I was 9 years old and she asked me to scratch her back, so I got up out of bed and I started to scratch her back.  In walks Sister 'I'm So Happy', grabs me by the neck, throws me against the lockers and then beat the hell out of me..."
                    -explaining an experience from her Catholic school days where a nun accused her of being a lesbian
"Somebody did complain to me and tell me that my clothes were so loud they couldn't hear me sing."
                    -referring to the outfit she wore while singing with the Boston Pops on July 4, 2001
"You had a very untraditional wedding, am I right? Little Richard married you?"
"No, I married David."
"Oh, you married David, but you didn't marry Little Richard."
"No, he married both of us together, but I didn't marry him. No, Little Richard is single, I think."
                    -from the RuPaul show
"You guys had been together a long time before you got married, right?"
"About a year and half, yeah. But I had a dream that we were like these prehistoric people together, and we walked..."
"Like cave people?"
"It was a time when South America and Africa were one continent, yeah, and we were walking west. That's how we got over here, probably. And that's when I figured, y'know, I've been with him a long time!"
                    -from the RuPaul show again, talking about her relationship with David Thornton
"It's Lauper!"
                    -endlessly correcting people on how to pronounce her last name
"Alroight then, foine."
                    -a timeless Cyndiism...

A FEW QUICK CYNDI ACRONYMS FROM DAYS GONE BY...

UGLY = understanding, gorgeous, lovable and youthful
                    -from the "Ugliest Bartender" contest

PIG = politeness, intelligence and grooming
                    -a variation on the well-known PEG Principle

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