Education Quote by Fiona Apple

Fiona Apple’s refusal to “give any advice” is a sly inversion of the whole celebrity-wisdom economy. A famous adult is expected to distill life into a neat takeaway, preferably tweet-sized. Apple does the opposite: she withholds instruction as an act of respect. The line sounds casual, but it’s a firm boundary against the culture that treats young people as optimization projects and older artists as motivational speakers.

The repetition - “Make mistakes, make mistakes, make mistakes” - works like a drum hit. It’s not just emphasis; it’s permission. Apple frames error not as a detour from the “right” path but as the path itself, the only route to actual self-knowledge. The subtext is about agency: you’re allowed to be messy, but you’re not allowed to outsource your mess.

“Just make sure they’re your mistakes” is the knife turn. It’s a warning against living in someone else’s script: parents’ expectations, peer pressure, algorithmic trends, even well-meaning mentorship. Apple isn’t romanticizing self-destruction; she’s drawing a line between experiential learning and borrowed damage. There’s a quiet critique of adults who project their regrets onto teenagers, trying to pre-edit their lives into safety. Apple’s artistry has always been about resisting coercion - emotional, sexual, commercial - and this quote carries that same ethos: autonomy over polish, lived truth over performative “growth.”