"I happen to be lucky in that I knew what I wanted to do as far as a career since I was nine years old"
About this Quote
The line also functions as a quiet defense against the suspicion that success is just ego with good PR. Morissette, whose career has always carried a confessional charge, signals self-awareness: knowing your path young isn’t moral superiority, it’s circumstance. “Happen to be” is the tell. It implies randomness, access, and timing - the invisible scaffolding behind any “I made it” narrative.
Context matters because Morissette’s breakthrough arrived wrapped in authenticity politics. Jagged Little Pill hit during an era hungry for “real” emotion, yet the industry packaging of young women was notoriously coercive. In that light, the quote reads as both gratitude and armor: she asserts agency (“I knew”) while acknowledging the lottery of being able to claim it.
Subtext: early certainty can be a gift and a trap. It streamlines a life, but it also narrows it; you become the person who always knew, even when you’re still changing. That tension - between self-determination and the chaos that grants it - is exactly the kind of contradiction her music has always mined.
Quote Details
| Topic | Career |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Morissette, Alanis. (2026, January 17). I happen to be lucky in that I knew what I wanted to do as far as a career since I was nine years old. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-happen-to-be-lucky-in-that-i-knew-what-i-wanted-34741/
Chicago Style
Morissette, Alanis. "I happen to be lucky in that I knew what I wanted to do as far as a career since I was nine years old." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-happen-to-be-lucky-in-that-i-knew-what-i-wanted-34741/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I happen to be lucky in that I knew what I wanted to do as far as a career since I was nine years old." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-happen-to-be-lucky-in-that-i-knew-what-i-wanted-34741/. Accessed 7 Feb. 2026.



