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Creativity Quote by Alanis Morissette

"I'm doing it because I choose it. And if it's not working, I can make a change"

About this Quote

Agency is the quiet bassline under Alanis Morissette's whole public arc: the refusal to be cast as a mood, a moment, or a marketing angle. "I'm doing it because I choose it" is less motivational poster than boundary-setting, the kind that arrives after you've watched your life get interpreted by strangers. Coming from a musician who broke through young, got canonized fast, and then had to live inside the expectations that canon creates, the line reads like a corrective to the pop-industrial script: you're either a victim of the machine or a puppet of your own ambition. She insists on a third option - authorship.

The second sentence is where the steel shows. "And if it's not working, I can make a change" reframes quitting as competence. Not failure, not flakiness, not betrayal of "the brand" - just feedback. There's an implied rejection of the sunk-cost mentality that governs careers, relationships, even creative identities: if you've publicly committed, you're supposed to stay committed, especially as a woman, especially after being labeled "angry" or "confessional". Morissette flips that expectation. The subtext is anti-fatalism: feelings aren't a prison; choices are editable.

It's also a subtle piece of self-protection. By naming choice and change as defaults, she builds a psychological exit door into every room. For an artist whose work has often turned vulnerability into spectacle, that's not just empowerment rhetoric. It's a survival strategy disguised as a simple sentence.

Quote Details

TopicEmbrace Change
SourceHelp us find the source
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Morissette, Alanis. (2026, January 17). I'm doing it because I choose it. And if it's not working, I can make a change. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/im-doing-it-because-i-choose-it-and-if-its-not-36629/

Chicago Style
Morissette, Alanis. "I'm doing it because I choose it. And if it's not working, I can make a change." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/im-doing-it-because-i-choose-it-and-if-its-not-36629/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I'm doing it because I choose it. And if it's not working, I can make a change." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/im-doing-it-because-i-choose-it-and-if-its-not-36629/. Accessed 29 Mar. 2026.

More Quotes by Alanis Add to List
I Choose It: Alanis Morissette on Choice and Agency
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About the Author

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Alanis Morissette (born June 1, 1974) is a Musician from Canada.

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