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Creativity Quote by Tori Amos

"Some people are afraid of what they might find if they try to analyze themselves too much, but you have to crawl into your wounds to discover where your fears are. Once the bleeding starts, the cleansing can begin"

About this Quote

Tori Amos has always treated the psyche like a haunted house with a piano in the foyer: beautiful, echoing, and full of locked rooms you only open by touch. This line frames self-analysis not as a tidy wellness routine but as a high-stakes bodily act. “Crawl into your wounds” is deliberately unglamorous language. It rejects the Instagram version of healing where insight arrives softly, like a candlelit bath. Amos insists the only honest doorway to fear is the place you least want to inhabit: the injury itself.

The subtext is a challenge to avoidance culture, especially the kind that masquerades as strength. “Some people are afraid of what they might find” points at the private bargains we make to stay functional: don’t look too closely, don’t name it, keep moving. Amos flips that survival tactic into its own trap. If you refuse to investigate, fear retains its supernatural power. If you enter the wound, it becomes anatomy - specific, located, describable.

The second sentence is the twist that makes the quote work. Bleeding is typically the sign you’ve gone too far. Here it’s proof you finally went far enough. She’s describing catharsis without sentimentalizing it: the “cleansing” is not a reward for bravery but a process triggered by contact with pain. In the context of Amos’s catalog - where sexuality, religious guilt, trauma, and female anger are not hinted at but voiced - the intent reads as artistic manifesto. Songwriting becomes a controlled incision: hurt is opened, named, and drained so it stops ruling from the shadows.

Quote Details

TopicSelf-Improvement
SourceHelp us find the source
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Amos, Tori. (2026, January 16). Some people are afraid of what they might find if they try to analyze themselves too much, but you have to crawl into your wounds to discover where your fears are. Once the bleeding starts, the cleansing can begin. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/some-people-are-afraid-of-what-they-might-find-if-98373/

Chicago Style
Amos, Tori. "Some people are afraid of what they might find if they try to analyze themselves too much, but you have to crawl into your wounds to discover where your fears are. Once the bleeding starts, the cleansing can begin." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/some-people-are-afraid-of-what-they-might-find-if-98373/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Some people are afraid of what they might find if they try to analyze themselves too much, but you have to crawl into your wounds to discover where your fears are. Once the bleeding starts, the cleansing can begin." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/some-people-are-afraid-of-what-they-might-find-if-98373/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

More Quotes by Tori Add to List
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About the Author

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Tori Amos (born August 22, 1963) is a Musician from USA.

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