It took so long to make it in America. The year I arrived was a bad year for women singers, the record company told me. So I starved. I lived in a hotel so dreadful I can’t even talk about it.

Meaning of the quote

Helen Reddy, an Australian actress, struggled to become successful in America. The record company told her the year she arrived was not a good time for women singers, so she had a very difficult time. She was so poor that she had to live in a terrible hotel that she didn't even want to talk about.

About Helen Reddy

Helen Reddy was an Australian-American singer, actress, and activist who rose to fame in the 1970s. She placed numerous hits on the Billboard charts, including her signature song “I Am Woman”, which became an anthem for the feminist movement. Even after retiring from live performance, Reddy continued to be recognized as a pioneer and icon for women in the music industry.

More about the author

More quotes from Helen Reddy

My audience is the baby-boomers, the bulk of the population. This is also a group that is being ignored by most record companies because they’re not the Top 40 hit singles market. They forget these people still listen to music.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

If I have to, I can do anything. I am strong, I am invincible, I am Woman.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

If you tell people your ambitions, they usually laugh at you. When I told my girlfriends when I was 12 that I was going to Hollywood, they all laughed. And here I am!

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

I believe wholeheartedly in marriage. I don’t exclusively mean a marriage with a legal contract, but any relationship that constitutes a marriage because of the quality of their relationship.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

Yoga is wonderful. It clears up most health problems. It also gives you an overview.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

I don’t know if it’s a sign of all the chaos that is happening out there or not, but I’ve lately craved the structure and order of classical music, the balance and symmetry.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

I think back and marvel that my ambitions were so small.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

I worked with my parents on the stage in production numbers since I was 4, but I never really gave much thought to being a performer on my own until I was 12 or 13.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

I’ve been in a serious conversation with one of my children, and a fan has come up. I’ve been in a public bathroom and had the hand come under the stall with a paper and pen. That sort of thing anybody can live without.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

If you had told me when I was 18 that I wouldn’t have made it until I was 29, I would have said, Forget it.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

I think that two people who decide to live together in a marriage situation, they have an obligation to make the marriage work for them.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

Hindsight is wonderful. It’s always very easy to second guess after the fact.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

I was looking for a husband, but meanwhile to survive, I had to work.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

Please don’t ask me any questions about the politics of 30 years ago.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

Depression, as far as I’m concerned, is just a waste of time.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

Three-quarters of the world’s population doesn’t have enough to eat!

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

I wanted control over the merchandising, the actual packaging of the product. That was a big factor. The only way for me to exercise control on all those levels was to start my own label.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

It took so long to make it in America. The year I arrived was a bad year for women singers, the record company told me. So I starved. I lived in a hotel so dreadful I can’t even talk about it.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

Stop living a day at a time and stop worrying about age.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

I’m a very private person, and when I leave the stage, I leave the stage.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

Most of the people I know in show business don’t need anybody pushing them at all. They’re extremely aggressive.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

There is a wealth of twentieth century music that is being re-discovered by a generation that hasn’t heard it.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

I like music to soothe me.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

To this day I get mail from women who say, I went to law school because of your song. But I would hate to think out of the wide spectrum of things I have done in my career, that’s all I would be remembered for.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

You’re not going to find a man whose socks don’t get dirty or who doesn’t snore.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

I thought Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying was one of the biggest pieces of crap that I’ve ever read in my life.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

I did my own music videos, my own TV commercials.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

A lot of women are turned off by the physical appearance of some of the first feminists.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

I am woman, hear me roar.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

Women today have more of an overview of their lives and how marriage is or is not a part of it.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

My audience are the same people who bought my albums years ago. These people are now married, with their own homes, their own families. If I’m in concert, I get people now who bring their kids.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

I was very strongly influenced by women’s magazines and I really believed tha a woman could not be married and raise a family and have a successful career all at the same time.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

I couldn’t do anything. I’d work in a department store for a couple of weeks, but I couldn’t hack it. I couldn’t even type! I had no skills whatsoever outside of show business.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

Believe it or not, most people think of me as a recording artist, but actually the way I think of myself and the way I earn my living is as a performing artist.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

In the ’50s, a lot of girls never saw beyond the wedding day.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

There is no magic person out there, no perfect human being out there waiting for you.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

It took me a year to really learn the American lingo. I really feel for people who are coming here and don’t speak English at all. It must be hell.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

I don’t think any one person is the cause of all of someone else’s problems.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

I had a career for 25 years in Australia before I ever came to the United States.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

I always believed that I could make it or I would never have spent so many years trying to get here.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)

I am woman, hear me roar, in numbers too big to ignore, and I know too much to go back and pretend.

Helen Reddy

Australian singer and actress (1941-2020)