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And Half Of Learning To Play Is Learning What Not To Play And She's Learning The Spaces She Leaves Have Their Own Things To Say And She's Trying To Sing Just Enough So That The Air Around Her Moves And Make Music Like Mercy That Gives What It Is And Has Nothing To Prove She Crawls Out On A Limb And Begins To Build Her Home And It's Enough Just To Look Around And To Know That She's Not Alone Up Up Up Up Up Up Up Points The Spire Of The Steeple But God's Work Isn't Done By God It's Done By People

-Ani DiFranco

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And Half Of Learning

Ani DiFranco

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And Half Of Learning To Play Is Learning What Not To Play And She's Learning The Spaces She Leaves Have Their Own Things To Say And She's Trying To Sing Just Enough So That The Air Around Her Moves And Make Music Like Mercy That Gives What It Is And Has Nothing To Prove She Crawls Out On A Limb And Begins To Build Her Home And It's Enough Just To Look Around And To Know That She's Not Alone Up Up Up Up Up Up Up Points The Spire Of The Steeple But God's Work Isn't Done By God It's Done By People

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Being A Parent Has Taught Me A Lot Of Things Already, You Know, Though It's Only Been A Year And Half, And Has Made Me Address Parts Of Myself That I Would Otherwise Live In Comfortable Denial Of, Or You Know And - You Know, For Instance, My Self-loathing.

It's The Ground That We Walk On, It's Where We Sit, It's The Language That We Use. It's A Difficult Undertaking, But I Think Without Healing That And Creating More Of A Balance Between The Sexes, We Will Never Have Balance Globally. I Feel Like I Am Going Deeper And Deeper Into This Space Where I Came From That I Barely Understood.

When I Was A Teenager In The '80s, I Was The Only Girl In The Guitar Shop. Now If You Walk Into A Music Store, It's Mostly Teenage Girls. It's Great! It's An Expansion Of Possibilities For Young Women, Finding A Way To Tools Even If They Aren't Directly Handed Those Tools By Adults.

What Bugs Me Is That You Believe What You're Saying. What Bothers Me Is That You Don't Know How You Feel. What Scares Me Is That While You're Telling Me Stories, You Actually Believe That They Are Real.

I Was Supposed To Be Cool About This, Yeah, I Remember - Cool Was The Plan. Tried To Keep It All Under Wraps, But The Wraps Kept Going Slack. I Keep Turning Round, I Keep Coming Back.

Those Who Call The Shots Are Never In The Line Of Fire.

When I Look Around I Think This, This Is Good Enough; And I Laugh At Whatever Life Brings Because When I Look Down, I Just Miss All The Good Stuff And When I Look Up, I Just Trip Over Things.

When You Sit Right Down In The Middle Of Yourself You're Gonna Wanna Have A Comfortable Chair.

Patriarchy Is A Fundamental Imbalance Underlying Society And It's One We Rarely Address Because It's So Universal. But As I Get Older, I See That Peace Is A Product Of Balance.

Who Says I Like Right Angles? These Are Not My Laws, These Are Not My Rules.

Well, It's Really Gratifying To Me To Have A Stage And Some Bright Lights And A Microphone. They're Tools And Opportunities, And To Be Able To Just Pull Somebody Up On Stage With Me And Point At Them Is A Great Feeling.

What Makes You So Lavish That You Can Afford To Spend Every Sober Moment Feeling Angry And Bored?

Unanswered Questions

These Days, I Find I'm Applying A Little More Patience To My Process. If I Look Back On My Work, I Can See Those Songs I Bailed On Could Have Been Better, That Had Those Great Two Verses And Then I Kind Of Coasted From There. These Days, If A Song Is Giving Me Trouble, I Put It Aside And Pick It Up Later, And Keep Doing That, For A Year If I Have To, Until It Takes Shape.

I Am A Work In Progress Dressed In The Fabric Of A World Unfolding Offering Me Intricate Patterns Of Questions Rhythms That Never Come Clean And Strengths That You Still Haven't Seen

Second Wave Feminism Started With Consciousness-raising Groups, Which Sounds "big" But It's Really Just House Parties. Women Getting Together And Saying, "you Feel This Way?! Me Too!" Hanging Out Is Consciousness-raising.

I've Been A Long Time Coming, And I'll Be A Long Time Gone. You've Got Your Whole Life To Do Something, And That's Not Very Long.

Freedom And Democracy, That's The Word From Washington Every Day. Put America To Sleep With Warm Milk And Clichés, And People Are Expendable Along The Way.

But As Bad As I Am, I'm Proud Of The Fact That I'm Worse Than I Seem

When I Was Four Years Old They Tried To Test My Iq, They Showed Me This Picture Of Three Oranges And A Pear. They Asked Me Which One Is Different And Does Not Belong; They Taught Me Different Was Wrong.

You Broke Me Bodily. The Heart Ain't The Half Of It, And I'll Never Learn To Laugh At It In My Good Natured Way. In Fact, I'm Laughing Less In General, But I Learned A Lot At My Own Funeral. And I Knew You'd Be The Death Of Me, So I Guess That's The Price I Pay.

I Seriously Hate Pop Music And All Things Super-commercial.

I Don't Like My Language Watered Down, I Don't Like My Edges Rounded Off.

I Can't Wait To Get Back To New York City Where At Least When I Walk Down The Streat, No One Ever Hesitates To Tell Me Exactly What They Think Of Me.

If You Want To Challenge The System, Don't Go To Bed With It.

Either You Are A Feminist Or You Are A Sexist/misogynist. There Is No Box Marked 'other'.

If More People Were Screamin', I Could Relax.

Spring Is Super In The Supermarkets And The Strawberries Prance And Glow Never Mind That They're All Kinda Tart And Tasteless As Strawberries Go Meanwhile Wild Things Are Not For Sale Anymore Than They Are For Show So I'll Be Outside, In Love With The Kind Of Beauty It Takes More Than Eyes To Know

I Think It Is Very Useful To Know Ourselves, But When We Start Naming And Labeling, That Is Dangerous, That Gets Problematic. It Negates That Things Are Always Changing. Besides, It's Hard To Pin A Label Onto Something That's Always Moving.

Strangers Are Exciting, Their Mystery Never Ends. But, There's Nothing Like Looking At Your Own History In The Faces Of Your Friends.

We Have To Really Be Intentional Right Now About Holding The Media Accountable, And Taking Back The Discourse And Terms Of Discussion. It's Been Hijacked.

Too Much Is How I Love You, But Too Well Is How I Know You.

Let's Show Them All How It's Done, Let's Do It All Imperfectly.

I Think When A Society Has Such A Profoundly Dark And Awful Evil Such As Slavery In Its History, Then It Leaves Scars That Are Very, Very Deep. And Unless We Collectively Address Them And Really Put Our Effort To Healing Them, They'll Perpetuate. The United States Of America Are Still Suffering From The Echoes Of Slavery. I Think We're Still Reeling From All The Pain That Is A Result Of It, And That's A Reality.

A Lot Of Women These Days, A Lot Of Young Women Don't Want To Call Themselves Feminists. You Have This Cheap, Hideous 'girl Power' Sort Of Fad, Which I Think Is Pretty Benign At Best, But At Worst, I Think It's A Way Of Taking The Politics Out Of Feminism And Making It Some Kind Of Fashion.

Someone's Got To Be Interested In How I Feel, Just Because I'm Here And I'm Real.

We Are Wise, Wise Women. We Are Giggling Girls.

It's Not Important To Be Defined, It's Only Important To Use Your Time Well.

I See A Lot Of Connections Between Folk And Punk Music Just Because They're Both Subcorporate Music - I Mean, Traditionally.

I Would Rather Have These Things Weigh On My Mind. At The End Of This Tunnel Of Guilt And Shame, There Must Be A Light Of Some Kind.

Music Has As Many Roles As People Make It. I Traveled To Burma Once Years Ago To Witness The People's Struggle For Democracy, Meet Some People And Learn Some Stuff. And I Had This Incredible Experience Over And Over Again In The Burmese Jungle Or Refugee Camps Or Health Clinics With Very Oppressed, Very Devastated People. I Show Up, And I'm White And I'm American And I'm Privileged And I Have An Experience That These People Can't Fathom And Vice Versa. There Was This Huge Chasm When I Met People For All Good Reasons.

There Are So Many Things That We Have To Be Very Concerned About. But I Always Come Back To Feminism. People Look At Me Sideways Now And Are Like, "with Everything Going On, The Destruction Of The Environment, These Endless Wars, This Capitalism That Has A Stranglehold On Our Culture And Our World And You're Talking About Feminism Still?"

Promiscuity Does Not Scare Me As Long As She Is Savvy And Self Possessed When Puberty Comes To Call. My Aim Is To Simply Raise My Daughter To Be Secure In Her Self Worth And Capable Of Happiness All On Her Own.

If I'm Gonna Go Down I'm Gonna Do It With Style. You Won't Hear Me Surrender, You Won't Hear Me Confess Cause You've Left Me With Nothing But I Have Worked With Less.

I Know There Is Strength In The Differences Between Us. I Know There Is Comfort Where We Overlap.

Individual Differences

I Want Somebody Who Sees The Pointlessness And Still Keeps Their Purpose In Mind; I Want Somebody Who Has A Tortured Soul ...some Of The Time

When I Look Down, I Miss All The Good Stuff And When I Look Up, I Just Trip Over Things.

I Am Getting Nowhere With You And I Can't Let You Go And I Cant Get Through.

I'm An All Powerful Amazon Warrior, Not Just Some Sniveling Girl.

How Come I Can Pick My Ears, But Not My Nose? Who Made Up That Rule Anyway? How Can You Say That's The Way It Is, That's Just The Way It Goes, Why Don't You Decide Fore Yourself What You Can Do?

I Will Not Be Afraid To Let My Talent Shine.

I Found Religion In The Greeting Card Aisle Now I Know Hallmark Was Right

I Always Try And Stay One Step Ahead Of People, Not Looking Like I Looked Like Last Week, So I Can Be As Anonymous As Possible And Part Of It Is Just For Me. It Is Fun To Just Come Up With New And Bizarre Colors For Each Area Of Your Body And Things Like That, But There Are Some Parts Of It That I Just Keep Wanting To Negate Myself. I Hate Waking Up In The Morning And Recognizing The Woman In The Bathroom Mirror.

Fate Is Not Just Whose Cooking Smells Good, But Which Way The Wind Blows

If You Turn On The Tv, You're Going To Get A Certain Palate, And If You Go Looking Underneath The Surface, There's A Whole Lot Of Stuff There That I Think A Lot Of Our Generation Would Be Really Interested In.

Maybe We Are Both Good People Who've Done Some Bad Things.

I Am Not An Angry Girl, But It Seems I've Got Everyone Fooled. Every Time I Say Something They Find Hard To Hear, They Chalk It Up To My Anger And Not To Their Own Fear. Imagine You're A Girl Just Trying To Finally Come Clean, Knowing Full Well They Prefer You Dirty And Smiling.

Emptiness Has Its Solace In That There's Nothing Left To Take.

I Feel Like We Need To Understand Feminism More As A Tool To Mediate, Counteract, To Ultimately Defeat Patriarchy And Restore Balance To Our Government, Our Culture And Our Ways Of Thinking And Structuring The World. I Think We've Had A Very "masculine" Sensibility For A Long Time, And I Think We Need To Go Back To The Roots Of Social Imbalance. I Think We Have To Try To Right That First, And From There And All These More Pressing Issues Will Follow.

In A Man's World, I Am A Woman By Birth And After 19 Times Around I Have Found - They Will Stop At Nothing Once They Know What You Are Worth.

I'm An Atheist How Unfortunate It Is To Assign Responsibility To The Higher Up For Justice Amongst People.

I Used To Be A Superhero; No One Could Touch Me, Not Even Myself. You Are Like A Phone Booth I Somehow Stumbled Into, And Now Look At Me - I Am Just Like Everybody Else.

I Mean, I Think It's Hard Enough To Find Somebody You Can Stand For More Than Ten Minutes, So, Like, You Shouldn't Narrow Your Options.

You Are So Lame. You Always Disappoint Me. It's Kind Of Like Our Running Joke But It's Really Not Funny And I Just Want You To Live Up To The Image Of You I Create.

I'm Home In New Orleans!

The Minute My Child Was Born, I Was Reborn As A Feminist. It's So Incredible What Women Can Do... Birthing Naturally, As Most Women Do Around The Globe, Is A Superhuman Act. You Leave Behind The Comforts Of Being Human And Plunge Back Into Being An Animal.

Then I Show Up Steady Ready And Proud And I Find I've Forgotten How To Talk Out Loud. Isn't It Just Like You To Bring Me To My Knees?

What I Like About Being Independent [in The Music Industry] Is That Anybody Who Does Play The Album On The Radio And Anybody Who Does Choose To Write In The Media Does So Because They Want To, Because They Like It Or Because They Find Something Interesting There, Not Because They Have To.

Criticism Is Hard For Me But People Find Hard To Believe Because They Think I'm Very Tough, Very Strident, That I Tell Everybody Where To Get Off, And How. But I've Actually Got A Really Thin Skin. I Don't Know. It's Quite Pathetic. So, Yeah, It's Hard For Me To Take Criticism. But I Also Kind Of Have This Sense Of Humor On Overdrive, So I Don't Take Any Of It Seriously. So That Sort Of Saves Me, The Fact That I Think It's Just All Kind Of Funny.

For Me, The Stronger Ground I Have In My Personal Life, Then The More Will I Have To Fight The Good Fight.

Fight The Good Fight

I've Been Waiting For Sleep To Offer Up The Day With Both Hands.

These Days, My Main Guitar Amps Have Been Magnatone. They're Beautiful. Magnatones Have Actual Tremolo, Which I Recently Learned About Guitar Amps. Often What Guitar Amps Call Vibrato Is Really Just A Volume Up And Down. But Magnatone Has A True Vibrato, Which Is Pitch Bending. And So, It's Just A Lush Sound.

And God Help You If You Are An Ugly Girl Course Too Pretty Is Also Your Doom Cause Everyone Harbors A Secret Hatred For The Prettiest Girl In The Room And God Help You If You Are A Pheonix And You Dare To Rise Up From The Ash A Thousand Eyes Will Smolder With Jealousy While You Are Just Flying Back

And I Was Shocked, To See The Mistakes Of Each Generation, Will Just Fade Like A Radio Station, If You Drive Out Of Range...

The Scary Truth Is, You Have To Scratch Some Veneer Off To Gauge Where The Moral Fiber Really Is In Certain Pockets Of Society. It's Raw. It's Scary. But It Gives Us A Place To Work With.

How Come I Can Pick My Ears But Not My Nose?

Outside Sleep's Open Window, Between The Drops Of Rain, History Is Writing A Recipe Book For Every Earthly Pain.

We Need A Radically Truthful Way To Acknowledge Reproductive Freedom.

I Turned My Pain Into Art And My Hard Work Into A Career. Helping Myself Has Helped Others. Helping Others Has Helped Me.

If You Don't Ask The Right Question, Every Answer Seems Wrong -

I Do Believe That Music Has An Intense Power To Connect Us Together, To Inspire Us To Become Ourselves.

Goldfish Have No Memory, I Guess Their Lives Are Much Like Mine. And The Little Plastic Castle Is A Surprise Everytime.

In Order To Keep Anything Cultural, Logical, Or Ideological, You Have To Reinvent The Reality Of It.

There's This Brutal Imperial Power, That My Passport Says I Represent. But It Will Never Represent Where My Heart Lives, Only Vaguely Where It Went.

My Main Tactic Is To Focus On The People I Respect. The People I Think Are Great People. Do I Have Their Respect? Do I Have Their Support? If The Answer Is "yes," Then I'm Doing Ok.

My Songs Are Just Little Letters To Me.

I Basically Get Stereotyped A Lot In Terms Of Being A Girl And Writing 'chick' Music For Teenage Girls Or Something. I Think, If Anything, The Press Kind Of, Because Of My Gender And My Age, Tends To Kind Of Relegate My Work To This Sort Of Special-interest Group. It's Part Of The Cultural Dynamic, I Guess.

Now Let's Get Talking: Reefer Madness. Like Some Arrogant Government Can't, By Any Stretch Of The Imagination, Outlaw A Plant.

We Get A Little Further From Perfection Each Year. I Think That's Called Character. I Think That's Just How It Goes.

I Think The Gay Community Should Get Smart And Drop The Word Marriage. Do You Really Need To Change Every Right-wing Christian To Make Sure You Get Your Equal Rights? Eyes On The Prize, We Should Be Sticking To Getting Equal Rights.

While Out In Tv Nation, Under Darkening Skies, The Resistance Is Just Waiting To Be Organized.

I Know My Mind Is Made Of Matter But I Need To Know Exactly What Is The Matter At It's Core? Because My Heart Is Just A Muscle And Simply Put, It's Sore.

My Country Tis Of Thee, To Take Swings At Each Other On Talk Show Tv.

We Get A Little Further From Perfection, Each Year On The Road, I Guess That's What They Call Character, I Guess That's Just The Way It Goes, Better To Be Dusty Than Polished, Like Some Store Window Mannequin, Why Don't You Touch Me Where I'm Rusty, Let Me Stain Your Hands

A Little Bird Told Me That Jumping Is Easy And The Falling Is Fun, Right Up Until You Hit Sidewalk Shivering And Stunned.

There's A Certain Window Of Time In The Middle Of The Night Out In Middle America Where There's No Bar Open And Nothing On Tv. If You Don't Want To Do Too Many Drugs, You Have To Start Bodily Mutilation.

Somedays The Line I Walk Turns Out To Be Straight - Other Days The Line Tends To Deviate.

I Sincerely Believe Patriarchy To Be At The Root Of All Of Our Social Diseases And Feminism, It's Antidote, To Be A Prerequisite To Peace On Earth. Feminism Provides An Alternative Way Of Thinking And Structuring Things That Focuses On And Prioritizes Relationships And De-emphasizes Hierarchy, Separation And Domination.

When I First Started Writing Songs And Being Very Explicit, It Was Hard, But One Of The Main Things People Respond To In My Writing Is That 'just Say It' Attitude Of My Songs. There Really Is Nothing Personal Or Private; It's All Universal, If You Can Just Find The Courage To Be Open About Your Life.

Like A Lot Of People, I Had This Naive Hope That Barack Obama Would Fix Everything Quickly. You Know, The Culture Of Celebrity In This Country Leads Us Away From Democratic Ways Of Thinking And Into This Hero Worship. And So Of Course, One Man Cannot Swoop In And Fix Everything On His Own. It's Much More Complicated And Difficult Than That, And Progressives In This Country Since Then Have Had To Come To Terms With The Fact That We Need To Do More Than Actually Get Out Of Our House And Vote. It's An Ongoing Process To Turn The Tide.

My Writing Just Kind Of Exists Out There In The Air-it's All Sort Of Intended As Spoken, Or Sung, Word. So, To Commit Them To The Page...that Way Was Kind Of Intimidating To Me, Yet Intriguing, To Try To Reflect The Rhythms And Connotations And Emotions That You Can Deliver, Speaking-wise, On A Page.

There's A Crowd Of People Harbored In Each Person There Are So Many Roles That We Play.

I Am A Thinned-skinned Type. I Am Very Sensitive, Very Emotional. Vulnerability Is Kind Of Always A Part Of My Day.

When You Grow Up Surrounded By Willful Ignorance, You Have To Believe That Mercy Has It's Own Country And That It's Round And Borderless.

First Decide What You Got To Do, Then Go Out And Do It. All We Can Do Is To See Each Other Through It.

Taking Me Seriously Is A Big Mistake. I Certainly Wouldn't.

I Did Not Design This Game; I Did Not Name The Stakes. I Just Happen To Like Apples; And I Am Not Afraid Of Snakes.

I've Been Trying To Learn How To Not Be So Conflicted About Things Like My Own Anger. I've Always Had A Place In My Music For My Anger As A Way Of Compensating For Not Having A Mechanism To Express It In My Everyday Life. So I've Been Trying To Be More True To Myself, And That Helps Me To Chill Out A Little Bit. But Politically, Uh-uh. No.

I Walk Like I'm On A Mission 'cause That's The Way I Groove. I Got More And More To Do And Less And Less To Prove.

Time Is Not A Thing That's Ours To Lose.

They Say That The Truth Will Set You Free But Then Again, So Will A Lie... It Depends If You're Trying To Get To The Promised Land Or If You're Just Trying To Get By.

Truth Will Set You Free

I Hate It When People Don't Recognize The Work Of Women As Being Universal, Or Having Any Import To The World At Large, As Opposed To Men's Work, Which Is Generally Tends To Be Seen As More Universal - Men's Writing About Their Own Experience Tends To Be Put In A Broader Context.

If You’re Not Angry, Then You’re Just Stupid, You Don’t Care. How Else Can You React When Something’s So Unfair?

I Am Still Praying For Revolution.

It's Just Hard To Travel In The Shadow Of Regret. In Fact, It's So Hard That I Actually Haven't Left Yet.

You've Decided To Love Me For Eternity, I'm Still Deciding Who I Want To Be Today.

You're Trying To Fight Gravity On A Planet That Insists That Love Is Like Falling, And Falling Is Like This.

We Have A Complete Void Of Progressive Politics In This Country Right Now. The Will Of The People Goes Ignored And Unrealized. I'm Searching For The People That Can Enter The Political System, A Strong Third Party. We Need To Consolidate.

Music Has As Many Roles As People Make It.

I Knew Naturally As A Child Not To Forfeit My Creativity To A World That's All Laid Out For Me. I'll Look At Everything Around Me And Vow To Keep In Mind That Alla This Is Just Someone's Idea. It Could Have Just As Well Been Mine.

There Is No Alternative. A Democrat Is A Republican Is A Big Businessman, And We're All Consumers Instead Of Citizens. It Just Manifests In The Culture, In The Music, In The Art. I Feel A Little Panicky About It.

I'm Searching, As We All Are, For Ways To Feel Good About Myself. Certainly, Looking In The Mirror Doesn't Do It!

Looking In The Mirror

Art May Imitate Life, But Life Imitates Tv.

If You Think You Know What I'm Doing Wrong Well You're Gonna Have To Get In Line.

Playing Show After Show Is Like My Bread And Butter.

Bread And Butter

I Don't Need Anyone To Hold Me, I Can Hold My Own.

I Have Earned My Disillusionment.

Disillusionment

Sometimes The Beauty Is Easy. Sometimes You Don't Have To Try At All. Sometimes You Can Hear The Wind Blow In A Handshake. Sometimes There's Poetry Written Right On The Bathroom Wall.

Squint Your Eyes And Look Closer I'm Not Between You And Your Ambition I Am A Poster Girl With No Poster I Am Thirty-two Flavors And Then Some And I'm Beyond Your Peripheral Vision So You Might Want To Turn Your Head Cause Someday You Might Find You're Starving And Eating All Of The Words You Said.

One Thing I Do Find In The "lost" Generation Or Something Is A Kind Of Abhorrence Of History, You Know, Like It's Boring, Dumb, Or Just Not Interesting. I Think It's Terribly Interesting If You Can Get Your Head Around How It Relates To Where You're Standing Right Here And Now.

I Think If We Can't Use The Word Feminist, If It's Some Kind Of Taboo Or Dirty Word, Or Means You're Ugly, Or You're Angry, Or You're Not Dateable [laughs], Then You've Just Reduced The Language By A Whole Concept.

Don't Tell Me What They Did To You As Though You Had No Choice. Tell Me, Isn't That Your Picture? Isn't That Your Voice.

My Music Doesn't Really Sound Like Punk Music, It's Acoustic. And It Doesn't Really Sound Like Folk Music 'cause I'm Thrashing Too Hard And Emoting A Little Too Much For The Sort Of Introspective, Respectful, Sort-of Folk Genre Thing. I'm Really Into Punk And Folk As Music That Comes Out Of Communities And Is Very Genuine And Very Immediate And Not Commercial.

Men Make Angry Music And It's Called Rock-and-roll; Women Include Anger In Their Vocabulary And Suddenly They're Angry And Militant.

Some People Wear Their Smile Like A Disguise. Those People Who Smile A Lot, Watch Their Eyes. I Know 'cause I'm Like That A Lot. You Think Everything's Ok, And It Is . . . 'till It's Not.

I Am Writing Graffiti On Your Body. I Am Drawing The Story Of How Hard We Tried.

I Know Men Are Delicate Origami Creatures Who Need Women To Unfold Them, Hold Them When They Cry. But I Am Tired Of Being Your Savior And I Am Tired Of Telling You Why.

I Am Not A Pretty Girl. I Don't Want To Be A Pretty Girl. No, I Want To Be More Than A Pretty Girl.

My Political Mission Is As Acute As Ever. For Me, In Addition To Kind Of Looking At The World And Trying To Engage In My Society Politically, Having The Kid Around Sort Of Makes Me Check In With Myself. I Think You're All Busy Trying To Fix The World, But What About Yourself?

I Speak Without Reservation, From What I Know And Who I Am. I Do So With The Understanding That All People Should Have The Right To Offer Their Voices To The Chorus Whether The Result Is Harmony Or Dissonance. The Worldsong Is A Colorless Dirge Without The Differences That Distinguish Us, And It Is That Difference Which Should Be Celebrated Not Condemned.

God Help You If You Are A Phoenix And You Dare To Rise Up From The Ash A Thousand Eyes Will Smolder With Jealousy While You Are Just Flying Past

Change The Narrative, Change The Laws.

I'm A Little Hibernating Animal. Anonymity Is One Of My Favorite Things. I Mean, That's Why I Moved To New York When I Was Like 18, Because There, There Are Just So Many People That There's No One And You're Just Lost. You're Completely Invisible And I Find That Very Liberating.

I Mean, Playing Music At Home And Writing And Hanging Out With My Guitar Is Kind Of Medicinal For Me, But When I Bring The Songs To People On Stage, It's Very Joyous.

[amy Ray And I] Both Have This Part Of Our Brain That Makes Us Think That Everybody Should And Will Be Nice And Friendly And Forthcoming. And Then We're Completely Disillusioned. We Have All These Grand Plans. One Of Them Is The Rolling Thunder Pussy Revue. There's All These Women's Festivals Going On This Summer, And We Don't Think They're As Adventurous As They Could Be. Lilith Fair-right Away, By The Name, You Know They Aren't Pushing The Envelope Hard Enough.

These Days I Keep A Journal, So I'm Constantly Sketching Down My Thoughts, Or Lines That Come To Me...ideas For Songs. And Then When I Have A Moment To Myself, I'll Sit Down With My Guitar And Open My Journal, And Start Kind Of Massaging Things Together, And See If A Song Takes Shape. Or Sometimes, I'll Just Be Hanging Out With My Guitar And Come Up With A Chord Progression Or A Lick, And That'll Sort Of Sit Around For A While Waiting To Marry Itself To Some Words. So It's Sort Of Haphazard And It's Like...junk Culture. I Go Around Finding Shiny Objects And I Glue Them Together Laughs.

I'd Rather Suffer The Consequences Of Truth Than Of Silence.

I Am 32 Flavors And Then Some.

Feel Free To Listen, Feel Free To Stare.

And I Try To Draw The Line But It Ends Up Running Down The Middle Of Me Most Of The Time.

Life Is A B Movie: It's Stupid And It's Strange, It's A Directionless Story, The Dialogue Is Lame, But In The 'he Said She Said' Sometimes There's Some Poetry, If You Turn Your Back Long Enough And Let It Happen Naturally.

I Fight With Love And I Laugh With Rage....you Gotta Live Light Enough To See The Humor, And Long Enough To See Some Change.

People Talk About My Image Like I Come In Two Dimensions, Like Lipstick Is A Sign Of My Declining Mind, Like What I Happen To Be Wearing The Day That Someone Takes My Picture Is My New Statement For All Womankind.

Now The Profile Of Our Country Looks A Little Less Hard Nosed / But That Picket Line Persisted And That Clinic's Since Been Closed / They Keep Pounding Their Fists On Reality Hoping It Will Break / But I Don't Think There's A One Of Us Leads A Life Free Of Mistakes

We've Got Ego's Like Hairdos.

In Any Marginalized Community, Whether People Identify Themselves Or Not Affects Us All.

I Did A Lot Of Work With Myself Over The Course Of Being Pregnant And The First Few Months Of Being Pregnant. It's Nice, The Pace Of Being Pregnant; It Gives You A Long Time To Not Just Germinate A Baby But Germinate The Mother That You're Gonna Be.

But In The Garden Of Simple, Where All Of Us Are Nameless, You Were Never Anything But Beautiful To Me.

I'm Aware Enough, I Guess, Of American Labor History.

Now I Wonder Who Is Gonna Be President: Tweedle Dumb, Or Tweedle Dumber-- And Who Is Gonna Have The Big Block Buster Box Office This Summer.

Some People's Minds We're Not Going To Change. But If We Can't, We Need To Bring More Positive Voices Into The Discussion.

I Am A Work In Progress Dressed In The Fabric Of A World Unfolding.

Privilege Is A Headache, That You Don't Know That You Don't Have.

People Need Something Or Someone To Fasten Themselves To In Order To Reassure Themselves That They Are Real.

Lying In Bed, You Know, You Don't Seem So Tall.

I Envy Your Ignorance, I Hear That It's Bliss.

I've Been Collecting Some More High-end Guitars. I Have An Old Martin D28 From The '60s, A Beautiful, Classic Martin That I Know I Played On 'mariachi.'

I Was Blessed With A Birth And A Death, And I Guess I Just Want Some Say In Between.

I Seriously Hate Pop Music And All Things Super-commercial, So I'd Be Hard Pressed To Feel Embarrassed By Anything I Listen To. Besides, I Have A Three-year-old, So I Don't Have Time For Guilty Pleasures Anyway!

Take Away Our Play Stations And We Are A Third World Nation.

I Don't Hate Being Compared With Female Musicians. I Don't Mind That At All. I Have No Problem With Seeing Connections Between Women's Work.

I Had A Little Bit Of Resistance To The Idea Of Taking Energy Away From My Work, And The Baby Comes Along And, Lo And Behold, That's Exactly What Happens.

A Good Brain Ain't Diddley, If You Don't Have The Facts.

They See Me As A Symbol, And Not A Human Being. That Way They Can Kill Me, Say It’s Not Murder It’s A Metaphor.

Love Isn't Over When The Sheets Are Stained.

I Think I'm A Very Solitary Person. To Actually Not Be Anonymous Is A Bit Claustrophobic For Me.

I Always Wanted To Be Commander-in-chief Of My One-woman Army, But I Can Envision The Mediocrity Of My Finest Hour.

The Stronger I Am In My Personal Life, The More Energy I Have To Look Outward, To Address My Society.

Virtue Is Relative At Best, There's Nothing Worse Than A Sunset When Your Driving Due West.

Feminism Is Not Only For Women It's Something Everyone Can Participate In, And Evolve Together, As The First Step In The Right Direction. I See Feminism As A Tool To Achieve That Balance And Peace.

I Don't Know If There Are Artists Out There Who Love Their Own Records. I Haven't Met Any, And I'm Kind Of Extreme In The Other Direction, But Therein Lies The Impetus To Keep Working And Keep Making New Songs And New Records.

When Everything Else Seems Unclear, At Least I'll Know I Do It For The Joy It Brings.

Why Do Our Kids Have To Show Us What Gun Control Is All About?

We Can't Afford To Do Anyone Harm Because We Owe Them Our Lives Each Breath Is Recycled From Someone Else's Lungs Our Enemies Are The Very Air In Disguise You Can Talk A Great Philosophy But If You Can't Be Kind To People Every Day It Doesn't Mean That Much To Me It's The Little Things You Do The Little Things You Say It's The Love You Give Along The Way

Maybe You Don't Like Your Job, Maybe You Didn't Get Enough Sleep, Well Nobody Likes Their Job, Nobody Got Enough Sleep. Maybe You Just Had The Worst Day Of Your Life, But You Know, There's No Escape, There's No Excuse, So Just Suck Up And Be Nice.

Patriarchy Is Like The Elephant In The Room That We Don't Talk About, But How Could It Not Affect The Planet Radically When It's The Superstructure Of Human Society?

At Night When You're Asleep, Self-hatred's Going To Creep In. And You Can Blame It On The Devil, The One Who's Bed You Sleep In.

I've Never Had A Very Closely Connected Family. My Parents Split Up When I Was Young And I Was Living With My Mom For A Little While, Then I Was Kind Of Just On My Own Really Young. It Wasn't Some Kind Of Global Tragedy, It Was Just Never Really A Very Close-knit Family. So There Was Support In The Sense That They Didn't Stand In My Way.

The Fundamental Imbalance That Is Behind All Of The Other Social Diseases Is Patriarchy.

I Was Attracted To A Lot Of Different Art Forms - Dancing, Painting. But There's Something About Music That People Hold So Close. It's Such A Powerful Art Form, And That's Why I Live For It.

And Half Of Learning To Play Is Learning What Not To Play And She's Learning The Spaces She Leaves Have Their Own Things To Say And She's Trying To Sing Just Enough So That The Air Around Her Moves And Make Music Like Mercy That Gives What It Is And Has Nothing To Prove She Crawls Out On A Limb And Begins To Build Her Home And It's Enough Just To Look Around And To Know That She's Not Alone Up Up Up Up Up Up Up Points The Spire Of The Steeple But God's Work Isn't Done By God It's Done By People

We're Led By Denial Like Lambs To Slaughter, Serving Empires Of Style And Carbonated Sugar Water.

It's Great Being Your Own Boss, But Then, You Know, You Make Your Own Mistakes, You Know, And You Own Them. You Know, So It's Empowering, And It's Also Humbling Along The Way.

I Love My Country, By Which I Mean, I Am Indebted Joyfully, To All The People Throughout Its History, Who Have Fought The Government To Make Right, Where So Many Cunning Sons And Daughters, Our Foremothers And Forefathers, Came Singing Through Slaughter, Came Through Hell And High Water, So That We Could Stand Here, And Behold Breathlessly The Sight, How A Raging River Of Tears, Cut A Grand Canyon Of Light... Why Can't All Decent Men And Women, Call Themselves Feminists? Out Of Respect, For Those Who Fought For This...

You Rhapsodize About Beauty, And My Eyes Glaze. Everything That I Love Is Ugly. I Mean Really, You Would Be Amazed. Just Do Me A Favor, It's The Least That You Can Do, Just Don't Treat Me Like I Am Something That Happened To You.

I Never Try To Imagine The Future. I Kinda Think It's A Waste Of Time. I Live In The Now.

It Can Be Very Frustrating And Very Deflating To Be Constantly Defined And Described By Other People, So I've Stopped Reading Anything Written About Me, And I Find It Much Healthier. I Just Sort Of Concentrate On What I Do And Don't Worry Too Much About That.

One Of My Rules Is: Never Try To Do Anything. Just Do It.

When I Was Like Sixteen, I Was A Total Chick I Had Big Hair. I Was Seen As This Attractive Girl, And I Would Get All This Attention. And Then I Just Cut Off My Hair, And I Quit Playing That Game.

Mostly, I Stay Out Of Social Media Conversations. But Sometimes, They Hunt Me Down And Shoot At Me Anyway!

Art Is Why I Get Up In The Morning, But My Definition Ends There.

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