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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.

-Ani DiFranco

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I Basically Get Stereotyped

Ani DiFranco

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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.

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Just Let Me Go, We Have To Be Able To Criticize What We Love, To Say What We Have To Say 'cause If You're Not Trying To Make Something Better, Then As Far As I Can Tell, You Are Just In The Way.

I Love To Exercise My Creativity In Many Ways But As Each Year Of Specialization Goes By I Feel Further And Further From My Other Creative Selves. I Used To Be Able To See Myself Doing Many Things And Sometimes I Still Long For A Job That Involves Less Pressure And Grappling With People But, As You Say, I Am One Of The Lucky Ones So I Try To Just Focus On Feeling Lucky And Carry On!

I Would Like To Perfect The Art Of Being Studiously Aloof

I Like To Be An Inspiration And An Example Of The Idea That You Can Be Independent, And It's No Problem, And You Can Pay Your Rent, And It's Empowering, And It's Great. And That's True, But It Also Takes A Really Long Time, And You Have To Have A Lot Of Patience And A Lot Of Conviction In Why You Want To Remain Independent.

It Don't Take A Weather Man To Look Around And See The Weather, Jeb Said He'd Deliver Florida Folks And Boy Did He Ever, And We Hold These Truths To Be Self Evident Number One George W Bush Is Not President. Number Two America Isn't A True Democracy. And Number Three The Media Is Not Fooling Me.

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.

I Make Such A Good Statistic, Somebody Should Study Me Now; Somebody's Gotta Be Interested In How I Feel, Just Cause I'm Here, And I'm Real.

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.

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

We Negotiate With Chaos For Some Sense Of Satisfaction.

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

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

Love Is A Piano Dropped From A Fourth Story Window, And You Were In The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time.

They Taught Me Different Was Wrong.

I Have Something To Prove, As Long As I Know There's Something That Needs Improvement, And You Know That Everytime I Move, I Make A Woman's Movement.

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.

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.

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

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

Individual Differences

I Fear That Donald Trump Will Continue To Be Followed Around By The Media In Its Totality As He Continues To Rail Against Hillary Clinton.

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

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

Unanswered Questions

Music Has As Many Roles As People Make It.

Every Time I Say Something They Find Hard To Hear, They Chalk It Up To My Anger, And Never To Their Own Fear.

I Really Have Been Enjoying Performing More Lately Than I Have In A Long Time And You Know, It's All About That Sort Of Centered Feeling That I Have Now. You Know, Thanks To, Not Just My Kid, But Her Father Before Her. You Know, I Have A Kind Of A Grounding Through Them That I Really Relish, And I Think Is Also Good For My Work, You Know.

There Isn't Much I Have To Say, That I Wouldn't Rather Just Shut Up And Do.

Women Who Don't Control Their Own Reproductive Rights Are Not Free.

Reproductive Rights

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

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.

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.

Like How Could You Do Nothing, And Say, 'i'm Doing My Best.' How Could You Take Almost Everything, And Then Come Back For The Rest? How Could You Beg Me To Stay, Reach Out Your Hands And Plead, And Then Pack Up Your Eyes And Run Away As Soon As I Agreed?

And Thoughts Of No Other Man But You Could Possibly Get Through The Picket Lines To Enter Into My Mind.

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.

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

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

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

I Try To Laugh At Whatever Life Brings.

My Mother Was A Feminist, And She Gave Me Some Tools Of Self-possession And Self-empowerment, But Now That I Have Lived Here For Forty-three Years, It's, Like, Whoa, There Is Just So Much More To Do, Other Than Become Myself. I'm Still Talking About It. I Still Drop The P-word, "patriarchy," On Unsuspecting People In Everyday Conversations.

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.

You've Already Put More Than Enough Energy Into Worry. That's All Women Have Been Allowed To Do, Historically.

Maybe You Can Keep Me From Never Being Happy, But You're Not Going To Stop Me From Having Fun!

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

I Am Still Praying For Revolution.

The Way I Play Guitar Is Very, Very Hard And I Bloody Myself Incredibly Without The Tape. And The Nails Are My Picks.

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.

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.

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.

We've Got Ego's Like Hairdos.

My Idea Of Feminism Is Self-determination, And It's Very Open-ended: Every Woman Has The Right To Become Herself, And Do Whatever She Needs To Do.

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.

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.

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

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

Let's Grow Old And Die Together. Let's Do It Now.

Smile Pretty And Watch Your Back

If You Like It, Let It Be, And If You Don't Please Do The Same.

We Need A Radically Truthful Way To Acknowledge Reproductive Freedom.

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.

Science Chases Money, And Money Chases Its Tail, And The Best Minds Of My Generation Cannot Make Bail.

As Any Mom Knows, Having A Baby Is An Extremely Creative Act And To Love And Create A Baby, It's On Par With Any Other Creative Act That We Could Come Up With.

For Every Hand Extended Another Lies In Wait. Keep Your Eye On That One Girl...anticipate.

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

You've Got Your Whole Life To Do Something, And That's Not Very Long. So Why Don't You Give Me A Call When You're Willing To Fight For What You Think Is Real, For What You Think Is Right.

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.

All Of Youth Culture Is Packaged And Sold Back To Us At This Furious Rate These Days. I Think It's Part And Parcel To This Corporate Encroachment On Our Lives In General.

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.

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.

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?

There's A Paradox In Every Paradigm.

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

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!

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.

All The Decent People, Male And Female, Are Feminists. The Only People Who Are Not Feminists Are Those Who Believe That Women Are Inherently Inferior Or Undeserving Of The Respect And Opportunity Afforded Men. Either You Are A Feminist Or You Are A Misogynist. There Is No Box Marked "other."

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

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.

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

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

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.

Before Katrina, You Didn't See Criticism Of The Bush Administration In The Media. Here They Are, Stealing Elections, Enacting Illegal Wars, Huge Crimes Against Humanity And Democracy, And You Didn't Even See Criticism. It Wasn't Until Katrina That People Started To Come Down On Them.

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

Feel Free To Listen, Feel Free To Stare.

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

To Split Yourself In Two Is Just The Most Radical Thing You Can Do

I Cannot Name This, I Cannot Explain This, And I Really Don't Want To So Just Call Me Shameless.

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

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.

They Can Call Me Crazy If I Fail, All The Chance That I Need, Is One-in-a-million And They Can Call Me Brilliant If I Succeed.

Having More Exposure Is Kind Of A Bittersweet Thing For Me, Honestly, Because It's Nice To Have A Little More Job Security In Life Now.

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

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

Stepped Out Into The Cold, Collar High, Under The Slate Gray Sky. The Air Was Smoking And The Streets Were Dry, And I Wasn't Joking When I Said Goodbye.

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.

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

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

I Don't Always Feel Lucky, But I'm Smart Enough To Try.

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

...words Are Some Of The Most Powerful And Important Things I Know....language Is The Tool Of Love And The Weapon Of Hatred. It's The Bright Red Warning Flag Of Danger--and The Stone Foundation Of Diplomacy And Peace.

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

I Just Don't Know Any Other Word Than "feminist" That Describes A Person Who Believes Women Are People.

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

I'd Rather Be Able To Face Myself In The Bathroom Mirror Than Be Rich And Famous.

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.

Playing Show After Show Is Like My Bread And Butter.

Bread And Butter

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.

God Forbid You Be An Ugly Girl, 'course Too Pretty Is Also Your Doom, 'cause Everyone Harbors A Secret Hatred For The Prettiest Girl In The Room.

What We All Have To Admit To Is That One Man Cannot Save Us. Unless We Start Energizing Ourselves, All Standing Behind Him With All Of The Force Of Our Collective Power Then We Can't Expect Mountains To Be Moved. And That Is Not Exactly Happening, We Are A Very Comfortable Population.

Art May Imitate Life, But Life Imitates Tv.

I Wonder What You Look Like Under Your T-shirt. I Wonder What You Sound Like When You're Not Wearing Words. I Wonder What We Have When We're Not Pretending.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Pop Stardom Is Not Very Compelling. I'm Much More Interested In A Relationship Between Performer And Audience That Is Of Equals. I Came Up Through Folk Music, And There's No Pomp And Circumstance To The Performance. There's No, Like, 'i'll Be The Rock Star, You Be The Adulating Fan.'

All The Wrong People Have The Power Of Suggestion And The Freedom Of The Press Is Meaningless If Nobody Asks A Question.

Freedom Of The Press

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

And If There's Anything I Do It's Change And Grow. I'm Just A Living Being. Every Year Of My Life I Seem To Learn That Everything I Know Is Wrong.

Actually I Don't Know If Honesty Is A Strength Or Some Kind Of Weakness.

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.

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.

My Feminism Has Evolved Way Beyond Self-empowerment And I See Feminism As A Path To Peace On Earth. The Fundamental Imbalance That Is Behind All Of The Other Social Diseases Is Patriarchy. I Do Believe. As Men And Women, Together, I Really Long To Feel My Society Evolve Its Understanding Since We're One Of The Leaders In The F-word. I Want Us To Grow Our Idea Of Feminism Collectively And Get Both Men And Women Involved In Undoing Patriarchy. It's Huge. It's A Huge Job.

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'm The Color Me Happy Girl, Miss Live And Let Live. And When They're Out For Blood, I Always Give.

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.

Vulnerability Is Something That I Negotiate Every Day.

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.

Don't Treat Me Like I Am Something That Happened To You.

The World Is My Oyster. The Road Is My Home. And I Know That I'm Better Off Alone.

I Use My Dress To Wipe Up My Drink, I Care Less And Less What People Think.

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

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

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

Art Is Why I Get Up In The Morning But My Definition Ends There. You Know I Don't Think Its Fair That I'm Living For Something I Can't Even Define.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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

Love Sets Fire To Your Schedule, And Then Calls An End To Time.

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

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

Life Is A Sleazy Stranger, Who Looks Vaguely Familiar; Flirting With A Bimbo Named Disaster At The End Of The Bar.

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 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.

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.

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

No One's Gonna Sympathize When We Crash, They'll Say You Hit What You Head For, You Get What You Ask.

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.

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.

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

You Can't Start With Imbalance And End With Peace, Be That In Your Own Body, In An Ecosystem Or Between A Government And Its People. What We Need To Strive For Is Not Perfection, But Balance.

We Are Wise Women, We Are Giggling Girls. We Both Carry A Smile To Show When We're Pleased, We Both Carry A Switchblade In Our Sleeves.

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

I Love All Those Great 'f' Words - Feminism, Folk Music.

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.

I'm Recording Our History Now On The Bedroom Wall, And When We Leave The Landlord Will Come And Paint Over It All.

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

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.

I See A Lot Of Young Female Performers Who Do Not Call Themselves Feminist, But Would Certainly Believe In Their Own Right To Self-determination, And Wouldn't Want Anybody To Stop Them From Becoming Themselves. They Just Refuse To Recognize The Relationship Between Their Lives And Those Of Other Women, Or Feel Any Solidarity There.

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 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.

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

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

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

[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.

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.

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

My Life May Not Be Something Special But It's Never Been Lived Before.

Something Special

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.

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

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.

I Still Define Myself By The Places That I've Been.

You Got To Look Outside- Your Eyes- You Got To Think Outside- Your Brain- You Got To Walk Outside- Your Life- To Where The Neighborhoods Change.

My Songs Are Just Little Letters To Me.

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

I Think The Music Industry, For Instance, Is Such A Huge, Multibazillion-dollar Industry And It's Become Very, Very Savvy. There's A Very Short Grace Period In Which Actual Human Rebellion Or Resistance Can Thrive Before It's Co-opted By These Huge Companies. And All Of Youth Culture Is Packaged And Sold Back To Us At This Furious Rate These Days. I Think It's Part And Parcel To This Corporate Encroachment On Our Lives In General.

I've Been Saying The Occupy Movement Has Got The Ball Rolling, And Now We Need To Take The Fight To The Great Indoors!

Occupy Movement

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 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.

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.

There Are So Many Things That We Have To Be Very Concerned About. But I Always Come Back To Feminism.

And This Vague Little Smile Is My All Purpose Expression The Meaning Of Which I Will Leave To Your Discretion.

I Hope Progressive Ways Of Thinking Will Permeate The "mainstream" More And More In The Coming Years. Goddess Knows We Have Endured A Very Long Spell (thirty Plus Years) Of Regressive Thinking And Hyper Conservativism Dominating Our Culture And National Discourse. It Necessitates Risk Taking And Rule Breaking By People In All Walks Of Life To Swing That Pendulum Back Though.

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

I'm Pretty Much A Workaholic, But When You're Doing What You Love It's Hard To Think Of A Reason To Stop.

Doing What You Love

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

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

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

I Can Jump Ship And Swim-- That The Ocean Will Hold Me, That There's Got To Be More Than This Boat I'm In.

I Just Hope It Was Okay, I Know It Wasn't Perfect, I Hope In The End We Can Laugh And Say It Was All Worth It.

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?

I Don't Care If They Eat Me Alive, I've Got Better Things To Do Then Survive.

I'll Walk The Plank And I'll Jump With A Smile, Cause If I'm Gonna Go Down I'm Gonna Do It With Style.

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.

I'm Sounding Out The Silence, Avoiding All The Words.

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.

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.

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.

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Sherri Shepherd

Jan Peter Balkenende

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