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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.

-Ani DiFranco

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My Mother Was A

Ani DiFranco

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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.

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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.

If More People Were Screamin', I Could Relax.

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

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

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 Do It For The Joy It Brings Because I'm A Joyful Girl Because The World Owes Me Nothing And We Owe Each Other The World

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.

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

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

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

Something Special

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.

I Try To Laugh At Whatever Life Brings.

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.

Someday You're Going To Get Hungry And Eat Most Of The Words You Just Said.

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

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.

My Distraction's My Defense Against This Lack Of Inspiration Against This Slow Deflation Yeah The Further The Horizon The More It Holds My Gaze The Foreground's Out Of Focus But You Know I Kinda Hope It's Just A Phase Just A Phase.

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

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.

The World Owes Us Nothing; We Owe Each Other The World.

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.

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.

I Don't Take Good Pictures 'cause I Have The Kind Of Beauty That Moves.

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.

Why Do You Think I Write These Feminist Songs, To Try And Teach Myself To Respect Myself. You Know, It's Not Because I'm A Hero.

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 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.

I Am 32 Flavors And Then Some.

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

Individual Differences

I Noticed With Older Songs That I Perform That I'm Coming From A Different Place With Them Now...it Mutates The Vibe And Even The Meaning Of The Same Words When You Have A Different Spirit, If The Person Singing Is Different. I Like That, To Be Able To Sing An Emotionally Wrought Song From A More Centered Place, Or To Sing An Eager, Youthful Song From A More Experienced Place. It Kind Of Colors The Songs Differently, And It Keeps Them Fresh.

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?

I'm Home In New Orleans!

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.

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.

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

Unanswered Questions

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

Taken Out Of Context I Must Seem So Strange.

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

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.

I Will Not Be Afraid To Let My Talent Shine.

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

Love Isn't Over When The Sheets Are Stained.

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

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.

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

Music Has As Many Roles As People Make It.

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

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

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

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

When I Need To Wipe My Face, I Use The Back Of My Hand, And I Like To Take Up Space Just Because I Can, And I Use My Dress To Wipe Up My Drink. I Care Less And Less What People Think.

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

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

Reproductive Rights

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.

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.

I Always Feel I Have To Take A Stand, And There's Always Someone On Hand To Hate Me For Standing There. I Always Feel I Have To Open My Mouth, And Every Time I Do, I Offend Someone, Somewhere.

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

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

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

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

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.'

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

I Have Earned My Disillusionment.

Disillusionment

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 Sing Sometimes For The War That I Fight, 'cause Every Tool Is A Weapon If You Hold It Right.

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.

Words Are Hotter Than Flames. Words Are Wetter Than Water.

Art May Imitate Life, But Life Imitates Tv.

I Would Like To Perfect The Art Of Being Studiously Aloof

[the 'corporate Takeover Of People's Lives'] Also Accounts For A Lot Of Homogenization Of Culture. There Are Fast Food Restaurants Everywhere. Every Place Tastes The Same.

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

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

People Used To Make Records, As In The Record Of An Event, The Event Of People Playing Music In A Room, And Now Everything's Cross-marketing, Its About Sunglasses And Shoes, Or Guns And Drugs That You Choose.

If You Don't Live What You Sing About, Your Mirror Is Gonna Fade.

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

Imagine You're A Girl, Just Trying To Finally Come Clean, Knowing Full Well They'd Prefer You Were Dirty And Smiling.

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

[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.

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

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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

Change The Narrative, Change The Laws.

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

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.

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

When All You Can Think Of Is Your Own Personal Problems, You Have Nothing To Give To Your Society. If You're Trying To Figure Out Where Your Next Meal Is Coming From, You Can't Go March On Washington.

March On Washington

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

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

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

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.'

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

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.

Feel Free To Listen, Feel Free To Stare.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

A Lesson Must Be Lived In Order To Be Learned And The Clarity To See And Stop This Now That Is What I've Earned

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.

We Barely Have Time To React In This World, Let Alone Rehearse.

Any Tool Is A Weapon If You Hold It Right.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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?

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

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'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.

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

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 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.

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

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 Heart Up On Their Sleeve. I Wear Mine Underneath My Right Pant Leg, Strapped To My Boot.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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 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.

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

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.

I Believe The Act Of Giving Birth To Be The Single Most Miraculous Thing A Human Being Can Do And It Is Surely The Moment When A Lot Of Women Finally Understand The Depth Of Their Power. You Think It Can’t Possibly Be Done, You Think You Can’t Possibly Take The Pain, And Then You Do-—and Afterward You Look At Yourself In A Whole New Way. If You Can Do That, You Can Do Anything.

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

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.

Love Was Always The Goal, And My Point Every Step Of The Way Was That Nothing Is Wrong With Love, No Matter What Flavor It Comes In.

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.

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

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

We Negotiate With Chaos For Some Sense Of Satisfaction.

The Old Farm Roads A Four Lane That Leads To The Mall, And Our Dreams Are All Guillotines Waiting To Fall.

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

What Doesn't Bend, Breaks.

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'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.

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

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...

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

We Are Taught To View Pain As An Enemy, Not A Teacher. But Pain Is The Right Hand Of Growth And Transformation. Pain Is In The History Of All Human Wisdom.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Birth Is The Epicenter Of Women's Power

Inspirational Pregnancy

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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?

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

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Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Dennis Kucinich

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