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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.

-Ani DiFranco

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My Writing Just Kind

Ani DiFranco

...

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.

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More From Ani DiFranco

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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 Need A Radically Truthful Way To Acknowledge Reproductive Freedom.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

Art May Imitate Life, But Life Imitates Tv.

One Thing That Barack Obama Promised, One Thing That We All Know We Must Do Is Evolve Our Industry And Our Technology To Being Green And Sustainable. We Need To Move Away From Fossil Fuels And Nuclear Power, Both Of Which I Think Spell Doom For Human Society.

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

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

Feel Free To Listen, Feel Free To Stare.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Unanswered Questions

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

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

So Many Of Us, Myself Included, Need To Keep Our Sense Of Personal Outrage In Check. Each Human Beings Position On The Planet Is One Of Intense Humility.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

They Taught Me Different Was Wrong.

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

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.

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

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.

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

The Windows Of My Soul Are Made Of One-way Glass, Don't Bother Looking Into My Eyes If There's Something You Want To Know, Just Ask

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

Self-preservation Is A Full-time Occupation.

Self Preservation

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.

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

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

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

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

I'm Home In New Orleans!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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

Change The Narrative, Change The Laws.

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

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.

Playing Show After Show Is Like My Bread And Butter.

Bread And Butter

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.

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

There's A Paradox In Every Paradigm.

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.

...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.

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.

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

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.'

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 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 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.

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.

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.

I Know The Biggest Crime Is Just To Throw Up Your Hands, Say, This Has Nothing To Do With Me, I Just Want To Live As Comfortably As I Can...

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

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

Something Special

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

I Have Earned My Disillusionment.

Disillusionment

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.'

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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...

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.

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.

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.

People Who Are Just Starting Out Are Always Sort Of Coming To Me For Advice As The Example Of "independent Girl," And Lots Of People Ask, Well, How Did You Get The Booking Agent Or The National Distribution Or The Tours? And I Look At Them Like, "good Lord! Relax!" I Mean, How I Did It Was To Not Care About It And To Not Even Think About It For Years And Years. All I Thought About Was Getting The Next Little Gig In The Little Bar, And I Get This Sense That People Want Me To Give Them The Secret Formula Or The Magic Trick To Make It All Happen.

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

Any Tool Is A Weapon If You Hold It Right.

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

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

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?

I Am 32 Flavors And Then Some.

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

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 Would Like To Perfect The Art Of Being Studiously Aloof

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.

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.

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

We Negotiate With Chaos For Some Sense Of Satisfaction.

We've Got Ego's Like Hairdos.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Music Has As Many Roles As People Make It.

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.

Smile Pretty And Watch Your Back

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.

Love Isn't Over When The Sheets Are Stained.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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 Will Not Be Afraid To Let My Talent Shine.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

If A Politician Is Running In Your Local Community Who's Pro-choice, Who's Feminist In Their Thinking, Get Behind Them. Send Them Some Money! If You Have No Money But Have Time, Lick Stamps!

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

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.

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

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."

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'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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Individual Differences

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