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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?

-Ani DiFranco

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Patriarchy Is Like The

Ani DiFranco

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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?

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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.

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

Unanswered Questions

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

If More People Were Screamin', I Could Relax.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

[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.

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

What I Like Way Better Than Lgbt In Terms Of Labeling Sexuality Actually Is A Scheme That Comes To Me From My Friend Animal Prufrock Wherein One Is Identified Not By What They Supposedly "are" But Rather By What They Are Into. Which Brings Us To The Terms Hemosexual, Shemosexual, And Mosexual.

Self-preservation Is A Full-time Occupation.

Self Preservation

Vulnerability Is Something That I Negotiate Every Day.

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 Always Feel Lucky, But I'm Smart Enough To Try.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

I 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.

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

Truth Will Set You Free

I 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.

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.

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

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

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...

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 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 Am Still Praying For Revolution.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

I Would Like To Perfect The Art Of Being Studiously Aloof

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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 Try To Laugh At Whatever Life Brings.

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

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.

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

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 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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.'

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

I Think The 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.

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.

Any Tool Is A Weapon If You Hold It Right.

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

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.

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

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 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.

Music Has As Many Roles As People Make It.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

They Taught Me Different Was Wrong.

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

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

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

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

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.

Feel Free To Listen, Feel Free To Stare.

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

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.

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

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 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.

I'm Home In New Orleans!

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

Love Isn't Over When The Sheets Are Stained.

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

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

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

I Just See A Lot Of People Who Are Really Terrified Of The "f-word." A Lot Of Women These Days, A Lot Of Young Women Don't Want To Call Themselves Feminists.

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.

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.

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'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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.'

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Change The Narrative, Change The Laws.

Birth Is The Epicenter Of Women's Power

Inspirational Pregnancy

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.

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

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

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!

We Negotiate With Chaos For Some Sense Of Satisfaction.

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

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.

I Have Earned My Disillusionment.

Disillusionment

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

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.

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Malcolm Gladwell

Millard Fillmore

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