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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.

-Ani DiFranco

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The Scary Truth Is,

Ani DiFranco

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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.

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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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

I'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.

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

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.

Subtract Out The Impact And The Fall Is All You Get. So Here's Two Beers To Remember Why And Three More To Forget.

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.

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

I'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 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Smile Pretty And Watch Your Back

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

We've Got Ego's Like Hairdos.

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

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.

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

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

[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.

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

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.

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

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

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

I'm Home In New Orleans!

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

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

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

If More People Were Screamin', I Could Relax.

Taken Out Of Context I Must Seem So Strange.

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

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.

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

Playing Show After Show Is Like My Bread And Butter.

Bread And Butter

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

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

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.

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...

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'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

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

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 Seems That Different People Have An Idea Of What I Am, And What I Should Be. And Then There's Me.

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.

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 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.

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 Need A Radically Truthful Way To Acknowledge Reproductive Freedom.

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 Seriously Hate Pop Music And All Things Super-commercial.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Feel Free To Listen, Feel Free To Stare.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

The Bathroom Mirror Has Not Budged, The Woman Who Lives There Can Tell The Truth From The Stuff They Say And Looks Me In The Eye- Says Do You Prefer The Easy Way? No? Well Ok Then, Dont Cry.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

There's A Paradox In Every Paradigm.

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

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

Individual Differences

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.

...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.

I Would Like To Perfect The Art Of Being Studiously Aloof

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

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.

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

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

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

Unanswered Questions

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.

Love Isn't Over When The Sheets Are Stained.

Art May Imitate Life, But Life Imitates Tv.

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

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

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

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

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

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

They Taught Me Different Was Wrong.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Self-preservation Is A Full-time Occupation.

Self Preservation

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

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

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!

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 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.

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?

We Negotiate With Chaos For Some Sense Of Satisfaction.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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

Change The Narrative, Change The Laws.

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.

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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'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.'

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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 Am 32 Flavors And Then Some.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Birth Is The Epicenter Of Women's Power

Inspirational Pregnancy

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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Sterling Hayden

Martin Van Buren

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