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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.

-Ani DiFranco

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We Are Taught To

Ani DiFranco

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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.

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I Am 32 Flavors And Then Some.

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.

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

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

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 Walk Like I'm On A Mission 'cause That's The Way I Groove. I Got More And More To Do And Less And Less To Prove.

I 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.'

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 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.

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

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

I Think If We Can't Use The Word Feminist, If It's Some Kind Of Taboo Or Dirty Word, Or Means You're Ugly, Or You're Angry, Or You're Not Dateable [laughs], Then You've Just Reduced The Language By A Whole Concept.

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

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

I Don't Know If There Are Artists Out There Who Love Their Own Records. I Haven't Met Any, And I'm Kind Of Extreme In The Other Direction, But Therein Lies The Impetus To Keep Working And Keep Making New Songs And New Records.

I'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 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

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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

What Doesn't Bend, Breaks.

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

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

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

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

Reproductive Rights

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Love Isn't Over When The Sheets Are Stained.

These Days I Keep A Journal, So I'm Constantly Sketching Down My Thoughts, Or Lines That Come To Me...ideas For Songs. And Then When I Have A Moment To Myself, I'll Sit Down With My Guitar And Open My Journal, And Start Kind Of Massaging Things Together, And See If A Song Takes Shape. Or Sometimes, I'll Just Be Hanging Out With My Guitar And Come Up With A Chord Progression Or A Lick, And That'll Sort Of Sit Around For A While Waiting To Marry Itself To Some Words. So It's Sort Of Haphazard And It's Like...junk Culture. I Go Around Finding Shiny Objects And I Glue Them Together Laughs.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Second Wave Feminism Started With Consciousness-raising Groups, Which Sounds "big" But It's Really Just House Parties. Women Getting Together And Saying, "you Feel This Way?! Me Too!" Hanging Out Is Consciousness-raising.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

My Songs Are Just Little Letters To Me.

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.

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

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

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

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

We've Got Ego's Like Hairdos.

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

Smile Pretty And Watch Your Back

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

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 Negotiate With Chaos For Some Sense Of Satisfaction.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

I Will Not Be Afraid To Let My Talent Shine.

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

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

Occupy Movement

I 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

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

I Am Still Praying For Revolution.

Feel Free To Listen, Feel Free To Stare.

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.

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?

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

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?"

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Art May Imitate Life, But Life Imitates Tv.

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.

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.

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

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'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.

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 Had A Little Bit Of Resistance To The Idea Of Taking Energy Away From My Work, And The Baby Comes Along And, Lo And Behold, That's Exactly What Happens.

I 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.

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.'

[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.

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.

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 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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Something Special

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

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.

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 Used To Be A Superhero; No One Could Touch Me, Not Even Myself. You Are Like A Phone Booth I Somehow Stumbled Into, And Now Look At Me - I Am Just Like Everybody Else.

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

These Days, My Main Guitar Amps Have Been Magnatone. They're Beautiful. Magnatones Have Actual Tremolo, Which I Recently Learned About Guitar Amps. Often What Guitar Amps Call Vibrato Is Really Just A Volume Up And Down. But Magnatone Has A True Vibrato, Which Is Pitch Bending. And So, It's Just A Lush Sound.

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

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.

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

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

If More People Were Screamin', I Could Relax.

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

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

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

Self-preservation Is A Full-time Occupation.

Self Preservation

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.

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

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

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

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 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.

When I First Started Writing Songs And Being Very Explicit, It Was Hard, But One Of The Main Things People Respond To In My Writing Is That 'just Say It' Attitude Of My Songs. There Really Is Nothing Personal Or Private; It's All Universal, If You Can Just Find The Courage To Be Open About Your Life.

I'm Home In New Orleans!

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

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

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.

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

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

Individual Differences

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 Seriously Hate Pop Music And All Things Super-commercial.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Music Has As Many Roles As People Make It.

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.

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.

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

Taken Out Of Context I Must Seem So Strange.

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

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

We Need A Radically Truthful Way To Acknowledge Reproductive Freedom.

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 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...

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.

Change The Narrative, Change The Laws.

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.

There's A Paradox In Every Paradigm.

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

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

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Rosalynn Carter

John Forbes Nash

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