Ani DiFranco
Someday you're going to get hungry and eat most of the words you just said.Collection: Expression
I am 32 flavors and then some.Collection: Expression
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.Collection: Heart
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.Collection: Pain
My country tis of thee, to take swings at each other on talk show TV.Collection: Country
I just don't know any other word than "feminist" that describes a person who believes women are people.Collection: Believe
I have earned my disillusionment.Collection: Philosophy
Maybe you can keep me from never being happy, but you're not going to stop me from HAVING FUN!Collection: Fun
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.Collection: Way
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?Collection: Social Taboos
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 worldCollection: Inspirational
I don't always feel lucky, but I'm smart enough to try.Collection: Smart
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.Collection: Girl
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.Collection: Song
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.Collection: Song
If you’re not angry, then you’re just stupid, you don’t care. How else can you react when something’s so unfair?Collection: Stupid
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.Collection: Movie
And this vague little smile is my all purpose expression the meaning of which I will leave to your discretion.Collection: Life
First decide what you got to do, then go out and do it. All we can do is to see each other through it.Collection: Life
What makes you so lavish that you can afford to spend every sober moment feeling angry and bored?Collection: Bored
While out in TV Nation, under darkening skies, the resistance is just waiting to be organized.Collection: Change
fate is not just whose cooking smells good, but which way the wind blowsCollection: Fate
I still define myself by the places that I've been.Collection: Stills
Take away our play stations and we are a third world nation.Collection: Play
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.Collection: Goodbye
No one's gonna sympathize when we crash, they'll say you hit what you head for, you get what you ask.Collection: Politics
I cannot name this, I cannot explain this, and I really don't want to so just call me shameless.Collection: Philosophy
I did not design this game; I did not name the stakes. I just happen to like apples; and I am not afraid of snakes.Collection: Games
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.Collection: Philosophy
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.Collection: Sex
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 handsCollection: Character
Somedays the line I walk turns out to be straight - Other days the line tends to deviate.Collection: Lines
I'm the color me happy girl, Miss live and let live. And when they're out for blood, I always give.Collection: Girl
I use my dress to wipe up my drink, I care less and less what people think.Collection: Thinking
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.Collection: Girl
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.Collection: People
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.Collection: Determination
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.Collection: Thinking
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.Collection: Song
Vulnerability is something that I negotiate every day.Collection: Vulnerability
I am a thinned-skinned type. I am very sensitive, very emotional. Vulnerability is kind of always a part of my day.Collection: Emotional
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.Collection: Jobs
I turned my pain into art and my hard work into a career. Helping myself has helped others. helping others has helped me.Collection: Art
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!Collection: Jobs
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.Collection: Inspiration
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.Collection: Art
What we all have to admit to is that one man cannot save us. Unless we start energizing ourselves, all standing behind him with all of the force of our collective power then we can't expect mountains to be moved. And that is not exactly happening, we are a very comfortable population.Collection: Men