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 always wanted to be commander-in-chief of my one-woman army, But I can envision the mediocrity of my finest hour.

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.

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.

fate is not just whose cooking smells good, but which way the wind blows

Subtract out the impact and the fall is all you get. So here's two beers to remember why and three more to forget.

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.