Ani DiFranco Quotes

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.

Music has as many roles as people make it.

We're led by denial like lambs to slaughter, serving empires of style and carbonated sugar water.

One of my rules is: Never TRY to do anything. Just do it.

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.

My life may not be something special But it's never been lived before.

I'm an all powerful amazon warrior, not just some sniveling girl.

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.

Emptiness has its solace in that there's nothing left to take.

I wonder what you look like under your t-shirt. I wonder what you sound like when you're not wearing words. I wonder what we have when we're not pretending.

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.

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.

When everything else seems unclear, at least I'll know I do it for the joy it brings.

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.

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 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

Vulnerability is something that I negotiate every day.

I envy your ignorance, I hear that it's bliss.

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.

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.

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.

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 try to laugh at whatever life brings.

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

Take away our play stations and we are a third world nation.

A little bird told me that jumping is easy and the falling is fun, right up until you hit sidewalk shivering and stunned.

We get a little further from perfection each year. I think that's called character. I think that's just how it goes.

And this vague little smile is my all purpose expression the meaning of which I will leave to your discretion.

I am still praying for revolution.

Why do our kids have to show us what gun control is all about?

I just don't know any other word than "feminist" that describes a person who believes women are people.

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.

I am writing graffiti on your body. I am drawing the story of how hard we tried.

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

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.

What doesn't bend, breaks.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

The way I play guitar is very, very hard and I bloody myself incredibly without the tape. And the nails are my picks.

And I was shocked, To see the mistakes of each generation, Will just fade like a radio station, If you drive out of range...

Goldfish have no memory, I guess their lives are much like mine. And the little plastic castle is a surprise everytime.

i found religion in the greeting card aisle now i know hallmark was right

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.

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.