Ani DiFranco Quotes

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.

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.

Every time I say something they find hard to hear, they chalk it up to my anger, and never to their own fear.

I'm an atheist how unfortunate it is to assign responsibility to the higher up for justice amongst people.

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.

I do believe that music has an intense power to connect us together, to inspire us to become ourselves.

Life is a sleazy stranger, who looks vaguely familiar; flirting with a bimbo named disaster at the end of the bar.

You're trying to fight gravity on a planet that insists that love is like falling, and falling is like this.

Women who don't control their own reproductive rights are not free.

We've got ego's like hairdos.

For every hand extended another lies in wait. Keep your eye on that one girl...anticipate.

Privilege is a headache, that you don't know that you don't have.

Maybe you can keep me from never being happy, but you're not going to stop me from HAVING FUN!

Criticism is hard for me but people find hard to believe because they think I'm very tough, very strident, that I tell everybody where to get off, and how. But I've actually got a really thin skin. I don't know. It's quite pathetic. So, yeah, it's hard for me to take criticism. But I also kind of have this sense of humor on overdrive, so I don't take any of it seriously. So that sort of saves me, the fact that I think it's just all kind of funny.

I never try to imagine the future. I kinda think it's a waste of time. I live in the now.

I don't need anyone to hold me, I can hold my own.

I fear that Donald Trump will continue to be followed around by the media in its totality as he continues to rail against Hillary Clinton.

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.

The world owes us nothing; we owe each other the world.

Feminism is not only for women It's something everyone can participate in, and evolve together, as the first step in the right direction. I see feminism as a tool to achieve that balance and peace.

Virtue is relative at best, there's nothing worse than a sunset when your driving due West.

Maybe we are both good people who've done some bad things.

I don't take good pictures 'cause I have the kind of beauty that moves.

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 think the gay community should get smart and drop the word marriage. Do you really need to change every right-wing Christian to make sure you get your equal rights? Eyes on the prize, we should be sticking to getting equal rights.

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

For me, the stronger ground I have in my personal life, then the more will I have to fight the good fight.

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.

They taught me different was wrong.

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?

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.

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 did not design this game; I did not name the stakes. I just happen to like apples; and I am not afraid of snakes.

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 have earned my disillusionment.

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.

I sincerely believe patriarchy to be at the root of all of our social diseases and feminism, it's antidote, to be a prerequisite to peace on earth. feminism provides an alternative way of thinking and structuring things that focuses on and prioritizes relationships and de-emphasizes hierarchy, separation and domination.

I love all those great 'f' words - feminism, folk music.

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.

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.

[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.

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.

I fight with love and i laugh with rage....you gotta live light enough to see the humor, and long enough to see some change.