Best 274 quotes of Ani Difranco on MyQuotes

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.

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?

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?

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.

There's a certain window of time in the middle of the night out in Middle America where there's no bar open and nothing on TV. If you don't want to do too many drugs, you have to start bodily mutilation.

There's a crowd of people harbored in each person There are so many roles that we play.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The stronger I am in my personal life, the more energy I have to look outward, to address my society.

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

The world is my oyster. The road is my home. And I know that I'm better off Alone.

They can call me crazy if I fail, all the chance that I need, is one-in-a-million and they can call me brilliant if I succeed.

They say that the truth will set you free But then again, so will a lie... It depends if you're trying to get to the promised land Or if you're just trying to get by.

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.

They taught me different was wrong.

Too much is how I love you, but too well is how I know you.

To split yourself in two is just the most radical thing you can do

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

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

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.

We are wise, wise women. We are giggling girls.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Well, it's really gratifying to me to have a stage and some bright lights and a microphone. They're tools and opportunities, and to be able to just pull somebody up on stage with me and point at them is a great feeling.

We need a radically truthful way to acknowledge reproductive freedom.

We negotiate with chaos for some sense of satisfaction.

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

We've got ego's like hairdos.

What bugs me is that you believe what you're saying. What bothers me is that you don't know how you feel. What scares me is that while you're telling me stories, you actually believe that they are real.

What doesn't bend, breaks.

What makes you so lavish that you can afford to spend every sober moment feeling angry and bored?

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.

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.

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.

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

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 I look around I think this, this is good enough; And I laugh at whatever life brings because when I look down, I just miss all the good stuff and when I look up, I just trip over things.

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.

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.

When I was four years old they tried to test my IQ, they showed me this picture of three oranges and a pear. They asked me which one is different and does not belong; they taught me different was wrong.

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.

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.

When you sit right down in the middle of yourself you're gonna wanna have a comfortable chair.

While out in TV Nation, under darkening skies, the resistance is just waiting to be organized.