Ani DiFranco

“I have something to prove, as long as I know there's something that needs improvement, and you know that everytime I move, I make a woman's movement.”

“It seems that different people have an idea of what I am, and what I should be. And then there's me.”

“Art is why I get up in the morning, but my definition ends there. You know, it doesn't seem fair that I'm living for something I can't even define, but there you are, right there, in the meantime.”

“I am getting nowhere with you and I can't let you go and I cant get through.”

“I am not a pretty girl. I don't want to be a pretty girl. No, I want to be more than a pretty girl.”

“If you're not getting happier as you get older, then you're fuckin' up”

“when I was four years oldthey tried to test my I.Q.they showed me a pictureof 3 oranges and a pearthey said,which one is different?it does not belongthey taught me different is wrongbut when I was 13 years oldI woke up one morningthighs covered in bloodlike a warlike a warningthat I live in a breakable takeable bodyan ever-increasingly valuable bodythat a woman had come in the night to replace medeface mesee,my body is borrowedyeah, I got it on loanfor the time in between my mom and some maggotsI don't need anyone to hold meI can hold my ownI got highways for stretchmarkssee where I've grownI sing sometimeslike my life is at stake'cause you're only as loudas the noises you makeI'm learning to laugh as hardas I can listen'cause silenceis violencein women and poor peopleif more people were screaming then I could relaxbut a good brain ain't diddleyif you don't have the factswe live in a breakable takeable worldan ever available possible worldand we can make musiclike we can make dogenius is in a back beatbackseat to nothing if you're dancingespecially something stupidlike I.Q.for every lie I unlearnI learn something newI sing sometimes for the war that I fight'cause every tool is a weapon -if you hold it right.”

“You broke me bodily.The heart ain't the half of it,And I'll never learn to laugh at itIn my good natured way.In fact, I'm laughing less in general,But I learned a lot at my own funeral.And I knew you'd be the death of me,So I guess that's the price I pay.”

“Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right.”

“We are made to bleed and scab and heal and bleed again and turn every scar into a joke. We are made to fight and fuck and talk and fight again and sit around and laugh until we choke.”

“I do it for the joy it brings, cause I'm a joyful girl. 'Cause the world owes us nothing, we owe each other the world.”

“and I tryto draw the linebut it ends up running down the middle of memost of the time.”

“If you don't live what you sing about, your mirror is gonna fade.”

“If you don't ask the right question, every answer seems wrong -”

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

“We have to be able to criticizewhat we love,say what we have to say.Cause if you're not trying to make something better thenas far as I can tellyou are just in the way.”

“I opened the fire doorto four lipsnone of which were minekissingtightened my belt around my hipswhere your hands were missingand stepped out into the coldcollar highunder the slate grey skythe air was smoking and the streets were dryand I wasn't joking when I saidGood Byemagazine quality men talking on the cornerFrench, no less much less of them then usso why do I feel like something's been rearranged?you know, taken out of context I must seem so strangekilled a cockroach so bigit left a puddle of pus on the wallwhen you and I are lying in bedyou don't seem so tallI'm singing now because my tear ducts are too tiredand my brain is disconnected but my heart is wiredI make such a good statisticsomeone should study me nowsomebody's got to be interested in how I feeljust 'cause I'm hereand I'm realoh, how I misssubstituting the conclusion to confrontation with a kissand oh, how I misswalking up to the edge and jumping inlike I could feel the future on your skinI opened the fire doorto four lipsnone of which were minekissingI opened the fire door”

“Love is a piano dropped from a four story window and you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. -Two Little Girls (Little Plastic Castle)”

“My idea of feminism is self-determination, and it's very open-ended: every woman has the right to become herself, and do whatever she needs to do.”

“Men make angry music and it's called rock-and-roll; women include anger in their vocabulary and suddenly they're angry and militant.”

“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...”

“I would like to perfect the art of being studiously aloof”

“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.”

“a lesson must be livedin order to be learnedand the clarity to see and stop this nowthat is what i've earned”

“Squint your eyes and look closerI'm not between you and your ambitionI am a poster girl with no posterI am thirty-two flavors and then someAnd I'm beyond your peripheral visionSo you might want to turn your headCause someday you might find you're starvingand eating all of the words you said.”

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

“I've been waiting for sleep to offer up the day with both hands.”

“Don't treat me like I am something that happened to you.”

“Everyone is a fuckin' Napoleon.”

“...I try to laugh at whatever life brings...”

“It makes me really sad that women have been ejected from the seat of their power in this society in terms of what happens around childbirth. In other parts of the world, there are places where women can't drive a car, but they're still in charge of childbirth... The minute my child was born, I was reborn as a feminist. It's so incredible what women do. I find it metaphorically resonant that a pregnant woman looks like she's just sitting on a couch, but she's actually exhausting herself constructing a human being. The laborious process of growing a human is analogous to how 'women's work' is seen.”

“and god help you if you are an ugly girl course too pretty is also your doom cause everyone harbors a secret hatred for the prettiest girl in the room and god help you if you are a pheonix and you dare to rise up from the ash a thousand eyes will smolder with jealousy while you are just flying back”

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

“and half of learning to play is learning what not to playand she's learning the spaces she leaves have their own things to sayand she's trying to sing just enough so that the air around her movesand make music like mercy that gives what it is and has nothing to proveshe crawls out on a limb and begins to build her homeand it's enough just to look around and to know that she's not aloneup up up up up up up points the spire of the steeplebut god's work isn't done by godit's done by people”

“Up up up up up uppoints the spire of the steeplebut god's work isn't done by godit's done by people”

“I don't care if they eat me alive, I've got better things to do than survive.”

“How come I can pick my ears but not my nose?”

“If more people were screamin', I could relax.”

“When I look down, I miss all the good stuffAnd when I look up, I just trip over things...”

“ i do it for the joy it bringsbecause i'm a joyful girlbecause the world owes me nothingand we owe each other the world”

“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.”

“There's a paradox in every paradigm.”

“I don't like my language watered down, I don't like my edges rounded off.”

“Maybe you don't like your job. Maybe you didn't get enough sleep. Nobody likes their job; nobody got enough sleep. Maybe you just had the worst day of your life. You know there's no escape and there's no excuse, so just suck up and be nice.”

“I love my country, by which I mean I am indebted joyfully to all the people throughout its history, who have fought the government to make right. Where so many cunning sons and daughters, our foremothers and forefathers came singing through slaughter, came through hell and high water so that we could stand here, and behold breathlessly the sight; how a raging river of tears cut a grand canyon of light. Why can't all decent men and women call themselves feminists, out of respect for those that fought for this?”

“we can't afford to do anyone harmbecause we owe them our liveseach breath is recycled from someone else's lungsour enemies are the very air in disguiseyou can talk a great philosophybut if you can't be kind to peopleevery dayit doesn't mean that much to meit's the little things you dothe little things you sayit's the love you give along the way”

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

“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”

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

“The bathroom mirror has not budged, the woman who lives there can tell the truth from the stuff they say and looks me in the eye- says do you prefer the easy way? No? Well ok then, dont cry.”