“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”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”