Difranco Quotes & Sayings

Either you are a feminist or you are a sexist/misogynist. There is no box marked 'other.' — Ani DiFranco

I want somebody who sees the pointlessness and still keeps their purpose in mind;
I want somebody who has a tortured soul ... some of the time — Ani DiFranco

Let's show them all how it's done, let's do it all imperfectly. — Ani DiFranco

They taught me different was wrong. — Ani DiFranco

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. — Ani DiFranco

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. — Ani DiFranco

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. — Ani DiFranco

You got to look outside- your eyes- you got to think outside- your brain- you got to walk outside- your life- to where the neighborhoods change. — Ani DiFranco

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

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. — Ani DiFranco

If you think you know what I'm doing wrong well you're gonna have to get in line ... — Ani DiFranco

Taking me seriously is a big mistake. I certainly wouldn't. — Ani DiFranco

I am a thinned-skinned type. I am very sensitive, very emotional. Vulnerability is kind of always a part of my day. — Ani DiFranco

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

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? — Ani DiFranco

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. — Ani DiFranco

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. — Ani DiFranco

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

I'm pretty much a workaholic, but when you're doing what you love it's hard to think of a reason to stop. — Ani DiFranco

My parents split up when I was young, and I was living with my mom for a little while, then I was kind of just on my own really young. It wasn't some kind of global tragedy, it was just never really a very close-knit family. So there was support in the sense that they didn't stand in my way. — Ani DiFranco

I got highways for stretchmarks
See where I've grown. — Ani DiFranco

Playing show after show is like my bread and butter. — Ani DiFranco

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

When I look down, I miss all the good stuff
And when I look up, I just trip over things ... — Ani DiFranco

All the wrong people have the power of suggestion and the freedom of the press is meaningless if nobody asks a question. — Ani DiFranco

Self-Preservation is a full-time occupation. — Ani DiFranco

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. — Ani DiFranco

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) — Ani DiFranco

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. — Ani DiFranco

I like people like Ani DiFranco, a band called Elbow, of course John Lennon, George Harrison, Barry White. I have a lot of different influences and hopefully they all come together and make some sense. — Billy Boyd

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

And thoughts of no other man but you could possibly get through the picket lines to enter into my mind. — Ani DiFranco

But in the garden of simple, where all of us are nameless, you were never anything but beautiful to me. — Ani DiFranco

If I'm gonna go down I'm gonna do it with style. You won't hear me surrender, you won't hear me confess cause you've left me with nothing but I have worked with less. — Ani DiFranco

I see a lot of connections between folk and punk music just because they're both subcorporate music - I mean, traditionally. — Ani DiFranco

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. — Ani DiFranco

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. — Ani DiFranco

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

A lesson must be lived in order to be learned and the clarity to see and stop this now that is what i've earned — Ani DiFranco

Who says I like right angles? These are not my laws, these are not my rules. — Ani DiFranco

God forbid you be an ugly girl, 'course too pretty is also your doom, 'cause everyone harbors a secret hatred for the prettiest girl in the room — Ani DiFranco

We have to be able to criticise what we love, to say what we have to say 'cause if your not trying to make something better, than as far as I can tell, you are just in the way. — Ani DiFranco

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

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. — Ani DiFranco

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

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

If you want to challenge the system, don't go to bed with it. — Ani DiFranco

Spring is super in the supermarkets
and the strawberries prance and glow
never mind that they're all kinda tart and tasteless
as strawberries go
meanwhile wild things are not for sale
anymore than they are for show
so i'll be outside, in love with the kind of beauty
it takes more than eyes to know — Ani DiFranco

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. — Ani DiFranco

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. — Ani DiFranco

I could step off the end of this pier but i got
shit to do and an appointment on tuesday
to shed uninvited blood and tissue
i'll miss you, i say
to the river to the water
to the son or daughter
i thought better of
i could fall in love with jersey
at sunset
but i leave the view to the rats
and tiptoe back — Ani DiFranco

I would rather have these things weigh on my mind. At the end of this tunnel of guilt and shame, there must be a light of some kind. — Ani DiFranco

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. — Ani DiFranco

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. — Ani DiFranco

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. — Ani DiFranco

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

I build each one of my days out of hope
and I give that hope your name

'cause I know there is strength
in the differences between us
and I know there is comfort
where we overlap

come here
stand in front of the light
stand still
so I can see your sillouette
I hope
you have got all night
'cause I'm not done looking,
no, I'm not done looking yet — Ani DiFranco

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

Some people wear their smile like a disguise. Those people who smile a lot, watch their eyes. I know 'cause I'm like that a lot. You think everything's ok, and it is ... 'till it's not. — Ani DiFranco

Everyone is a fuckin' Napoleon. — Ani DiFranco

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. — Ani DiFranco

I've been waiting for sleep to offer up the day with both hands. — Ani DiFranco

Someone's got to be interested in how I feel, just because I'm here and I'm real. — Ani DiFranco

It's just hard to travel in the shadow of regret. In fact, it's so hard that I actually haven't left yet. — Ani DiFranco

I'm not one of those people who has an act. — Ani DiFranco

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. — Ani DiFranco

People used to make records, as in the record of an event, the event of people playing music in a room, and now everything's cross-marketing, its about sunglasses and shoes, or guns and drugs that you choose. — Ani DiFranco

Science chases money
and money chases its tail
and the best minds of my generation can't make bail.
But the bacteria are coming
that's my prediction.
It's the answer to this culture
of the quick-fix prescription. — Ani DiFranco

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

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 — Ani DiFranco

I know the biggest crime is just to throw up your hands and say 'This has nothing to do with me, I just want to live as comfortably as I can.' — Ani DiFranco

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

I turned my pain into art and my hard work into a career. Helping myself has helped others. helping others has helped me. — Ani DiFranco

Now I wonder who is gonna be president: Tweedle Dumb, or Tweedle Dumber
And who is gonna have the big block buster box office this summer. — Ani DiFranco

I think I'm a very solitary person. To actually not be anonymous is a bit claustrophobic for me. — Ani DiFranco

As any mom knows, having a baby is an extremely creative act and to love and create a baby, it's on par with any other creative act that we could come up with. — Ani DiFranco

Taken out of context, I must seem so strange — Ani DiFranco

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

I can't wait to get back to New York City where at least when I walk down the streat, no one ever hesitates to tell me exactly what they think of me. — Ani DiFranco

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 ... — Ani DiFranco

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 ... — Ani DiFranco

I was supposed to be cool about this, yeah, I remember - cool was the plan. Tried to keep it all under wraps, but the wraps kept going slack. I keep turning round, I keep coming back. — Ani DiFranco

Actually I don't know if honesty is a strength or some kind of weakness. — Ani DiFranco

I've been collecting some more high-end guitars. I have an old Martin D28 from the '60s, a beautiful, classic Martin that I know I played on 'Mariachi.' — Ani DiFranco

Having more exposure is kind of a bittersweet thing for me, honestly, because it's nice to have a little more job security in life now. — Ani DiFranco

There's a paradox in every paradigm. — Ani DiFranco

I always wanted to be commander-in-chief of my one-woman army, But I can envision the mediocrity of my finest hour. — Ani DiFranco

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. — Ani DiFranco

I don't like my language watered down, I don't like my edges rounded off. — Ani DiFranco

When you come to me
come to me with cake
in your pocket
come to me nicely
with that soft kinda cake
that's mostly icing
come to me ready and rude
bring me angel food
angel food — Ani DiFranco

Lying in bed, you know, you don't seem so tall. — Ani DiFranco

I'm sounding out the silence, avoiding all the words. — Ani DiFranco

I will not be afraid to let my talent shine. — Ani DiFranco

I speak without reservation, from what I know and who I am. I do so with the understanding that all people should have the right to offer their voices to the chorus whether the result is harmony or dissonance. The worldsong is a colorless dirge without the differences that distinguish us, and it is that difference which should be celebrated not condemned. — Ani DiFranco

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

How come I can pick my ears but not my nose? — Ani DiFranco

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. — Ani DiFranco

I am not an angry girl
But it seems like I've got everyone fooled
Every time I say something they find hard to hear
They chalk it up to my anger, and never to their own fear — Ani DiFranco

And I try
to draw the line
but it ends up running down the middle of me
most of the time. — Ani DiFranco

If you don't live what you sing about, your mirror is gonna fade. — Ani DiFranco