Ani Quotes

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

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. ~ Ani DiFranco

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

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. ~ 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

We are wise, wise women. We are giggling girls. ~ Ani DiFranco

My feminism has evolved way beyond self-empowerment and I see feminism as a path to peace on earth. The fundamental imbalance that is behind all of the other social diseases is patriarchy. I do believe. As men and women, together, I really long to feel my society evolve its understanding since we're one of the leaders in the f-word. I want us to grow our idea of feminism collectively and get both men and women involved in undoing patriarchy. It's huge. It's a huge job. ~ Ani DiFranco

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

I opened the fire door
to four lips
none of which were mine
kissing
tightened my belt around my hips
where your hands were missing
and stepped out into the cold
collar high
under the slate grey sky
the air was smoking and the streets were dry
and I wasn't joking when I said
Good Bye
magazine quality men talking on the corner
French, no less much less of them then us
so why do I feel like something's been rearranged?
you know, taken out of context I must seem so strange
killed a cockroach so big
it left a puddle of pus on the wall
when you and I are lying in bed
you don't seem so tall
I'm singing now because my tear ducts are too tired
and my brain is disconnected but my heart is wired
I make such a good statistic
someone should study me now
somebody's got to be interested in how I feel
just 'cause I'm here
and I'm real
oh, how I miss
substituting the conclusion to confrontation with a kiss
and oh, how I miss
walking up to the edge and jumping in
like I could feel the future on your skin
I opened the fire door
to four lips
none of which were mine
kissing
I opened the fire door ~ 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 like it, let it be, and if you don't please do the same. ~ 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

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

Smile pretty, and watch your back ~ Ani DiFranco

I always feel I have to take a stand,
And there's always someone on hand
To hate me for standing there.
I always feel I have to open my mouth,
And every time I do, I offend someone, somewhere. ~ Ani DiFranco

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

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

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

The fundamental imbalance that is behind all of the other social diseases is patriarchy. ~ 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

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

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

I am still praying for revolution. ~ 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

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. ~ Ani DiFranco

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

I cannot name this, I cannot explain this, and I really don't want to so just call me shameless. ~ Ani DiFranco

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. ~ Ani DiFranco

I'm not one of those people who has an act. ~ 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

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. ~ Ani DiFranco

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

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

Ogbuef Ezedudu,who was the oldest man in the village, was telling two other men when they came to visit him that the punishment for breaking the Peace of Ani had become very mild in their clan.
"It has not always been so," he said. "My father told me that he had been told that in the past a man who broke the peace was dragged on the ground through the village until he died. but after a while this custom was stopped because it spoiled the peace which it was meant to preserve. ~ Chinua Achebe

Take away our play stations and we are a third world nation. ~ Ani DiFranco

My writing just kind of exists out there in the air-it's all sort of intended as spoken, or sung, word. So, to commit them to the page ... that way was kind of intimidating to me, yet intriguing, to try to reflect the rhythms and connotations and emotions that you can deliver, speaking-wise, on a page. ~ Ani DiFranco

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

I noticed with older songs that I perform that I'm coming from a different place with them now ... it mutates the vibe and even the meaning of the same words when you have a different spirit, if the person singing is different. I like that, to be able to sing an emotionally wrought song from a more centered place, or to sing an eager, youthful song from a more experienced place. It kind of colors the songs differently, and it keeps them fresh. ~ Ani DiFranco

Being a parent has taught me a lot of things already, you know, though it's only been a year and half, and has made me address parts of myself that I would otherwise live in comfortable denial of, or you know and - you know, for instance, my self-loathing. ~ 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

My distraction's my defense against this lack of inspiration Against this slow deflation Yeah the further the horizon The more it holds my gaze The foreground's out of focus but you know I kinda hope it's just a phase Just a phase. ~ Ani DiFranco

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. ~ Ani DiFranco

She is my girlfriend, I can do whatever I want to her. In fact, I'm going to take her home and fuck her from here to eternity, how about that? ~ Ani San

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. ~ Ani DiFranco

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. ~ Ani DiFranco

It all begins with goodness in the heart. ~ Bjorn Street

We barely have time to react in this world, let alone rehearse. ~ Ani DiFranco

Art is the reason I get up in the morning, but the definition ends there. It doesn't seem fair that I'm living for something I can't even define. ~ Ani DiFranco

I'm searching, as we all are, for ways to feel good about myself. Certainly, looking in the mirror doesn't do it! ~ Ani DiFranco

I'm a little hibernating animal. Anonymity is one of my favorite things. I mean, that's why I moved to New York when I was like 18, because there, there are just so many people that there's no one and you're just lost. You're completely invisible and I find that very liberating. ~ Ani DiFranco

I still define myself by the places that I've been. ~ Ani DiFranco

Stepped out into the cold, collar high, under the slate gray sky. The air was smoking and the streets were dry, and I wasn't joking when I said goodbye. ~ Ani DiFranco

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. ~ Ani DiFranco

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

The essence of meditation is to induce a mind which is totally relaxed and at the same time totally aware. If you get into a lovely, dreamy, peaceful state where you don't want to move and you feel you could just sit for hours, completely blissed out and peaceful, but in a vague fog, you have gone completely astray. ~ Ani Tenzin Palmo

You broke me bodily.
The heart ain't the half of it,
And I'll never learn to laugh at it
In 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. ~ Ani DiFranco

If you're not angry, then you're just stupid, you don't care. How else can you react when something's so unfair? ~ Ani DiFranco

Taking me seriously is a big mistake. I certainly wouldn't. ~ 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 just hope it was okay, I know it wasn't perfect, I hope in the end we can laugh and say it was all worth it. ~ 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

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. ~ 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 too tough and sensitive to have to have some pubescent twerp with his mom's earring in his tongue, who combs his hair with Redi-Whip and has an Ani DiFranco tattoo on his shin, come show me how a computer works. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

I'm the color me happy girl, Miss live and let live. And when they're out for blood, I always give. ~ Ani DiFranco

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

Patriarchy is like the elephant in the room that we don't talk about, but how could it not affect the planet radically when it's the superstructure of human society. ~ Ani DiFranco

Love isn't over when the sheets are stained. ~ Ani DiFranco

Why do you think I write these feminist songs, to try and teach myself to respect myself. You know, it's not because I'm a hero. ~ Ani DiFranco

Words are hotter than flames. Words are wetter than water. ~ Ani DiFranco

First decide what you got to do, then go out and do it. All we can do is to see each other through it. ~ Ani DiFranco

That's why we are always stressed, because we are always looking at something in the distance. If you are always looking at the top of the mountain you are climbing, you cannot be aware of the grass and flowers growing at your feet.... If we lose this moment because we are thinking about something else, we've lost it forever. ~ Ani Tenzin Palmo

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

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

Before Katrina, you didn't see criticism of the Bush administration in the media. Here they are, stealing elections, enacting illegal wars, huge crimes against humanity and democracy, and you didn't even see criticism. It wasn't until Katrina that people started to come down on them. ~ Ani DiFranco

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

No one's gonna sympathize when we crash, they'll say you hit what you head for, you get what you ask. ~ Ani DiFranco

It can be very frustrating and very deflating to be constantly defined and described by other people, so I've stopped reading anything written about me, and I find it much healthier. I just sort of concentrate on what I do and don't worry too much about that. ~ Ani DiFranco

My songs are just little letters to me. ~ Ani DiFranco

I know there is strength in the differences between us. I know there is comfort, where we overlap. ~ 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

I envy your ignorance, I hear that it's bliss. ~ Ani DiFranco

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. ~ Ani DiFranco

My mother was a feminist, and she gave me some tools of self-possession and self-empowerment, but now that I have lived here for forty-three years, it's, like, whoa, there is just so much more to do, other than become myself. I'm still talking about it. I still drop the P-word, "patriarchy," on unsuspecting people in everyday conversations. ~ Ani DiFranco

Ani told them all ... telling more than needed telling, the stories clarifying and unifying themselves in her mind as she let them spill out of her mouth. ~ Shannon Hale

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

Our cultural roots are the most ancient in the world. The spiritual concepts of our Ancestors gave birth to religious thought African people believe in the oneness of the African family through sacred time, which unites the past, the present and the future. Our Ancestors live with us. ~ Marimba Ani

In any marginalized community, whether people identify themselves or not affects us all. ~ Ani DiFranco

What doesn't bend, breaks. ~ Ani DiFranco

And she tried the high heels but she couldn't bring herself to prance. ~ Ani DiFranco

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

What do you want, Annika?" He dipped his head so his lips brushed her ear.

"Make me come." "God, Creed. Make me come."

"Don't say it like it's an order. Ask for it."

"No."

"That's my Ani," he murmured. "Too proud to beg."

"You get what you want when I get what I want."

"Please. Please make me come."

"Too late for begging," he said against her ear. "I want more now."

"What do you want?"

"I want the truth," he said. "I want to hear you say you want me."

"Creed."

"Say it."

"Can't."

"Say it."

"I want you," she blurted, unable to stop herself or the giant sob that followed.

~Annika/Creed ~ Sydney Croft

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

Outside sleep's open window, between the drops of rain, history is writing a recipe book for every earthly pain. ~ Ani DiFranco

Vulnerability is something that I negotiate every day. ~ Ani DiFranco

Jenn: Do you love him?
Ani: Yeah, I do.
Jenn: Then you can forgive him. It's not worth it to let love slip through your hands. ~ Cheyenne McCray

A lot of women these days, a lot of young women don't want to call themselves feminists. You have this cheap, hideous 'girl power' sort of fad, which I think is pretty benign at best, but at worst, I think it's a way of taking the politics out of feminism and making it some kind of fashion. ~ Ani DiFranco

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 ~ Ani DiFranco

Love is a piano dropped from a fourth story window, and you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. ~ Ani DiFranco