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.

Pop stardom is not very compelling. I'm much more interested in a relationship between performer and audience that is of equals. I came up through folk music, and there's no pomp and circumstance to the performance. There's no, like, 'I'll be the rock star, you be the adulating fan.'

I've been trying to learn how to not be so conflicted about things like my own anger. I've always had a place in my music for my anger as a way of compensating for not having a mechanism to express it in my everyday life. So I've been trying to be more true to myself, and that helps me to chill out a little bit. But politically, uh-uh. No.

I don't know if there are artists out there who love their own records. I haven't met any, and I'm kind of extreme in the other direction, but therein lies the impetus to keep working and keep making new songs and new records.

I've been saying the Occupy Movement has got the ball rolling, and now we need to take the fight to the great indoors!

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.

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.'

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.

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

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.

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.

I really have been enjoying performing more lately than I have in a long time and you know, it's all about that sort of centered feeling that I have now. You know, thanks to, not just my kid, but her father before her. You know, I have a kind of a grounding through them that I really relish, and I think is also good for my work, you know.

It's great being your own boss, but then, you know, you make your own mistakes, you know, and you own them. You know, so it's empowering, and it's also humbling along the way.

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

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.

I've never had a very closely connected family. 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.

I seriously hate pop music and all things super-commercial.

All of youth culture is packaged and sold back to us at this furious rate these days. I think it's part and parcel to this corporate encroachment on our lives in general.

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.

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.

I don't hate being compared with female musicians. I don't mind that at all. I have no problem with seeing connections between women's work.

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.

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.

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.

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

Music has as many roles as people make it.

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.

I had a little bit of resistance to the idea of taking energy away from my work, and the baby comes along and, lo and behold, that's exactly what happens.

I hate it when people don't recognize the work of women as being universal, or having any import to the world at large, as opposed to men's work, which is generally tends to be seen as more universal - men's writing about their own experience tends to be put in a broader context.

You can't start with imbalance and end with peace, be that in your own body, in an ecosystem or between a government and its people. What we need to strive for is not perfection, but balance.

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.

I think the gay community should get smart and drop the word 'marriage.' Do you really need to change every right-wing Christian to make sure you get your equal rights? Eyes on the prize, we should be sticking to getting equal rights.

Playing show after show is like my bread and butter.

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.

For me, the stronger ground I have in my personal life, then the more will I have to fight the good fight.

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

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

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.

My songs are just little letters to me.

I've been a long time coming, and I'll be a long time gone. You've got your whole life to do something, and that's not very long.

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.

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

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

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

My political mission is as acute as ever. For me, in addition to kind of looking at the world and trying to engage in my society politically, having the kid around sort of makes me check in with myself. I think you're all busy trying to fix the world, but what about yourself?

Some people wear their heart up on their sleeve. I wear mine underneath my right pant leg, strapped to my boot.

I basically get stereotyped a lot in terms of being a girl and writing 'chick' music for teenage girls or something. I think, if anything, the press kind of, because of my gender and my age, tends to kind of relegate my work to this sort of special-interest group. It's part of the cultural dynamic, I guess.

Strangers are exciting, their mystery never ends. But, there's nothing like looking at your own history in the faces of your friends.

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

Any tool is a weapon if you hold it right.