It's been important to me to be a good activist, a good thinker, a good musician, a good singer, and a good entertainer. You can't do it all, but I have walked those delicate lines as best I know how.

You just keep feeding hogwash to people, and pretty soon they'll eat it.

It is essential that men start being interested in and excited by how women think.

Part of keeping space open is not to try to choose a form - to spend more time thinking about content, and let form take care of itself.

Music can be used against us as much as it can be used for us. Muzak can put a whole nation to sleep, whereas a lullaby is intended to put a child to sleep in a sweet way.

My parents had been involved in the labor movement; if we'd grown up in the city, we would have been red-diaper babies.

To my great surprise and pleasure, I have had dinner with most of the people living with whom I would like to have dinner.

Once women are not excluded, I don't think any of us will give a damn what pronouns are used. That wasn't the point.

I don't believe in nirvana. If nirvana was handed to us on a silver platter, this would be the first day of our struggle to keep it.

A lot of artists say, I'm not political. People are afraid of this word.

When an audience comes to one of my concerts, I hope they'll see themselves, somewhere, in one of the songs.

You can't just leave out one part; the bread won't rise if the yeast isn't there.

When we make mistakes, say, I'm blessed that I have an opportunity to learn from this.

I like this life. I like it when it's hard, and I like it better when it's not, but I know you don't get the sweet part without the bitter.

We who are interested in relative truth have to keep digging for it and not let ourselves be sucked under.

It's been important to me to be a good activist, a good thinker, a good musician, a good singer, and a good entertainer. You can't do it all, but I have walked those delicate lines as best I know how.

Language is like songs, like food, like dance-it is the expression of what we think.

When the students were killed at Kent State, the cast voted to do a demonstration from the stage, and I abstained.

To be always in a state of wonder is a kind of sensitivity that can sometimes be an extraordinary blessing and sometimes a real pain.

My parents encouraged thought. You'll get through life better if you learn how to think.

My creativity and my political work are linked. I don't do this work out of guilt or out of responsibility.

To come to a concert and hear a lot of songs from a female perspective should not make men say, 'Oh well, that's for women'.

If I didn't think and feel the way I think and feel, I couldn't sing the way I sing. And I like singing the way I sing.

Leaping away from my mistakes has propelled me forward. It has great force behind it. It makes for great storytelling.

Why do we kill people who are killing people to show that killing people is wrong?

The war on drugs is a war against the communities.

Part of being an artist is being willing to be shocked, being willing to be surprised, being willing to be hurt.

I'm not allowing my perspective to be dictated by the dominant culture.

People love to hear the mistakes you've made.

The women's movement completely changed attitudes all over the world in ways we'll never be able to count.

White middle- and upper-class men have a longer journey to go than many people.

If you have the guts to keep making mistakes, your wisdom and intelligence leap forward with huge momentum.

If you have the guts to keep making mistakes your wisdom and intelligence leap forward with huge momentum.

You can't just leave out one part; the bread won't rise if the yeast isn't there.

Men don't come up to you to just talk. We come up to you with a plan. We're looking across the room at you, and we don't care about your hopes and dreams. We don't care about what your future holds. We saw something we wanted.

I find myself by default an atheist but fairly unhappily so. It would be bloody marvelous if there was a god.

Somebody like me wouldn't have gone on to the Trisha show because I already had a public profile.

I grew up singing. My mother was a music teacher.

Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.

Most men are within a finger's breadth of being mad.

If you pick up a copy of 'A Better World,' you'll lose those last five pounds while saving a baby seal under a rainbow. I kid. It'll be ten pounds.

People ask you for criticism but they only want praise.

Civil movements and riots are as old as human civilization. Long before Twitter was created, mobilization of the discontented was mouth-to-mouth, or even by 'smoke signals' to gather the uprising against established political power.

No one knows this, but my dad can sing his face off.

I was born with the gift.

I, myself, don't like to see a film on Friday night and then forget it by the next day.

When my father would yell at me, I told myself someday I'd use it in a book.

Never ever underestimate the importance of having fun.

I just realized the best way to live your life is to just be you, as cliche as it sounds. I grew up trying to please everyone.