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.

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.

Being ill like this combines shock - this time I will die - with a pain and agony that are unfamiliar, that wrench me out of myself.

One of the things that has always motivated me to write is the desire to get it out and look at it in an objective way, so that it doesn't cause me any serious pain by staying inside.

I meditate a lot, but I am constantly in pain. I'm trying to live with this. You just have to accept it.

We may not commit a lesser Sin under pretence to avoid a greater, but we may, nay we ought to endure the greatest Pain and Grief rather than commit the least Sin.

The worst pain a man can suffer: to have insight into much and power over nothing.

From this bestial view that the human mind consists of only sense certainty, pleasure and pain, Locke developed an equally bestial theory of the nation. Man originally existed in a State of Nature of complete liberty.

Imitation is the sincerest form of pain.

The vocabulary of pleasure depends on the imagery of pain.

I don't like painting flowers in my music. I like painting guts and pain.

Lives have been altered in fundamental ways, and later, after they acquire a more complete understanding of what goals are actually attainable, many are left facing a lot of pain and frustration. And yet, there's no culture of complaint.

When the Negro cries with pain from his deep hurt and lays his petition for elemental justice before the nation, he is calling upon the American people to kindle about that crucible of race relationships the fires of American faith.

It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.

My focus is to forget the pain of life. Forget the pain, mock the pain, reduce it. And laugh.

This horror of pain is a rather low instinct and... if I think of human beings I've known and of my own life, such as it is, I can't recall any case of pain which didn't, on the whole, enrich life.

To give pain is the tyranny; to make happy, the true empire of beauty.