I write about cities the way some people write about lovers.

I can't tell you where I'm going. . . but I can tell you where I come from.

Once you're categorized, you can be dismissed.

I'm a blues woman. I write mostly when I'm sad. I start crying and in the middle of crying I go 'Mmm that was an interesting sound'.

The main revolution I'd like to start is just getting people to play theirown music.

I left the country the first time Reagan was elected, but nobody knew I had been here in the first place. So that was part of my thinking behind taking this opportunity, the access, the debut, the whole debutante aspect of working for a major label.

Very complicated truths are conveyed through very simple melodies.

The two things that are unique in the American character - other than that they killed a lot of Indians - are irony and iconoclasm.

Feminism for me is about empowering women to take control of their own lives. It's not supposed to create a closed community where like-minded people agree on all issues.

We're really the first American generation that won't have the resources to live better than the generation that came before us. The boomers have not only skimmed the cream off the top of the milk, they've drunk up all the milk too.

I'm a modern girl, but I come from a place, a history and a heritage. It's a complicated one, and I'm not going to paint it like it's simple."

I started traveling on the premise that I could be poor anywhere, and that's when the music caught up with me. I wasn't chasing the music.

Folk has become narrowcasted as I think most music is today. It's so entirely unnecessary. Let's blur all the distinctions if possible; it's morefun that way.

Yo! It's just three chords I'm playin'

I want to scare the (expletive) out of the powers that be

They were working overtime to tell journalists that I was no longer on the label. Meanwhile, I'd been fighting tooth and nail to try to get off the label.

I didn't plan a music career. People around me knew what was going to happen; I didn't have a clue.

Now that I've got media access, I see that it's one of the biggest diseases of our times.

If there's one thing I want you to know, It's that you can do it too.

There was no place whatsoever for a woman in the life and the world that Jack Kerouac described. And women were not going to be invited into it. So it's sort of like crashing the party. I know I'm here unwelcome and I'm going to rewrite this history so I can be a part of it.

I describe myself as a knee-jerk anarchist, if that helps.

You know how they say prostitution is the oldest profession? Well, wouldn't that lead you to assume that abortion is the...

I don't feel alienated - I'm interested in seeing how things connect.

I consider my music to be truly American music. I Think American musicians are selling themselves short if they limit themselves to one genre.

I'm in it for the long haul. I'm not looking for a fast rocket ride to the stars.

The ability to live with contradiction is in some ways a sign of maturity.

Authenticity is a real big deal in the music industry. I've been packaged in a certain way and while people might not know exactly what I am, they know I'm a darn authentic version of it

I knew I was gonna go to college because nobody in my family had, not on my mother's side. Real backwards lower class white trash. Ha!

When I was explicitly political, which obviously people picked up on, I saw the danger of preaching to the converted.

From my experience, I know where the change lies - in encouraging people to speak for themselves.

The blues is about singing from the depths of your emotions.

I was more daunted by the change of going from being an activist squatter to going to an independent label. That was the real change for me.

Sitting around playing music with people wasn't as demanding as sitting around a dinner table trying to make conversation.

People used to say I had the starving artist look, but it was real. Not because I was anorexic or anything, but just because I didn't have money for food. I did get ill but I had more of a mental illness than a physical illness.

I've got this cure for boredom and that's to have no money. Every situation you're in becomes an adventure...

My degree is in Oral Interpretation of Literature, and that seems to me just what I'm doing now.