Amy Ray Quotes

I grew up in the South and once you get raised on Jesus, it is kind of always a part of you even if you are a pagan, really.

But if you want to be a songwriter-based musician, whether you play punk or rock or country or jazz, whatever, you have to work on your songwriting and you have to work on being able to play in front of people, I think. That performance is how you create the groundwork for a lasting career.

It's all right if things don't change today. We're gonna keep doing what we do. The world can either catch up or not.

I think the musicians I play with solo do a certain thing that the musicians we play with with the Indigo Girls don't do. It's just a different thing. And it sort of steers my writing in some ways.

People that are much younger in areas that are much more, kind of, disenfranchised, I guess, as far as the gay movement goes, they still have a language that they've discovered around things. And they have a vocabulary to use, and they have a way to express themselves even when they're not accepted.

...and when I am negative, I will be negative only for as long as I have to be, until I can understand it, and then I will be positive...when I hate, I will turn my hatred into energy, when I am angry I will turn my anger into energy...and I will not be complacent.

Music is such a good way to resist. It keep you strong, it has dignity.

Your hatred is rooted in your fear, and your paranoia and insecurities, well they don't belong here.

When I do solo stuff, when I do anything involving music, it's very collaborative.

I mean, I really, really love playing solo. Definitely, it's like a labor of love, it's not a huge career. It's not that successful, but it's something I love so much that I'll do it regardless.

If some event happens and it seems really important to me and moving to me, I'll write it down in my lyric book knowing that it will come out in a song.

I feel like there are a lot of people doing a lot of hard work. I think it's too early to judge, and I don't think the gay community is in any way falling short.

You can spend time self-identifying and figuring out what you are on that, but at some point, you just want to be who you are and not walk around telling people.

I'm not really thinking about what I'm talking about or what I'm willing to achieve. I'm just kind of letting it come out, recording it.

I sit down and draw from my lyric book. I sit down and start looking through it and see if there is anything that strikes me that I've written.

Oh God, it's such a big world right now for artists. There are as many possibilities as you can have time for, getting your music out there with the internet, and Youtube, Vimeo, Facebook, and everything that you have, there is a way to spread the word. To me, the first thing you have to have is substance and content and real depth.

The impossibility and hypocrisy of a situation where kids are expected to be honest but are judged and alienated from their community because of it should not escape us.

The best days I have are usually days where I'm out in the woods and something happens, like I see an amazing animal like a fox, or I get a glimpse of a wild pig or something that I never see. Or crazy things happen.

But the reality is that we are a folk band.

When I'm writing, which is 8-9 months out of the year, I'm in a concerted writing pace, where I work 5 days a week for at least a few hours a day, maybe a little bit more. But I won't work for more than 2 hours at a time. I'll work for a couple hours and take a break.

At some point I was hanging around with the Butchies - a band I ended up playing with a lot - and it just brought out this thing in me... and it felt very different from the Indigo Girls.

We act empty and innocent but we are fueled by distortions of lives led in discontent trading misfortunes cause faith is one thing that is hard to deliver it feels funny being free.

I don't typically work that late into the night in a studio, I'm more productive during the day.

Majoring in religion, listening to TV evangelists interpret the scriptures and dictate my offerings-I found my God inside myself-in every moment and piece of matter. Everything is animate.

I have a lyric journal that I write in a lot. When I’m going to play, I just sit down and have my books with me and my notes and tapes and whatever I need to refer to. I just play and try different things. It’s a kind of discipline.

ahhhh...organic and rich like good soil... makes me want to listen and hear it grow. the songs are honest and dimensional. it's music to my ears.

It's important to have a voice; it's more important to use it.

You just have to let yourself go and not be worried about what other people are going to say or the things that might come out...Just jump right in full force and be as silly and stupid and adolescent and introspective as you want to be.

Tolerance ain't the same as acceptance, even though we all wish it was.

I do think within any job you do, you have a chance to serve the community.

An idealist who couldn't cope becomes cynical.

Yeah, we appreciate our women followng...and I love women. I mean, I just really love women. I love men, too, but you know it's like sometimes you look up from what you're doing and you go, 'I love women.' There's just something about them and so, just celebrate it.

If you're a teacher, for instance, there are ways to have positive representation of gay people in the classroom. Making sure that, historically, people are noted and archived, and that kids are getting just positive images of people who are gay.

I think art is definitely a great thing, and looked at as a way to open people up.

Maybe our gender is one thing and our sexuality is another. And that's a cool thing I think.

The only thing I have going on at a personal level is just the way I knew I was gay and I knew what that meant inside me, but the gender aspect of who I am came later.

My personal feeling is that people need to be careful not to start over-analyzing and taking things apart and trying to be critical.

Your perspective probably depends on where you live.

When people say, 'Nothing's coming to me,' they usually don't like what's coming to them.

There are a lot of people who that you may only nod to; it's better to stop and say hello.

I think you just have to take the bad with the good and you're going to get hurt more, but it's worth it.

Your actions will follow you full circle round,the higher the leap, I said, the harder the ground!