Top 100 Quotes About Kathleen Hanna
#1. I don't want to waste the precious moments I have, and I've felt that way since I was 17. I have to take risks because why else would you be alive? Put your pirate patch on and go on an adventure because you only have one life to live.
Kathleen Hanna
#2. As I've gotten older, I've realized that things are a lot more permeable. It's not so black and white: not every journalist is a jerk.
Kathleen Hanna
#3. I would love to make a bunch of country demos and write country songs for really great country singers.
Kathleen Hanna
#4. I'm so language-based and I'm so about communicating, and my art has always been very audience-based, and very about being functional and communicating something, and about feeling like I have to be heard.
Kathleen Hanna
#5. I'm in a really lucky position where people will be interested in whatever I do, but what I do is sing.
Kathleen Hanna
#6. When you're the person who's kind of in charge of everything a lot of the time, it's sometimes nice to get bossed around. It's sometimes nice to have somebody say, "This is what I want you to do" and to stretch your abilities.
Kathleen Hanna
#7. I watch videos on YouTube of bands that I've heard of that I want to check out. And sometimes I don't even finish the video. And that's really sad, because maybe I'd like that song. I think that we don't give stuff a chance to really sink in.
Kathleen Hanna
#8. What usually happens with me [is that] I start with one idea in mind and then something else happens.
Kathleen Hanna
#9. Johnny Rotten isn't punk. Maybe that's punk to somebody, but these people are participating and challenging the corporations that are telling us what punk is and what good music is.
Kathleen Hanna
#10. I realized that I really enjoy writing comedy, and how important comedy is when you feel like total crap.
Kathleen Hanna
#11. Since I loved underground music, I tried to carve a space for feminism within it. Those were my hopes.
Kathleen Hanna
#12. While everyone's experience of oppression is different and complicated and often overlapping, I really believe that if you have privilege, you need to learn as much as you can about the world beyond yourself.
Kathleen Hanna
#13. I'm not going to sit around and be peace and love with somebody's boot on my neck.
Kathleen Hanna
#14. It takes falling down a bunch of times before you start running.
Kathleen Hanna
#15. Just because you're wearing a goofy hat doesn't make it performance art.
Kathleen Hanna
#16. Gay marriage! That's a huge change and a huge win-win for feminism.
Kathleen Hanna
#17. I know what a good question would be for an actor. What's your least favorite thing that you've ever heard an actor say about acting? Or about being in a movie?
Kathleen Hanna
#18. But see, my idea on the whole thing is, hey, it's not the responsibility of marginalized, oppressed people to educate everyone. I personally wouldn't put myself in that position and go out there and do my schtick in front of the Red Hot Chili Peppers fan guys ... because, you know ...
Kathleen Hanna
#19. I don't like every other musician's work. The same way that filmmakers don't like every other filmmakers' work. Just because I'm a feminist doesn't mean I'm gonna say that I like every other woman's work, or that I appreciate another statement that another woman publicly made.
Kathleen Hanna
#20. There's comedians who I consider extremely punk rock who I've seen do very political stand up in places where nobody wants to hear that. It's uncomfortable and scary and you realize it's the punkest performance you've ever witnessed.
Kathleen Hanna
#21. What happens tomorrow is going to happen tomorrow.
Kathleen Hanna
#22. I realized that calling yourself a feminist or not calling yourself a feminist, just by being in a band of all girls, it's all you talk about.
Kathleen Hanna
#23. Don't get down on yourself that you can't run a 4K or dance all night long at a fun club. Give yourself a break.
Kathleen Hanna
#24. I belive power can be used for good, I don't think every form of power is absolute evil. I wish I would have stepped in, and I really regret it. And that's why I really encourage young people who are organizing to speak up.
Kathleen Hanna
#25. It's so important for people in political groups to learn the difference between productive criticism and not. When it's about something you can change, it's productive. But if it's just like "You are an evil person", you can't change that. There's no way around that.
Kathleen Hanna
#26. There are people who view their feminism in different ways. I used to beat myself up if I didn't react to things like I was supposed to.
Kathleen Hanna
#27. Art revolves around creating something that isn't there.
Kathleen Hanna
#28. I'm sure if you see things you wrote when you were 19, you cringe. I saw stuff like angry poetry that I wrote when I was mad at my father, or photos I took where I smeared period blood on myself. It's embarrassing.
Kathleen Hanna
#29. Every band I've been in, it's just become my total life. I feel like a child star - I've missed out on so much.
Kathleen Hanna
#30. I felt it was really, really important, not just in the vein of feminist erasure or whatever but also just as an artist that I honored my work.
Kathleen Hanna
#31. A lot of artists are just really stupid about money, and it's really hard to find somebody who kind of thinks of shuffling money around and doing business as an art.
Kathleen Hanna
#32. I wanted to make something that I wanted to hear that I wasn't hearing.
Kathleen Hanna
#33. There's just as many different kinds of feminism as there are women in the world.
Kathleen Hanna
#34. I feel like what I'm best at is being a musician and a performer. I want to use that to help people who are good at starting nonprofits.
Kathleen Hanna
#35. Singing is my life, and I have to do it, or I'm going to go totally bananas.
Kathleen Hanna
#36. There's still a lot of misogynist pop music out there, and I think that hearing something that's so explicitly feminist and so angry - when we're still growing up in a culture where girls and women are not supposed to be angry - is a real revelation for young women.
Kathleen Hanna
#37. I think that the Internet is really cool because a lot of young feminists don't feel like they have to reinvent the wheel.
Kathleen Hanna
#38. When you're a musician and you go out onstage, and you're someone who loves attention, you are going to become a role model to some extent.
Kathleen Hanna
#39. I know that's really horrible, but that's how I do it in my head. I'm going to die. It doesn't matter. I don't matter. I'm a grain of sand. As a grain of sand, I may as well go out and relate to people and enjoy my short time on this planet that I have. Who knows what's coming next?
Kathleen Hanna
#40. It's unexpected for women's issues to be brought up in places other than women's centers on college campuses or crisis places.
Kathleen Hanna
#41. I was making stickers for guys' bands. I was in the front row photographing bands, booking bands, doing all of the kind of backstage stuff, and I didn't even think for a second I could do it, and then I saw Babes in Toyland, and all that changed.
Kathleen Hanna
#42. There are more people who are not straight, white males going to shows.
Kathleen Hanna
#43. It takes your mind off things when there's a cat in your lip and he's purring while you're petting him.
Kathleen Hanna
#44. Well, part of the thing is, like, what's the difference between censorship and social responsibility? I sometimes find that the whole censorship argument is used as a way for people to avoid the fact that they're like ...
Kathleen Hanna
#45. I wanna be a legend; I wanna be a cult hero. I do!
Kathleen Hanna
#46. Facing sexism and racism and classism and transphobia, there are ways to choose to act in those situations, and there shouldn't be a prescriptive list of things that you have to say.
Kathleen Hanna
#47. Sexism and racism and homophobia and classism are so naturalized. All these stereotypes make people think it's just normal that straight white men are getting all the breaks.
Kathleen Hanna
#48. I think open adoption is a great idea, because it allows a relationship between the birth mother and her child so that the kid isn't like, "Where did I come from?" And to have it be like, "Look, you have a bunch of people who love you."
Kathleen Hanna
#49. See who else is interested and join other people's projects that have already started that you like. You don't always have to reinvent the wheel and start your own thing.
Kathleen Hanna
#50. I don't want to be a historical action figure or treated like I'm dead. Like one of those people where they go, 'Oh, isn't she dead?' And then I walk up, and they're like, 'Whoa.' I can't really complain ... because I've made myself into a historical action figure. I was like, 'Yeah, come on in!'
Kathleen Hanna
#51. Feminism is something you do. It's a verb. It's what you are. It's an activity; it's something you're actively engaged in.
Kathleen Hanna
#52. I don't like being in the service industry and having to deal with people yelling at me all the time. McDonald's was the hardest job I ever had - so I have a lot of respect for people who work in the fast food industry. Because it's a hard job.
Kathleen Hanna
#53. I didn't even know what the word lesbian meant until I was called one ... and then I had to look it up in the dictionary.
Kathleen Hanna
#54. Think of something that you can do as opposed to all the things you can't do - and do that.
Kathleen Hanna
#55. In the '90s, people wore scrunchies, but it was very uncool in the punk scene.
Kathleen Hanna
#56. I wouldn't want to play Miss Hannigan. I'm not a villain. She's mean to little children! I can't do that. That would disrupt my brand.
Kathleen Hanna
#57. I think as a culture, we don't like conflict or looking at icky stuff - especially in our downtime.
Kathleen Hanna
#58. I never thought that someone would be teaching one of my fanzines. I never thought I'd be off to lecture at a college. It's still shocking to me.
Kathleen Hanna
#59. I don't think I've ever had a woman yell that at me, but women have yelled mean things at me as well.
Kathleen Hanna
#60. Not to rag on myself, but when people say, 'What does it feel like to be an icon?' I'm like, 'My dog does not think I'm an icon, my cat does not think I am an icon, my cousin does not think I am an icon.' I have a really lovely group of friends, and I just don't think about it.
Kathleen Hanna
#61. To make riot grrrl move into the future in a new way with a bunch of new names and a bunch of new energy, younger people have to learn about it and apply it to their own lives and own modern conversation. And they are.
Kathleen Hanna
#62. I am possibly thinking about doing an Internet show in the future that will highlight political organizations that I seek out to let people know about them, volunteer opportunities, and donation opportunities.
Kathleen Hanna
#63. I have no clue. I just know I would want to play the least amount of shows that the most people would be able to come to.
Kathleen Hanna
#64. My original goal in the '90s, after I found feminism and I was the first generation in my family to go to college, was to spread this information that feminism was still very much alive, and that you can't believe the media telling you that it doesn't need to exist and that it doesn't exist.
Kathleen Hanna
#65. Feminism rotates between backlash and interest. And the cool thing about the Internet is that it's allowing women more access to their own history. Part of the problem before the Internet was that we didn't know which books to read. Someone had to tell you.
Kathleen Hanna
#66. There are so many great artists that are doing interesting things, that I don't want to focus on boring people.
Kathleen Hanna
#67. I kind of decided that doing music is enough because I'm already running a couple small businesses. I'm a part of Bikini Kill Records, Le Tigre Records, and Digitally Ruined Records. In dealing with my health and everything, my ability to do that? I wouldn't be good at it.
Kathleen Hanna
#68. I need to see my friends or I'm gonna go crazy. I'm not gonna stay home and work.
Kathleen Hanna
#69. I always tell girls who say they want to start a band but don't have any talent, 'Well, neither do I.' I mean, I can carry a tune, but anyone who picks up a bass can figure it out. You don't have to have magic unicorn powers.
Kathleen Hanna
#71. I would much rather be the obnoxious feminist girl than be complicit in my own dehumanization.
Kathleen Hanna
#72. I've always talked a lot on stage - I really wanted to communicate my ideas and when you're playing at a lot of shitty punk clubs they don't have good PAs and so no one knows what you're singing about.
Kathleen Hanna
#73. The exciting thing about getting a label together and doing press for it is that hopefully some 15-year-old girl who is the only feminist in her junior-high class will hear about it and be like, "Oh, cool, I hadn't heard of that, I'm going to check it out."
Kathleen Hanna
#75. Defining art is huge; I feel like it's such a subjective thing. It's more like what's not art. You know what I mean? I think there can be an art in the way people live their lives, and art can be a gift someone gives to somebody.
Kathleen Hanna
#76. It was one of the first things I did on my own; I worked at McDonald's, raised the money and did it. I'm really, really passionate about pro-choice, because I wouldn't be here talking to you right now if I'd had a kid at 15.
Kathleen Hanna
#77. I think my biggest fear is dying. Although sometimes my biggest fear is not dying. But yeah, I think health stuff for me is more what I'm afraid of.
Kathleen Hanna
#78. Internalized sexism that makes us feel like we can't show ourselves not being perfect.
Kathleen Hanna
#79. I'm a very binary person in a bad way where it's like everything is either totally great or totally awful.
Kathleen Hanna
#80. I don't consider myself a divining rod whom God is speaking through or any kind of crap like that.
Kathleen Hanna
#81. Jason Mraz, and the new James Blunt song is the worst thing that has ever been created on the face of the earth.
Kathleen Hanna
#82. I am such a bossy producer and such a control freak that there's a part of me that really longs to be bossed around.
Kathleen Hanna
#83. I was never trying to be the voice for anybody else. I was just trying to sing about what I was going through, and was singing about those things specifically because I knew there was an audience not being served.
Kathleen Hanna
#84. My mom and I had secret from my dad that we didn't think we were stupid, that we didn't think we needed feminism to be explained to us.
Kathleen Hanna
#85. It's the idea that we as people can control our own destinies. The government and the corporations, more even than the government, can't dictate what artwork we're supposed to like or what comedy we're supposed to laugh at.
Kathleen Hanna
#86. So many women have experienced horrific forms of male violence throughout their lives, and why isn't there a song about how you get depressed because of it?
Kathleen Hanna
#87. I especially don't want men coming up to me and asking if sexism still exists. It's like, I'm seriously gonna barf a McDonald's salad on the next person to do that.
Kathleen Hanna
#88. I didn't go to high school, I didn't go to college, I didn't have women's studies. All of my feminist ideals and education have been built around art and my friends and community. And so it's still growing.
Kathleen Hanna
#89. I wanted to say to myself as much as anyone else that we made art.
Kathleen Hanna
#90. The more people, as you know, are able to be on whatever spectrum of femininity and masculinity they are on at that moment, that opens the door for women to not have to be the opposite of what the supposed traditional male is.
Kathleen Hanna
#91. People are actually having conversations about "Is this sexist?"
Kathleen Hanna
#92. The cool thing about the Internet is that it's allowing women more access to their own history.
Kathleen Hanna
#93. You don't have to have magic unicorn powers. You work at it, and you get better. It's like anything: You sit there and do it every day, and eventually you get good at it.
Kathleen Hanna
#94. For whatever reason I just remembered being six years old and my parents leaving the house and trusting me to be alone. I had an older sister, I think she was supposed to babysit me but she immediately ran across the street to her friend's house.
Kathleen Hanna
#95. Women didn't want to be on the stage with other women because they didn't want their bodies to be compared. They didn't want another female act opening for them because of this weird competitive and tokenistic attitude.
Kathleen Hanna
#96. I'm really annoyed by the wave of country music that's just a list of stuff. It almost sounds like L.A. people writing country music, because it's just a list of stuff: 'My pickup truck and my cowboy boots and my Levi's jeans and my girlfriend with the short shorts.' It's so boring!
Kathleen Hanna
#97. I hate the attitude of, 'oh we already have a Lydia Lunch, so we do we need a Bikini Kill.' Well, there's like 2 hundered million all-male bands writting 'baby baby I love you, let me drag you around on my ankle.' Is that enough already? Duh!
Kathleen Hanna
#98. I am not Lyme disease, that's not who I am, I'm still a feminist artist, but this is a part of my story too, and I'm not going to keep it out to look cooler.
Kathleen Hanna
#99. My mom wasn't, like, she was reading all these historical romance novels the majority of the time. She read a feminist book and then my dad would sit down and explain it to her like she was an idiot.
Kathleen Hanna
#100. I was in a band in the '90s called Bikini Kill, and we were so freaked out about documentation then, and there was the whole thing, not just about the male gaze, but that people were going to misrepresent you ... a kind fear of the mainstream that a lot of us had.
Kathleen Hanna
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