It was something I penned up inside me for years."

"The goal that my shrink had for me was that I could be intimate as a woman again, eventually, and not be controlled by the way I was violated."

"I didn't kill him. I finally wrote a song about it instead and *that* has given me the freedom. 'Me and a Gun' is *not* about him. It's more about me forgiving myself. That's why my music now is so therapeutic, so cathartic for me. I made a commitment not to be a victim again, by writing and by singing as often as I can 'Me and a Gun'."

"I'm doing this so that people who feel that at 21 their lives are over, or they don't know how to have an intimate physical relationship, that they can be beautiful people again."

"Somebody will come backstage and go, 'You saved me.' And I have to go, 'Stop right there. You saved yourself."

"It would be sad if you had to go through a rape to hear what I was saying in 'Me and a Gun,' and to have compassion for that kind of violation. The strength that it takes to get up and sing that song every night is more than I ever imagined."

After I wrote "Me And A Gun", I had to start waking up every morning going "Okay, I've acknowleged it. Now how am I going to start healing this?" I can't want to keep murdering. I can't want to keep getting him back. I can't keep equating violence and sex. I can't unless I don't ever want passion or joy in my life again. And I want those things in my life. I have somebody to help me work through it, a man who's very understanding and doesn't alow me to lie and get away with stuff. It's like "No. We're going to keep the lights on, and we're going to deal with this, and I love you. What is my name? Say my name."

"It's like I refuse now to be a victim of my own guilt. I refuse to be a victim of not having a wonderful sexual experience again. And you are a victim when you can't allow yourself to have sexual pleasure again. I refuse to put all men in the same category, as I was doing. When something like that happens you do want to punish men, punish the ones that crushed the flower. But no one should choose to hold onto that hatred. It choked me."

"Women must understand that simply attacking or hating all men is just another form of disempowerment. A woman has to realize that when she makes a man crawl it doesn't give her power. All it will do is make her puke eventually. Rather than say "all men are bastards" let's say "all men are infants, until they decide to be men." Calling them bastards is boring at this stage."

I'd be quite happy, as an artist, if I knew that a verse, even a line in one of my songs could do for people what 'Thelma and Louise' did for me, liberate them in some way, particularly from a fear of the darker side of their own nature. What is any art form worth if it doesn't do that? Isn't that what all great art is all about?

"Me and A Gun is NOT about HIM. It's more about me forgiving myself. I made a commitment not to be a victim again, by writing and by singing as often as I can Me and A Gun. It's like I refuse now to be a victim of my own guilt."

"You can't change what's happened in the past, but you can decide how you'll get up in the morning.

You know, he can never take your soul. there can be scars, but he will never take your soul. Your soul is yours. You take it back okay? You keep your soul.

The idea is to rescue myself from the role of a victim. That I have a choice left. Though I can't change what has happened, I can choose how to react. And I don't want to spend the rest of my life being bitter and locked up."

"It's not something where you just go: 'Well, get over it.' Or, 'Believe in love and peace, my child, and it'll all be over.' Well, fuck you-That isn't the answer. It's a great thought, OK, but you can go and stick the crystals up your butt and let's get on with it. I'm all for love and peace, but that's not the side I work on. I work on the part before you get into the kitchen, right, before you make a blueberry pie, sit down and drink an herbal tea and watch the sunset. First of all, you've got to pass me in the basement with the rats."

It's just to feel the feeling of rage, because I've been on the victim side before. It was just shocking for me to have to deal with that part of myself. First, of course, you acknowledge it, and then you go, if I don't control it, I could end up in jail with a broomstick up my ass for the next 30 years. That's no fun. I could, like, go to Italy and have good fettucine."

"Healing takes courage, and we all have courage, even if we have to dig a little to find it."

This girl showed up backstage," the singer recounts. "She just stood there and said, 'Last night my stepfather raped me. HE's been raping me every night for seven years.' I said, 'Get her on the bus!' When we were crossing the state line that night, [the tour managers] said, 'The FBI's going to be on your ass so fast.' And I'm like, wait a minute, what is right and wrong here? Where has the law failed? That this girl's only hope is an artist...."

A lot of times you shut your whole heart off from your experience; you close the door, and you wither and die," she says. "My hope is that the telephone line can be a bridge to the next step.

Rape has been a secret ... a shame . . . for thousands of years, but we are breaking this chain.