Hugh MacLeod:

I'm not the world's most talented person at what I do.  Neither are you.  That doesn't make the gifts we have any less valid.

Evil Plans, p. 174

Tonetta Landis:

Remember Essex [Hemphill].  Refuse to die by your own hands.  Celebrate that you have made it here without being completely broken.  Celebrate this with champagne.  Acknowledge that you need others critically.  Become powerful through laughter and vulnerability and kisses.

From "Battle Hymn: A Queer Christian's Guide to More Than Survival"

Sarah Schulman:

When people refuse to discuss why they are shunning you, when they give no reason and have no terms of reconciliation, it is because to actually talk about it would be to reveal their own behavior.  And their power lies in the ability to command silence about their own behavior.  They can only pretend to be neutral if the mechanics of the moment are not discussed.  Once sequence and substance are laid out starkly, their responsibility is revealed.  Hence, no conversation.

Ties That Bind, p. 122-123

Eric Fromm:

The person who gives up his individual self and becomes an automaton, identical with millions of other automatons around him, need not feel alone and anxious any more. But the price he pays, however, is high; it is the loss of his self.

Escape from Freedom

Steve Jobs:

For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Frank Schaeffer:

Sacrificing-For-The-Lord was a pride-filled way of life.  No owner of a new home, car, or yacht was ever prouder of his or her venal material possessions than we Schaeffers were of not achieving our fondest dreams.

Sex, Mom, and God, p. 25

Hugh MacLeod:

I never hated a job because of what it took from me -- all jobs take a lot from you, especially the best ones.  I hated a job because it never allowed me to give enough to the world.

Evil Plans, p. 174

June Jordan:

Consequently, most of us really exist at the mercy of other people's formulations of what's important.

Tonetta Landis:

Consider that some things are more important than stain-glassed certainty.  Like humility.  Like bent knees.  Like a beckoning to do more than survive.  Like a beckoning to embrace mystery and to become fertile ground.

From "Battle Hymn: A Queer Christian's Guide to More Than Survival"

Sarah Schulman:

People who have acted fairly have nothing to hide and therefore don't.

Ties That Bind, p. 114

Aldous Huxley:

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

Steve Jobs:

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things.

Frank Schaeffer:

When she wrote [The Tale of Two Bad Mice] in 1904, [Beatrix] Potter couldn't have known that her classic story would someday be an allegory aptly illustrating the delusion suffered by members of the American Religious Right.

Sex, Mom, and God, p. x

Hugh MacLeod:

You were given a gift by the Creator, God, the Universe...Whatever.  Until you have returned the favor, life will have a certain, feckless emptiness to it.

Evil Plans, p. 173

June Jordan:

We need, each of us, to begin the awesome, difficult work of love: loving ourselves so that we become able to love others without fear so that we can become able enough to enlarge the circle of our trust and our common striving for a safe, sunny afternoon near to flowering trees and under a very blue sky.

"A Powerful Hatred"

Sarah Schulman:

The state trusts the homophobes whom they have long rewarded, and the state mistrusts the gay people whom they have long abused.

Ties That Bind, p. 114

Audre Lorde:

That you can't change City Hall is a rumor being spread by City Hall.

Steve Jobs:

Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful, that's what matters to me.

Lily Tomlin:

Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past.

Hugh MacLeod:

Love doesn't HAVE a purpose.  LOVE IS PURPOSE.

Evil Plans, p. 172

June Jordan:

We are the ones we have been waiting for.

From "Poem for South African Women"

Tonetta Landis:

The call is to be fully alive.  To be awake.  To be honest.  It is to spend all of yourself extravagantly.

From "Battle Hymn: A Queer Christian's Guide to More Than Survival"

Sarah Schulman:

People who want to pretend that they do not have responsibility to others try to refuse the information that would make them conscious of this responsibility.
  
Ties That Bind, p. 108

Thomas Merton:

What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves?  This is the most important of all voyages of discovery.

Steve Jobs:

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.  They somehow already know what you truly want to become.

C. S. Lewis:

My own eyes are not enough for me; I will see through those of others.

Hugh MacLeod:

Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle, may have a million times more money than me, but he isn't going to live a million times longer than me, watch a million times more sunsets than me, make love to a million times more women than me, drink a million times more fine wines than me, listen to a million times more Beethoven string quartets than me, or have a million times more grandchildren than me.  Human beings don't scale.

Evil Plans, p. 171

Jonathan Safran Foer:

I think music is probably the most directly impactful art form.  I mean, it's the one that, within three minutes, you can find yourself screaming at the top of your lungs and banging your fists.  And a novel never does that.

Tonetta Landis:

Conspire to create a dangerously inclusive life.

From "Battle Hymn: A Queer Christian's Guide to More Than Survival"

Sarah Schulman:

Let's face it, people think that the system works if it works for them.

Ties That Bind, p. 136