Quote of the Day

Words have the power to destroy or heal.  When words are both true and kind, they can change our world.

-- Jack Kornfield, Buddha's Little Instruction Book, p. 5

Quote of the Day

Straight people don't have to come out, as heterosexuality is assumed.  And while that's good in many ways -- less stress during adolescence is certainly good -- it's not so good in other ways.  Young straight people are less likely to question choices that their families and societies are attempting to make for them.  Even worse, the culture has a way of convincing young straight people that they're somehow freely making choices that have actually been foisted on them.

-- Dan Savage, American Savage, p. 126

Quote of the Day

We all love things that other people think are garbage. You have to have the courage to keep loving your garbage, because what makes us unique is the diversity and breadth of our influences, the unique ways in which we mix up the parts of culture others have deemed “high” and the “low.”

-- Austin Kleon, "No More Guilty Pleasures"

Quote of the Day

No effort is required to define or even attain happiness, but enormous concentration is needed to abandon everything else.

-- Quentin Crisp, The Naked Civil Servant

Quote of the Day

Seeing as how the Jews have several thousand years on us when it comes to interpreting Scripture, Christians might consider listening to them more often.

-- Rachel Held Evans, A Year of Biblical Womanhood, p. 86

Quote of the Day

For somebody to be on a search means he or she is involved with these subversive topics, reading and comparing notes with allies, asking questions, daydreaming, brooding.

-- Anne Lamott, Stitches, p. 26

Quote of the Day

Family traditions make occasions feel special and exciting.  They mark the passage of time in a happy way.  They provide a sense of anticipation, security, and continuity.  Studies show that family traditions support children's social development and strengthen family cohesiveness.  They provide connection and predictability, which people -- especially children -- crave.  I know that I enjoy a holiday more when I know exactly what we're going to do and when we're going to do it.

-- Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project, p. 103

Quote of the Day

Even loss and betrayal can bring us awakening.

-- Jack Kornfield, Buddha's Little Instruction Book, p. 4

Quote of the Day

NOM's other big lie: You can be for traditional marriage or you can be for gay marriage but you can't be for both.  I'm a big supporter of "traditional" marriage, in the sense that I love and support my friends and family members who are in opposite-sex marriages.  There's nothing [my husband] Terry and I wouldn't do for [our neighbors] John and Mishy, for example, or our married siblings.  If they were in trouble -- if their marriages were in trouble -- and there was anything we could do to help, we would do it.

-- Dan Savage, American Savage, p. 263

Quote of the Day

“Dumpster diving” is one of the jobs of the artist—finding the treasure in other people’s trash, sifting through the debris of our culture, paying attention to the stuff that everyone else is ignoring, and taking inspiration from the stuff that people have tossed aside for whatever reasons.

-- Austin Kleon, "No More Guilty Pleasures"

Quote of the Day

The less depth a belief system has, the greater the fervency with which its adherents embrace it.  The most vociferous, the most fanatical are those whose cobbled faith is founded on the shakiest grounds.

-- Dean Koontz, Forever Odd

Quote of the Day

Obedience is an unpopular word nowadays but the artist must be obedient to the work, whether it be a symphony, a painting, or a story for a small child.  I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius, or something very small, comes to the artist and says, "Here I am.  Enflesh me.  Give birth to me."

-- Madeleine L'Engle

Quote of the Day

If a writer or artist creates from a place of truth and spirit and generosity, then I may be able to enter and ride this person's train back to my own station.  It's the same with beautiful music and art.

-- Anne Lamott, Stitches, p. 23

Quote of the Day

Oh, well, I told myself, if it's not one thing, it's another.  If I do my project my way, I'm unspiritual and gimmicky; if I tried to do it a different way, I'd be inauthentic and fake.  Might as well "Be Gretchen."

-- Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project, p. 88

Quote of the Day

Love in the past is only a memory.  Love in the future is a fantasy.  Only here and now can we truly love.

-- Jack Kornfield, Buddha's Little Instruction Book, p. 2

Quote of the Day

You anti-gay bigots will have to adjust, just as anti-Semites, sexists, and racists have had to adjust before you.  But, again, you will still be free -- completely free -- to be privately bigoted.  You won't have to welcome us into your homes or your hearts.  But you can no longer demand that the government persecute us and warp our lives to pander to your bigotry, soothe your insecurities, or give your religious beliefs preference over others.  Your biases should not, and one day soon they will not, have the force of law.

-- Dan Savage, American Savage, p. 275-276

Quote of the Day

Anyone can fight the battles of just one day.  It is only when you and I add the battles of those two awful eternities, yesterday and tomorrow, that we break down.  It is not the experience of today that drives us mad.  It is the remorse or bitterness for something that happened yesterday or the dread of what tomorrow may bring.  Let us therefore do our best to live but one day at a time.

-- Richard Walker, Twenty-Four Hours A Day

Quote of the Day

Of course reading and thinking are important but, my God, food is important too.  How fortunate we are to be food-consuming animals.  Each meal should be a treat and one ought to bless every day which brings with it a good digestion and the precious gift of hunger.

-- Iris Murdoch, The Sea, The Sea

Quote of the Day

As a Christian, I do take some comfort in the fact that Jesus got himself into quite a bit of trouble for his own selective literalism.  Known for healing on the Sabbath, touching the untouchables, and fraternizing with prostitutes and tax collectors, Jesus liked to begin his sermons by quoting a passage of Scripture ("You have heard that it was said...") and then turning it on its head ("but I tell you...").  Perhaps the most famous example of this technique is captured in Matthew 5:43-45, where Jesus says, "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven" (UPDATED NIV).

-- Rachel Held Evans, A Year of Biblical Womanhood, p. 53

Quote of the Day

All that is holding us together [is] stories and compassion.

-- Barry Lopez

Quote of the Day

The end of a melody is not its goal; but nonetheless, if the melody had not reached its end it would not have reached its goal either.

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Quote of the Day

A viewer of The 700 Club recently put this question to Pat Robertson: "If America was founded as a Christian nation, why did we allow slavery?"

"Like it or not, if you read the Bible, in the Old Testament, slavery was permitted," Robertson responded.  "We have moved in our conception of the value of human beings until we realized that slavery was terribly wrong."  (Pat was half-right: Slavery was permitted -- slavery was endorsed -- in the Old Testament and the New Testament.)

LGBT Americans aren't asking Christians to do anything that Christians haven't done before.  Christians are simply being asked to, once again, "move in [their] conception of the value of human beings" -- in this instance, human beings who happen to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.

-- Dan Savage, American Savage, p. 274-275

Quote of the Day

Live every act fully, as if it were your last.

-- Jack Kornfield, Buddha's Little Instruction Book, p. 1

Quote of the Day

You are awesome and big, and I will carry you on my shoulders for miles if that’s what it takes to get you to a place where you can see how great you are.

-- Frank Chimero, "The Inferno of Independence"

Quote of the Day

What it takes to be a great athlete is the same thing that it takes to be a great actor, I think -- that kind of concentration, that kind of privacy in public and that kind of unselfconscious kind of experience are very similar, and that kind of pressure of the people watching; and finding privacy.

-- Philip Seymour Hoffman

Quote of the Day

I've heard all kinds of explanations from Christian apologists for why the Bible includes such harsh laws about women: that the laws were progressive in comparison to the surrounding culture, that they were designed to protect women from exploitation, that they weren't strictly observed anyway.  These are useful insights, I suppose, but sometimes I wish these apologists wouldn't be in such a hurry to explain these troubling texts away, that they would allow themselves to be bothered by them now and then.

-- Rachel Held Evans, A Year of Biblical Womanhood, p. 52-53

Quote of the Day

All of life, for me, begins with books and art.

-- Anne Lamott, Stitches, p. 22

Quote of the Day

Too much concern about whether I was getting praise or blame, too much anticipatory anxiety about what my detractors would say -- those kinds of fears spoiled my pleasure in my work and, what's more, probably weakened my work. 

-- Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project, p. 85-86