Quote of the Day

If punishers were to allow themselves a few moments of introspection, they would probably be revolted by the fears and vulnerabilities they would discover.  It's one of the most fascinating paradoxes of human behavior that angry, punitive people are really very frightened, but they rarely confront or diminish those fears.  Instead they lash out at others when they are frustrated to prove how strong they are.  They create so much unhappiness with their behavior that they often cause people to leave them, thereby ensuring that the thing they fear the most will happen.

-- Susan Forward with Donna Frazier, Emotional Blackmail, p. 94

Quote of the Day

I came out by reading books, not by having actual experiences with other people.  I had this very formative moment: I was browsing in my college bookstore and I found this book called Word Is Out.  It was a book about a documentary film that had been made which was interviews with a whole bunch of gay men and lesbians.  I think it was made in the late '70s.  I was spellbound by this book and as I was reading it, I had this simultaneous realization that, "Oh my God, I am one of these people in this book," and also that it was OK.  Just like that, I accepted it in myself.  I didn't have any long period of struggle.  I had this great opportunity because of the moment, the generational moment, when I came out.  It was OK to be gay in 1980.

-- Alison Bechdel, "Lesbian Cartoonist Alison Bechdel Countered Dad's Secrecy By Being Out And Open”

Quote of the Day

Perfectionism is more about perception than internal motivation, and there is no way to control perception, no matter how much time and energy we spend trying.

-- Brene Brown, Daring Greatly, p. 130

Quote of the Day

We never talked about sex or sexuality [in my family or in my culture], which is exactly why I'm a sex educator now.  I'm out to all my students.  I think it offers young people so much to have visible LGBT adults and teachers in their school.  It offers a young person the idea that, "I can make it.  I can be an adult.  I can be successful.  If you did it, I can do it, too."  That will do so much for a young person.  And that does so much for what that young person can offer our world.

-- Wazina Zondon, The Out List, p. 81

Quote of the Day

This thing, my gayness, was not something I had chosen, I told myself in that moment; it was something that had happened to me.  It was as much a part of me as my brown eyes or my right-handedness.  I could buy myself blue contact lenses, pretend I was straight, put on a show for everyone ... but underneath, my eyes would always be brown.

-- Kate Fagan, The Reappearing Act, p. 163-164

Quote of the Day

Young people can remind us to take chances and be angry and stop our patterns.  Old people can remind us to laugh more and get focused and make friends with our patterns.  Young and old need to relax in the moment and live where they are.

-- Amy Poehler, Yes Please, p. 101-102

Quote of the Day

My desire to live authentically has often been at odds with my need to please.  I want to be me, but I also want to make the people around me happy.  It's a tug-of-war that has consumed me over the years, but one I'm finally learning to manage.

-- Brittney Griner with Sue Hovey, In My Skin, p. 2

Quote of the Day

One obvious reason (emotional blackmailers punish their victims) is the difference between what blackmailers tell themselves about what they're doing and why they're doing it...and the actual effect of their behavior on us.  Punishers don't see themselves as punishing, but rather as maintaining order or keeping a firm hand on things or doing "what's right" or letting us know they can't be pushed around.  They see themselves as strong and in charge.  If their behavior hurts us, so be it.  The end justifies the means.

-- Susan Forward with Donna Frazier, Emotional Blackmail, p. 93

Quote of the Day

In many ways my life, my professional career has been a reaction to my father's life, his life of secrecy.  I threw myself into the gay community, into this life as a lesbian cartoonist, deciding I was going to be a professional lesbian.  In a way, that was all my way of healing myself.

-- Alison Bechdel, "Lesbian Cartoonist Alison Bechdel Countered Dad's Secrecy By Being Out And Open”

Quote of the Day

Perfectionism is not a way to avoid shame.  Perfectionism is a form of shame.  Where we struggle with perfectionism, we struggle with shame.

-- Brene Brown, Daring Greatly, p. 130

Quote of the Day

Growing up, I performed for my family, made my poor brother learn "It's a Hard Knock Life," and we'd dance around with brooms.  It's such an interesting time now, I think, because the gay visibility is so prevalent.  Parents of Annie-singing seven-year-olds would be more conscious that maybe their son might grow up to be gay.  And I really, legitimately feel my parents never were aware in that way, or nervous of it, or even quite contemplated it.  Now, there are so many examples of "gay" that you can't just put the gay in the little gay box anymore.

-- Neil Patrick Harris, The Out List, p. 18-19

Quote of the Day

I knew these feelings weren't [sudden, strategic temptations] from the devil, because in the moments when I was most honest with myself, I understood that I had felt this way all along; I just didn't have the vocabulary and framework to give my feelings context.  I wasn't "going through a phase," as my mother and father would later suggest.  I...was...gay.

-- Kate Fagan, The Reappearing Act, p. 116

Quote of the Day

I am interested in people who swim in the deep end.  I want to have conversations about real things with people who have experienced real things.  I'm tired of talking about movies and gossiping about friends.  Life is crunchy and complicated and all the more delicious.

-- Amy Poehler, Yes Please, p. 101

Quote of the Day

I've learned that my top priority is being true to myself, and making choices that reflect who I am as a person, even if those choices -- how I dress, what I talk about, who I surround myself with -- make some people uncomfortable.

-- Brittney Griner with Sue Hovey, In My Skin, p. 2

Quote of the Day

When we look at how intensely blackmailers fear deprivation, a more complex picture begins to take shape and it's easier to fathom why they act as they do.  But one question continues to nag most of the people I talk to about this subject: Why do they need to punish us?  "OK," they say.  "I see why they nag or pressure us or even make threats, but why on earth do they need to hurt us if we don't give them their way?"

-- Susan Forward with Donna Frazier, Emotional Blackmail, p. 93

Quote of the Day

Poetry is about reaching for our common humanity.

-- Richard Blanco, "Son of Cuban exiles calls reciting poem at embassy opening his 'easiest yet hardest' job"

Quote of the Day

Perfectionism is correlated with depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis or missed opportunities.  The fear of failing, making mistakes, not meeting people's expectations, and being criticized keeps us outside of the arena where healthy competition and striving unfolds.

-- Brene Brown, Daring Greatly, p. 129

Quote of the Day

When we speak of gaydar, it's more than those obvious and cliche signifiers.  We're picking up something more sublime, yet infinitely more powerful: those invisible scars and war paint on our faces; those tribal values tinted in our eyes that say to one another: I have been where you have been, I know the darkness and the closed door, I have hurt as you have hurt, but I know the light, I am who you are, I believe what you believe.

-- Richard Blanco, The Out List, p. 11

Quote of the Day

Nobody wants to know how you feel, yet, they want you to do what they feel.

-- Michael Bassey Johnson

Quote of the Day

Any painful experience makes you see things differently.  It also reminds you of the simple truths that we purposefully forget every day or else we would never get out of bed.  Things like, nothing lasts forever and relationships can end.  The best that can happen is you learn a little more about what you can handle and you stay soft through the pain.  Perhaps you feel a little wiser.  Maybe your experience can be of help to others.

-- Amy Poehler, Yes Please, p. 88

Quote of the Day

I've always held things inside, kept most of my true feelings and emotions packed away.  From the time I was a kid, I've dealt with so much hurt this way: swallowing it whole, stacking it inside me, thinking I was strong enough to ignore it and keep a smile on my face.  Meanwhile, when I was busy telling myself it didn't matter, the hurt would become sadness, then anger, and eventually it would spill over.  This seemed natural to me, coping with the ups and downs of life by stuffing everything away until nothing more could fit, then dealing with all of it coming back up at once, a tidal wave of emotion.

-- Brittney Griner with Sue Hovey, In My Skin, p. 2

Quote of the Day

Any logic or ability to see the consequences of their actions is obscured by the urgency blackmailers feel to hold on to what they have.  They're in a FOG of their own that makes them oblivious to how much they alienate other people with their bullying.  All that matters is finding immediate relief from their deprivation fears -- whatever that relief costs.

-- Susan Forward with Donna Frazier, Emotional Blackmail, p. 93

Quote of the Day

Vinyl has a potential for being a better "ritualistic" medium ... you don't want to download your favourite food, you go to a good restaurant to experience that food. Certain experiences are neither downloadable nor possible to save on a hard drive.

-- Dominik Bartmanski, “The future of vinyl? Selling music as a lifestyle”

Quote of the Day

Healthy striving is self-focused: How can I improve?  Perfectionism is other-focused: What will they think?

-- Brene Brown, Daring Greatly, p. 129

Quote of the Day

Stepping out (or stumbling out) of that proverbial closet is a rite of passage unique to us; it makes us a tribe defined and united emotionally and spiritually by the values such a rite instills in us, namely: a respect for diversity of all kinds, a desire to love others how we want to be loved, the courage to love ourselves, a commitment to justice and empathy for every underdog, and a desire to create and beautify the world, rather than destroy it.

-- Richard Blanco, The Out List, p. 11

Quote of the Day

You have to die a few times before you can really live.

-- Charles Bukowski, The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Quote of the Day

Apologies have nothing to do with you.  They are balloons in the sky.  They may never land.  They may even choke a bird.

-- Amy Poehler, Yes Please, p. 76

Quote of the Day

When I tell someone I'm a people pleaser, I'm often met with a raised eyebrow and a look that says, Really?  I never would have guessed it.  But it's true.  I want everyone to feel happy and accepted.  And I never want to be the cause of someone else's disappointment, because I know all too well how that particular brand of pain feels.

-- Brittney Griner with Sue Hovey, In My Skin, p. 1-2

Quote of the Day

Most blackmailers operate from an I-want-what-I-want-when-I-want-it mind-set.  They seem to have a childlike inability to connect behavior to consequences, and they don't appear to give any thought to what they will be left with once they've gotten the target's compliance.

-- Susan Forward with Donna Frazier, Emotional Blackmail, p. 92

Quote of the Day

(Men) didn’t understand (the women’s liberation movement).  They literally didn’t understand it.  They thought it had something to do with chivalry…and that the women involved hated men … They really were putting it down and I knew, of course, it was about equal opportunity; jobs.

-- Marlene Sanders, "'Fresh Air' Remembers Broadcast News Pioneer Marlene Sanders"

Quote of the Day

Perfectionism is not self-improvement.  Perfectionism is, at its core, about trying to earn approval.

-- Brene Brown, Daring Greatly, p. 129