Quote of the Day

With an inner wound that disables the narcissist, compassion and a deep longing compels the child to repeatedly strive for acceptance and love from the NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) parent.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 57

Quote of the Day

In my private practice, I am quite familiar with the tendency for self-reflective individuals to see themselves in a multitude of psychological descriptions and quickly become alarmed.  The simple fact that you may be concerned about having some of these problems is a genuine indicator that you have an overall healthy sense of self.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 17-18

Quote of the Day

We all have some of what may be termed narcissistic needs such as the need to be valued, admired, understood, or simply recognized as a unique person.  During painful periods, we become much more narcissistic, or self-centered, and our demands for attention, mirroring, validation, etc., increase.  However, when we feel better, we generally return to a baseline ability to reciprocate in our relationships.  Instead of only taking, we give-and-take by listening, understanding, validating, and supporting others.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 10-11

Quote of the Day

While the NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) individual invariably attracts those who are vulnerable to these types of behavior patterns, the truth is that almost anyone will be pulled into care taking behaviors when interacting with the NPD person.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 9

Quote of the Day

The severity and intensity of this disorder comes from the NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) individual's desperate pursuit to gain a sense of self.  He consciously understands none of this, yet his inner need to feel worthwhile causes him to manipulate people in order to maintain an endless supply of attention, control, status, money, power, or recognition.  This single-minded purpose covers the almost malignant anxiety and emptiness he feels.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 7

Quote of the Day

The seduction into the narcissist's world is profound.  Even when you recognize the dynamics, you must work to resist the narcissist's manipulations.  In fact, therapists with expertise in this arena know that it is unwise to treat more than two or three NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) individuals at any one time because of the enormous amount of energy and attention they require.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 7

Quote of the Day

The more days, months, or years you have invested in a relationship with an NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) person, the more difficulty you will have recognizing that you are on a one-way street, with all the attention, support, and recognition going the other way -- his way!

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 6

Quote of the Day

Seduced by the narcissist's camouflage of outer charm or confidence, you are eventually drawn into the nightmare side of this relationship.  By the time you realize that something is wrong, the cumulative effects can range from bruised self-esteem to severe depression.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 5

Quote of the Day

For the narcissist, his excessive self-absorption is a protection against unconscious but powerful feelings of inadequacy.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 5

Quote of the Day

The inevitable impact on the individual in a relationship with a narcissistic personality disorder person is a dangerous erosion of self-esteem.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 1

Quote of the Day

The relentless need for the narcissistic individual to command the majority of another person's resources will eventually deplete the energies of the healthiest individual.

-- Eleanor D. Payson, The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists, p. 1

Quote of the Day

U.S. Soccer's monetary figures are equally unsettling.  In 2017, the women's team is expected to generate $17 million in revenue compared to $9 million by the men, and yet the men's salaries still dwarf the women's across the board.  For wins, the women's team earns thirty-seven cents to every dollar earned by men.  Players in the National Women's Soccer League earn between $6,842 and $37,800, while members of Major League Soccer earn an average salary exceeding $200,000.

-- Abby Wambach, Forward, p. 168-169

Quote of the Day

I understand that people enjoyed what felt like eavesdropping on a very raw and candid moment, but if someone had told me as I stood backstage waiting for Ed Helms to wrap up that what I was about to spill out all over that dark room on August 3 would have me nominated for a Grammy, I would have rescheduled so I had time to prepare what I considered possible Grammy Award-winning material.

-- Tig Notaro, I'm Just a Person, p. 148

Quote of the Day

The simple right to reproductive freedom -- to sexuality as an expression that is separable from reproduction -- is basic to restoring women's power, the balance between women and men, and a balance between humans and nature.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 204

Quote of the Day

I read a quote once that really resonated with me, and I made little changes to it so that it could apply more directly to my life: "The best gift you can give anyone is a well-lived life of your own."  Had my parents done this, I think that the weight of my worry and concern for their happiness and well-being would have been lifted.

-- Tig Notaro, I'm Just a Person, p. 238

Quote of the Day

Only in the last five hundred to five thousand years -- depending on where we live in the world -- has godliness been withdrawn from nature, withdrawn from females, and withdrawn from particular races of men, all in order to allow the conquering of nature, females, and certain races of men.  Though patriarchal cultures and religions have made hierarchy seems inevitable, humans for 95 percent of history have been more likely to see the circle as our natural paradigm.  Indeed, millions still do, from traditional Native Americans here to original cultures around the world.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 204

Quote of the Day

Through all this, I learned that I'm a really bad match for certain people, and that, although we might forever be tied to each other in the eyes of the public, it was totally okay to dissociate myself from them in my personal life.  I wanted to put my time and energy toward mutually fulfilling, nurturing, and growing relationships.  Health and peace of mind override everything.

-- Tig Notaro, I'm Just a Person, p. 237

Quote of the Day

There is nothing more pathetic than caution
when headlong might save a life,
even, possibly, your own.

-- Mary Oliver, "Moments"

Quote of the Day

When I visit clinics, I've learned to ask the staff if they have ever seen a picketer come in, have an abortion, and go back to picketing again.  From Atlanta to Wichita, the answer is yes.  Yet because staff members see the woman's suffering and guard her right to privacy, they don't blow the whistle.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 190

Quote of the Day

The other scary beauty of life, which I probably should have expected to discover in all of this, was how heightened circumstances, such as overlapping tragedy and success, sharpen your vision and shorten your patience for baloney and hogwash.

-- Tig Notaro, I'm Just a Person, p. 236

Quote of the Day

A [Blue Mountain Clinic] staff member tells me that one of the female picketers has come in when the men were not around, had an abortion, and gone back to picket the next day.  This sounds surrealistic to me -- but not to the staff member.  She explains that women in such anti-abortion groups are more likely to be deprived of birth control and so to need an abortion.  They then feel guilty -- and picket even more.  This restriction on birth control may also explain why studies have long shown that Catholic women in general are more likely to have an abortion than are their Protestant counterparts.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 190

Quote of the Day

I cannot express how important it is to believe that taking one tiny -- and possibly very uncomfortable -- step at a time can ultimately add up to a great distance.

-- Tig Notaro, I'm Just a Person, p. 236

Quote of the Day

Progress, real progress, makes me cry harder than anything -- when the world itself grows.

-- Kate McKinnon

Quote of the Day

Thanks to Mrs. Greene -- and many others brave enough to stand up for themselves and other women -- I began to understand that females were an out-group, too.  That realization solved such mysteries as why the face of Congress was male but the face of welfare was female; why homemakers were called women who "don't work," though they worked longer, harder, and for less pay than any other class of worker; why women did 70 percent of the productive labor in the world, paid and unpaid, yet owned only 1 percent of the property; why masculinity meant leading and femininity meant following in the odd dance of daily life.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 45

Quote of the Day

The scary beauty of life is that cancer can be around the corner just as a Grammy nomination can be.

-- Tig Notaro, I'm Just a Person, p. 235

Quote of the Day

When has a true milestone sailed by without people's hateful attention?

-- Kate McKinnon

Quote of the Day

If Rosa Parks and Fannie Lou Hamer and others had been heard fifty years ago -- if women had been half the speakers in 1963 -- we might have heard that the civil rights movement was partly a protest against the ritualistic rape and terrorizing of black women by white men ... We might have known sooner that the most reliable predictor of whether a country is violent within itself -- or will use military violence against another country -- is not poverty, natural resources, religion, or even degree of democracy; it's violence against females.  It normalizes all other violence.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 43

Quote of the Day

I've always tried to be aware of an opportunity to change something I might later regret.

-- Tig Notaro, I'm Just a Person, p. 233

Quote of the Day

You white women, Mrs. Greene said kindly, as if reading my mind, if you don't stand up for yourselves, how can you stand up for anybody else?

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 42

Quote of the Day

Whenever I'm told to go after "low-hanging fruit," I think of drawing a cartoon with two characters standing over a tombstone.

"He picked the low-hanging fruit," one says.

"Yeah," says the other.  "But he never climbed the tree."

-- Austin Kleon, "Low-hanging fruit"

Quote of the Day

Having spent most of that year in and out of the hospital, fearful that I was close to my deathbed, I naturally came across people who were close to dying themselves.  Who cares that it's cliche, this was their one common regret: They wished they had worked less and spent more time with their loved ones.  I pride myself on living with no regrets, and I certainly don't want any in my final moments.

-- Tig Notaro, I'm Just a Person, p. 233

Quote of the Day

Home is a symbol of the self.  Caring for a home is caring for one's self.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 249

Quote of the Day

Why can so many of us only express our true feelings onto a blank slate: a diary page, the sky, an unconscious loved one, a tombstone?

-- Tig Notaro, I'm Just a Person, p. 185-186

Quote of the Day

Anybody who is experiencing something is more expert in it than the experts.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 245

Quote of the Day

Every day is the day.

-- Tig Notaro, I'm Just a Person, p. 155

Quote of the Day

Spiders should be the totem of writers.  Both go into a space alone and spin out of their own bodies a reality that has never existed before.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 237-238

Quote of the Day

Maybe the desire to make something beautiful is the piece of God that is inside each of us.

-- Mary Oliver, "Franz Marc's Blue Horses"

Quote of the Day

I discovered that Native languages, Cherokee and others -- like Bengali and other ancient languages -- didn't have gendered pronouns like he and she.  A human being was a human being.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 223

Quote of the Day

Maybe our world will grow kinder eventually.

-- Mary Oliver, "Franz Marc's Blue Horses"

Quote of the Day

When new people guide us, we see a new country.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 211

Quote of the Day

Because of her own experience as a young lawyer and a working mom, Clinton knows that we don't need equal pay and family leave because they are women's issues.  We need equal pay and family leave because they are family issues.
 
-- Patti Solis Doyle, "If Hillary Clinton were a man"

Quote of the Day

The Catholic Church not only didn't oppose abortion but actually regulated it until the mid-nineteenth century.  It was made a mortal sin mostly for population reasons.  Napoleon III wanted more soldiers, and Pope Pius IX wanted all the teaching positions in the French schools -- plus the doctrine of papal infallibility -- so they traded.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 204

Quote of the Day

While Trump still needs to be taught about women's struggle for equality over the past 50 years, Clinton's trying to move the country past it.

-- Patti Solis Doyle, "If Hillary Clinton were a man"

Quote of the Day

The first step toward speaking for others is speaking for ourselves.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 209

Quote of the Day

Only in comedy does an obedient white girl from the suburbs count as diversity.

-- Tina Fey

Quote of the Day

It's easy to tell people how things are done; real teachers show people how things are done.

-- Pat Summitt with Sally Jenkins, Sum It Up, p. 340

Quote of the Day

[Donald] Trump thinks [Hillary] Clinton succeeded as a token ... Let's (examine) the facts.  After graduating with honors from Wellesley and Yale Law, Clinton worked as an investigator on the Watergate Committee, taught law at The University of Arkansas, served as the chairwoman of the Legal Services Corp. (a $300 million per year enterprise, at the time), made partner at one of the country's oldest and most respected law firms, served on the boards of three public companies, and, for many years, was the principal breadwinner for her family.  Throw in her experience as a best-selling author, first lady, U.S. senator, secretary of state, co-chair of a global foundation, and you get the idea.  Along the way, she found time to volunteer at the Yale Child Study Center (researching early childhood development) and New Haven Hospital (helping victims of child abuse).  She handled pro bono child welfare cases throughout her legal career.  She founded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families and helped lead its national partner, The Children's Defense Fund.  She led a school reform effort for teacher testing and higher standards for curriculum and class size ... She was the first female partner at her law firm, the first female head of the Legal Services Corp., one of the first female professors at her law school, and the first female board member for at least one of those big companies.  Trump -- heir to a real estate fortune and recipient of a $1 million loan from his father to "get started" -- has nothing on Clinton, daughter of a small-business owner.

-- Patti Solis Doyle, "If Hillary Clinton were a man"

Quote of the Day

In truth, we don't know which of our acts in the present will shape the future.  But we have to behave as if everything we do matters.  Because it might.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 176-177

Quote of the Day

If there is a single ingredient in leadership, it's emotional maturity.

-- Pat Summitt with Sally Jenkins, Sum It Up, p. 240

Quote of the Day

If Hillary were a man, she'd have been president 25 years ago.

-- Patti Solis Doyle, "If Hillary Clinton were a man"

Quote of the Day

The voting booth really is the one place on earth where the least powerful equal the most powerful.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 176

Quote of the Day

Leadership is really a form of temporary authority that others grant you, and they only follow you if they find you consistently credible.  It's all about perception -- and if teammates find you the least bit inconsistent, moody, unpredictable, indecisive, or emotionally unreliable, then they balk and the whole team is destabilized.

-- Pat Summitt with Sally Jenkins, Sum It Up, p. 240

Quote of the Day

Connecting with a book is so much about being the right reader in the right place at the right time.  You have to feel free to skip things, move on, and maybe even come back later.
 
-- Austin Kleon, "It wasn't for me"

Quote of the Day

Remember: "For want of a nail, the horseshoe was lost, for want of a horseshoe, the horse was lost, for want of a horse, the battle was lost, for want of a battle, the war was lost."  This parable should be the mantra of everyone who thinks her or his vote doesn't count.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 174-175

Quote of the Day

What happened to me has made it impossible to speak with God, to believe in a version of Him that isn't charged with self-loathing.  My ex-gay therapists took Him away from me, and no matter how many different churches I attend, I will feel the same dead weight in my chest.  I will feel the pang of a deep love now absent from my life.  I will continue to experiment with different denominations, different religions.  I will continue to search.  And even if I no longer believe in Hell, I will continue to struggle with the fear of it.  Perhaps one day I will hear His voice again.  Perhaps not.  It's a sadness I deal with on a daily basis.

-- Garrard Conley, Boy Erased, p. 337

Quote of the Day

The point guard position in basketball is one of the great tutorials on leadership, and it ought to be taught in classrooms.  Anyone can perfect a dribble with muscle memory; very few people are able to organize and direct followers, which is a far more subtle and multifaceted skill.  

-- Pat Summitt with Sally Jenkins, Sum It Up, p. 240

Quote of the Day

I'm a big fan of the phrase "it wasn't for me" when asked about books (and music and TV and movies and so forth) that I didn't get into.  I like the phrase because it's essentially positive: it assumes that there are books for me, but this one just wasn't one of them.  It also allows me to tell you how I felt about a book without precluding the possibility that you might like it, or making you feel stupid or put down if you did like it.

-- Austin Kleon, "It wasn't for me"

Quote of the Day

A writer's greatest reward is naming something unnamed that many people are feeling.  A writer's greatest punishment is being misunderstood.  The same words can do both.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 170

Quote of the Day

If a book is tedious to you, don't read it; that book was not written for you.

-- Jorge Luis Borges

Quote of the Day

In the years since (Love in Action), I've had to spend so much time catching up with other people, learning how to believe in a world that no longer teems with angels and demons.  Every time I've read a book or ingested a new historical fact that my Baptist upbringing taught me to reject, I've had to fight against the sneaking suspicion that I am being lead astray by Satan.  In the message boards and hidden ex-ex-gay Facebook groups I will join, I'll see others talking about their own attempted suicides, and I'll glimpse in these confessions elements so remarkably similar to my own that they will seem, for a moment, to issue directly from my mind.  I will see people talk about losing their families, about the yearly trials they've faced as winter holidays approached and the loneliness threatened to overwhelm them once again.

-- Garrard Conley, Boy Erased, p. 334-335

Quote of the Day

Winning helps define loss, and the loss helps define winning.  You can't have one without the other, and if you did, you wouldn't know how to feel about it.

-- Pat Summitt with Sally Jenkins, Sum It Up, p. 185

Quote of the Day

In my life I have found shared experiences and feelings can unite us even if there are differences in our worldview.

-- Dawn Elizabeth Waters, Switching Teams, p. x

Quote of the Day

Don't write when you're angry and under deadline, with time to test it only on friends who know what you mean, not on strangers who don't.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 169

Quote of the Day

On some days, it's hard to believe that I ever lived in a world that operated on such extreme notions of self-annihilation.  But then I turn on the news, read a few articles, and realize that what I have experienced may have been unique, but in no way was it disconnected from history.  Minorities continue to be abused and manipulated by both nefarious and well-intentioned groups of people, and harmful ideas continue to develop new political strains all over the world.

-- Garrard Conley, Boy Erased, p. 327-328

Quote of the Day

I'd learned the single most important principle of teaching: they don't care how much you know, unless they know how much you care.

-- Pat Summitt with Sally Jenkins, Sum It Up, p. 168

Quote of the Day

Hillary [Clinton] is proof a woman can work hard, rise to the top of her field & still have to compete against a less qualified man for the same job.

-- Erin Ruberry

Quote of the Day

Hillary Clinton is every competent, experienced woman who's had to fight to be heard over an underqualified, overconfident man.

-- Mary Beth Williams

Quote of the Day

Stereotypes, labels, and veiled humor are the gateway drugs to hate.

-- Dawn Elizabeth Waters, Switching Teams, p. 163

Quote of the Day

When I do good, I feel good.  When I do bad, I feel bad.  That's my religion.

-- Abraham Lincoln

Quote of the Day

The reasons [why the sex barrier was not taken as seriously as the racial one] are as pervasive as the air we breathe: because sexism is still confused with nature as racism one was; because anything that affects males is seen as more serious than anything that affects "only" the female half of the human race; because children are still raised mostly by women (to put it mildly) so men especially tend to feel they are regressing to childhood when dealing with a powerful woman; because racism stereotyped black men as more "masculine" for so long that some white men find their presence to be masculinity-affirming (as long as there aren't too many of them); and because there is still no "right" way to be a women in public power without being considered a you-know-what.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 167-168

Quote of the Day

There is an old saying: a champion is someone who is willing to be uncomfortable.

-- Pat Summitt with Sally Jenkins, Sum It Up, p. 168

Quote of the Day

When you hear the words gay pride followed by festival or parade, I bet a picture of flamboyant, shirtless, buff men wearing thongs on a float comes into your head.  If not that, definitely a rainbow waving group of rambunctious individuals pops into your head.  For most people, this is often what "the lifestyle" looks like ... I can say the same image pops into my head when I think of a sporting event.  Shirtless, beer bellied straight men waving their team flags at a sporting event are never judged to be harmful or extreme or even viewed as obscene or inappropriate ... This behavior is perfectly acceptable because when these painted, spirited folks return home to their wives it is assumed they will not show up to work the next day looking that way.  Alternatively, I do not think most believe all straight men who paint their faces to support their teams and or attend championship parades represent a "lifestyle."  People who attend gay pride parades do not show up at work in parade attire unless they have a career in the performing arts.

-- Dawn Elizabeth Waters, Switching Teams, p. 151

Quote of the Day

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.

-- Aldous Huxley

Quote of the Day

It's easy to forget that people can think you think what you don't think.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 169

Quote of the Day

My parents were able to imagine a new life story for me, not what they expected so much as what was true.

-- Garrard Conley, "Why my parents tried to cure me of being gay"

Quote of the Day

Commitment is all about risk: the payoff is either heartbreak or exhilaration.  But it's also about tedium, the willingness to persevere through problems without quitting and, more important, without demoralization.  It's a kind of faith.

-- Pat Summitt with Sally Jenkins, Sum It Up, p. 153

Quote of the Day

As for the poem, not this poem but any poem, do you feel its sting?  Do you feel its hope, its entrance to a community?

-- Mary Oliver, "Good Morning"

Quote of the Day

I am interested in fairness and justice for everyone.  I learned early on engaging in debate will do little to change the minds of people who refuse to listen or consider my position.  I prefer to remain focused on the overall goal of finding a way to reduce negativity and discord in order to find common ground.  I would rather spend my energy teaching my children how to be tolerant of those who have different views and to be responsible for the choices they make in their lives.

-- Dawn Elizabeth Waters, Switching Teams, p. 121

Quote of the Day

I have not failed.  I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.

-- Thomas Edison

Quote of the Day

Needing approval is a female cultural disease, and often a sign of doing the wrong thing.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 165

Quote of the Day

But the acrimony of the campaign reaffirmed something I knew instinctively: sports for women still smacked of revolution to a lot of men, especially in the South.  There was a deep resistance to Title IX.  I saw and felt it every day.  When I took the junior national team to Mexico City for the Pan Am Games, the men stayed in a comfortable hotel, while we were assigned to a dilapidated old dormitory from the 1968 Olympic Games that was so filthy our players wouldn't get under the bedsheets, and the showers had standing water in them.

-- Pat Summitt with Sally Jenkins, Sum It Up, p. 131

Quote of the Day

Assumptions and animosity are the evil cousins of prejudice and extremism.

-- Dawn Elizabeth Waters, Switching Teams, p. 150

Quote of the Day

I am a fan of getting people together.

-- Ellen DeGeneres

Quote of the Day

Women are always better liked if we sacrifice ourselves for something bigger -- and something bigger always means including men, even though something bigger for men doesn't usually mean including women.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 165

Quote of the Day

To summon the competitiveness to work every single day for a goal that was months and even years ahead was the most invaluable lesson I'd ever learn.

-- Pat Summitt with Sally Jenkins, Sum It Up, p. 114

Quote of the Day

I believed I was still Dawn.  Being a lesbian was one small part of me.  I thought once the initial shock of the situation had worn off many who reacted negatively would circle back because they would realize I was still me.  After that first year, it became clear to me how naive I was.  I had failed to truly consider other people's opinions about this "lifestyle" I now subscribed to.  For some, this is a deal breaker of sorts.  I felt very confused by this and wondered what in the hell was going on.  I had many individuals who were very supportive, friends and family alike, however, there seemed to be a definite change in a lot of people after this information came to light.  I thought long and hard about the reasons and kept coming to a point where [I] was looking around and wondering where everyone went.

-- Dawn Elizabeth Waters, Switching Teams, p. 62

Quote of the Day

What I advocate is that we take seriously the genuine feelings that have been suppressed since childhood and that go on eking out an existence in the cellar of the soul.

-- Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies, p. 221

Quote of the Day

The most widespread and lasting impact of the [1992] Senate Judiciary hearings was not the Year of the Woman -- and perhaps not even the ascension to the Supreme Court of a very right-wing and young Clarence Thomas, likely to be there for a long time; it was the new national understanding of sexualized intimidation as a means of keeping females in a subordinate place.  The whole country learned that sexual harassment was illegal.  Millions of women learned they were not alone in their experience of it.  The use of sex to humiliate and dominate would never seem normal again.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 156

Quote of the Day

When you set a goal of such distant possibility and reach it, you gain an insight into what it takes that lasts the rest of your life.

-- Pat Summitt with Sally Jenkins, Sum It Up, p. 114

Quote of the Day

I also noticed I suddenly found myself listening to taxicab type confessions from those who had just learned I was a lesbian.  A number of people shared with me their stories of their secret same sex experiences.  One went so far as to describe their participation in an online porn site.  I checked for the "tell me your dirt" sign that someone must have placed on my forehead.  I wanted to believe that because I had shared something personal they felt the green light to do likewise.  I suspect it had more to do with the overall negative opinion the world holds with regard to homosexuality.  I was naive to be optimistic that they saw a sympathetic soul rather than a deviant one.  Many equate being gay with living in a way that is not in alignment with what is believed to be the right way.  Instead of being upset and offended, I concluded these conversations were merely a way to relate to one another and a way to reassure ourselves we are not outcasts or deviants.

-- Dawn Elizabeth Waters, Switching Teams, p. 58-59

Quote of the Day

The "love" of formerly abused children for their parents is not love.  It is an attachment fraught with expectations, illusions, and denials, and it exacts a high price from all those involved in it.

-- Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies, p. 204

Quote of the Day

For one, (small talk)'s boring.  Two, I'm a great believer in the logic of economics.  Economists talk about opportunity cost.  The opportunity cost of making small talk is that I can't get a lot of other things done.

-- Barney Frank

Quote of the Day

At every stop, Catholic officials condemned (Geraldine Ferraro) for supporting family planning and legal abortion.  I noticed they hadn't attacked Senator Ted Kennedy, also a pro-choice Catholic, in the same way -- as if tacitly admitting that it was strong, rebellious women who were the problem.  Also reporters kept asking Ferraro if a women could be "tough enough" to "push the button," meaning declare a war, though they didn't ask male candidates if they would be wise enough not to.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 155

Quote of the Day

The meaning of awe is to realize that life takes place under wide horizons, horizons that range beyond the span of an individual life or even the life of a nation, a generation, or an era.  Awe enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple; to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal.

-- Abraham Joshua Heschel

Quote of the Day

I was a newly minted twenty-two-year-old coach, and the young woman looking back at me was twenty-one.  I was only two or three months older than her, and a season earlier had stood on a court playing against her.  Yet now I was supposed to tell her what to do.  I was bluffing.  How did I begin?  I just began -- put one foot in front of the other.

-- Pat Summitt with Sally Jenkins, Sum It Up, p. 89

Quote of the Day

Obviously, coming out was a challenge not only for me, but for those in my life.  Let's just say that my Christmas card list shrank considerably.  Some relationships remained the same after the shock had dissipated, but others changed in ways I still have a difficult time understanding.  Relationships are complicated and many of those complications were compounded after I came out.  

-- Dawn Elizabeth Waters, Switching Teams, p. 58

Quote of the Day

Love that excludes honesty does not deserve the name of love.

-- Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies, p. 204

Quote of the Day

Women of all groups were measurably more likely than their male counterparts to vote for equality, health, and education, and against violence as a way of solving conflict.  It wasn't about biology, but experience.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 154

Quote of the Day

The more committed you are to your ideals, the more obligated you are to be pragmatic about implementing them.

-- Barney Frank

Quote of the Day

Everyone I know who's been on their path for a while and thriving more than ever has details and routines they take seriously.  Some people begin each day with a walk, others sit in silence for a set period of time every afternoon, some eat at the same restaurant every weekday for lunch, others wear an outfit or uniform when they work, some say prayers at certain times, some go for a run in the late afternoon.  How you order your time, how you arrange the physical space you work in, what you wear, the tools you use, the food you eat and the times you eat it, the people you meet with at set times -- all theses details matter.

-- Rob Bell, How to Be Here, p. 176

Quote of the Day

Did I have grievances as a young woman?  You bet.  But protesting or sign carrying wasn't me -- and wasn't going to get it done.  Billie Jean [King], now there was an influential force.  Was there anything more equalizing than her sheer toughness, her combination of smarts and muscle?  I wanted to influence, and to change.  But there was only one way I could see that changed things: winning.  You changed things for women by winning.

-- Pat Summitt with Sally Jenkins, Sum It Up, p. 79

Quote of the Day

My coming out just topped off the cup of interesting in my family.

-- Dawn Elizabeth Waters, Switching Teams, p. 57

Quote of the Day

If I seek genuine expression of my feelings in a genuine form of communication, everything that was built on lies and insincerity will fall away from me.  Then I will no longer strive for a relationship in which I pretend to have feelings that I do not have, or suppress others that I do have.

-- Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies, p. 204

Quote of the Day

Then, even Nixon supported the Equal Rights Amendment and allowed his Justice Department to support civil rights, much as Goldwater and later the first President Bush did.  But by the time of Bush II, none of those earlier candidates could have made it past Republican primaries inundated with busloads of voters from about thirty thousand fundamentalist churches plus other white ultraconservatives, many of whom had been Democrats before that party got "too inclusive" of black, brown, and female human beings ... Slowly, control of the Republican platform and most primaries was taken over by economic and religious interests that opposed efforts to increase equality by race, sex, class, or sexuality.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 145-146

Quote of the Day

Just remember, at any given moment you are so much more focused on you than almost anybody else is.

-- Francis X. Bellotti

Quote of the Day

Central to creating a life worth living is understanding that you have more power over your time than you realize.

-- Rob Bell, How to Be Here, p. 176

Quote of the Day

Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.

-- Nora Ephron

Quote of the Day

I shuddered each time I heard the phrase "Well, I love you anyway" [when I told them that I was gay].  It implied there was a problem and communicated there was some kind of flaw in me that needed overlooking.  I hate the word "anyway."  I had a difficult time accepting people's attempts to be supportive even though the "anyway" was immediately followed by a general wish for my happiness.  These were the people who had known me the longest.  While I understood the information I shared with them would take time to be fully absorbed, I still cringed when I heard the word "anyway."

-- Dawn Elizabeth Waters, Switching Teams, p. 56

Quote of the Day

Talking about your penis as a presidential candidate is not funny.  And neither is the way in which women in politics and across society are scrutinized and judged more harshly than men.

-- Sally Kohn, "Trump's 'size' is now a campaign issue. How's Hillary Clinton supposed to deal with that?"

Quote of the Day

Chief among the emotions suppressed (or repressed or disassociated) in our childhood but stored in the cells of our bodies is fear.  A child who has been beaten must constantly fear new blows, but it cannot live with the knowledge that it has been cruelly treated.  Similarly, a neglected child cannot consciously experience its own pain, let alone express it, for fear of being abandoned entirely.  So the child remains trapped in an unreal, rose-tinted, illusory world.  That world helps it to survive.

-- Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies, p. 200

Quote of the Day

More than any volunteer or staff member inside a candidate's race -- or any journalist or activist making points from outside -- a movement can pioneer new issues and motivate voters.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 154

Quote of the Day

Where you sit, the tools you use, the physical environment you inhabit, the rhythm of your day and week, the rituals that remind you who you are and what you're doing here -- these details are important because how you do anything is how you do everything.

-- Rob Bell, How to Be Here, p. 158

Quote of the Day

We keep score in life because it matters.  It counts.  Too many people opt out and never discover their own abilities, because they fear failure.  They don't understand commitment.  When you learn to keep fighting in the face of potential failure, it give you a larger skill set to do what you want to do in life.  It gives you vision.  But you can't acquire it if you're afraid of keeping score.

-- Pat Summitt with Sally Jenkins, Sum It Up, p. 19

Quote of the Day

He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.

-- Elbert Hubbard

Quote of the Day

A mother's position frequently gives her unlimited power over the conscience of her adult daughter.  The thing she was never able to obtain from her own mother as a child -- presence and care -- are relatively easy to obtain from her grown-up daughter, as long as she can instill guilt feelings in her.

-- Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies, p. 197

Quote of the Day

If they end up facing one another in the general election, I have no idea how Hillary Clinton will respond if and when Donald Trump brags about the size of his penis -- or brings up "schlonging" -- during a debate.  I suspect her best option is some mix of shocked disbelief and haughtiness, revealing that she's neither laughing nor not laughing, but showing herself to be the kind of leader who finds that behavior beneath her and beneath our politics.  But again, the saddest part here is that Hillary Clinton will no doubt have to think hard about exactly how she responds to such a remark -- whereas Donald Trump is clearly not thinking at all in making it.

-- Sally Kohn, "Trump's 'size' is now a campaign issue. How's Hillary Clinton supposed to deal with that?"

Quote of the Day

I've always had passion, what John O'Hara called a "rage to live."

-- Gloria Vanderbilt, The Rainbow Comes and Goes, p. 182

Quote of the Day

I've noticed that great political leaders are energized by conflict.  I'm energized by listening to people's stories and trying to figure out shared solutions.  That's the work of an organizer.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 137

Quote of the Day

A number of publishers rejected J. K. Rowling's first novel.  They were very clear that no one makes money writing books for kids.  Her book was about a boy named Harry Potter.

-- Rob Bell, How to Be Here, p. 143

Quote of the Day

Of all the candidates who ran this year, the only one who is remotely qualified to do the job is Hillary Clinton.  There's a lot of prejudice against her, just because she's a woman.  Having been raised by a woman and lived in a family where my wife has, like, six sisters, I hate that.

-- Stephen King, "The Last Word"

Quote of the Day

My process of mourning was not a function of wanting what I had back.  I think for many people this view of grieving is a foreign one.  My grief took the form of adjusting to change.  I had gained so much through this process.  I am past asking questions like "why did this happen so late in life for me?" or "how could I have not realized this before I married and began my family?"  Knowing the why does not help change it or make sense of things.  I have found that line of thinking to be more confusing in the end.  Why is irrelevant at times.  What I do in the present is truly the important piece of the puzzle.

-- Dawn Elizabeth Waters, Switching Teams, p. 48

Quote of the Day

How can you love a child if you wish her to be so completely different from the way she is?  If I always want myself to be different from the way I am, and if (others) want that as well, then I cannot love myself, and I can't believe that others can love me.  Who do they love, after all?  The person I am not?  The person they can change so that they can love me?  I won't event try to achieve such "love."  I'm tired of it.

-- Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies, p. 194

Quote of the Day

Women in public leadership run a perpetual gauntlet of expectations, demands and strictures which men (especially white straight men) simply are never forced to face.  Scrutinize Hillary all you want, but she at least deserves our praise just for surviving.

 -- Sally Kohn, "Trump's 'size' is now a campaign issue. How's Hillary Clinton supposed to deal with that?"

Quote of the Day

I think about Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz singing, about where "bluebirds fly," and Jan Peerce singing about "a bluebird of happiness."  Well, they may never find it, they may never reach it, and that's okay.  The searching, that's what I think life is really all about.  Don't you?

-- Gloria Vanderbilt, The Rainbow Comes and Goes, p. 274

Quote of the Day

I've stayed hooked on campaigns to this day.  Despite all their faults, campaigns are based on the fact that every vote counts, and therefore every person counts.  As freestanding societies, they are more open than academia, more idealistic than corporations, more unifying than religions, and more accessible than government itself.  Campaign season is the only time of public debate about what we want for the future.  It can change consciousness even more than who gets elected.  In short, campaigns may be the closest thing we have to democracy itself.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 131-132

Quote of the Day

The actor Mark Ruffalo went to six hundred auditions before he got his first break.  Six hundred NOs before the first YES.    

-- Rob Bell, How to Be Here, p. 143

Quote of the Day

Satchel Paige said: "Don't look back, something might be gaining on you."  There will be people who like what you do and people who don't.  But if they're picking over the last thing and you're working on the next thing, that's all yours.

 -- Stephen King, "The Last Word"

Quote of the Day

I have never been the type who falls apart when somebody else does.  I feel like being there for someone and understanding their pain in those very tender moments without falling apart is a helpful thing.  In my infinite wisdom, I have learned that sometimes crying along with someone is just as helpful to them as it is to me.  I have learned the hard way that blocking emotions and stuffing hurt or pain inside is not tough; it takes a great deal of strength and courage to be able to feel things as they come. 

-- Dawn Elizabeth Waters, Switching Teams, p. 47

Quote of the Day

The (moral) obligation supported by most therapists to refrain at all costs from apportioning blame to our parents leads to voluntary ignorance about the causes of an illness and hence about the possibilities of treating that illness.

-- Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies, p. 175

Quote of the Day

Donald Trump appears not to think much before opening his mouth, a quality his supporters deem not scary but "refreshing."  They apparently see Trump as expressing all the angry, ugly thoughts they're afraid to say out loud themselves.  Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is forced by the sexist norms and constraints of our society to overthink every word she utters and every move she makes.  Sure, you can say that Hillary has a cautious or non-transparent personality if you want, but bear in mind that her personality was shaped by decades in politics and the public eye in the very crucible of constant sexist condemnation.
 
-- Sally Kohn, "Trump's 'size' is now a campaign issue. How's Hillary Clinton supposed to deal with that?"

Quote of the Day

We are not meant always to be happy, and who would want to be?  Happiness would become meaningless if it were a constant state.  If you accept that, then you will not be surprised when something bad occurs, you will not gnash your teeth and ask, "Why me?  Why has this happened to me?"  It has happened to you because that is the nature of things.  No one escapes.  The rainbow comes and goes.  Enjoy it while it lasts.  Don't be surprised by its departure, and rejoice when it returns.

-- Gloria Vanderbilt, The Rainbow Comes and Goes, p. 274

Quote of the Day

I could see that not speaking up made my mother feel worse.  This was my first hint of truism that depression is anger turned inward; thus women are twice as likely to be depressed.  My mother paid a high price for caring so much, yet being able to do so little about it.  In this way, she led me toward an activist place where she herself could never go.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 129

Quote of the Day

I can't dance like Usher.  I can't sing like Beyonce.  I can't write songs like Elton John.  But we can do the best with what we've got.  And so that's what we do.  We just go for it.

-- Chris Martin

Quote of the Day

But what is left of me -- the real me -- if I try to force myself to have feelings I do not really have, if I no longer know what I really feel, want, need, and why I should do all the things that people tell me to do?  I can force myself to achieve -- at work, in sports, in everyday life.  But if I force alien feelings on myself (with or without the aid of substances like alcohol, drugs, and medication), I shall be confronted sooner or later with the consequences of this self-deception.  I reduce myself to a mask and do not know who I really am.  The source of that knowledge lies in my genuine feelings; those feelings correspond with my experiences.  And the guardian of those experiences is my body.  Its memory.

-- Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies, p. 173-174

Quote of the Day

It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.

-- Maya Angelou

Quote of the Day

I've often thought of loss as a kind of language.  Once learned, it's never forgotten.

-- Anderson Cooper, The Rainbow Comes and Goes, p. 196

Quote of the Day

Just as we encourage our young men to have sex but shame young women for being promiscuous, lewd jokes by men are tolerated or even celebrated.  Not so when women make them.  The insightful comedian Amy Schumer has noted: "I'm labeled a sex comic.  I think it's just 'cause I'm a girl.  I feel like a guy could get up here and literally pull his dick out, and everyone would be like, 'He's a thinker.'"
 
-- Sally Kohn, "Trump's 'size' is now a campaign issue. How's Hillary Clinton supposed to deal with that?"

Quote of the Day

I myself cried when I got angry, then became unable to explain why I was angry in the first place.  Later I would discover this was endemic among female human beings.  Anger is supposed to be "unfeminine," so we suppress it -- until it overflows.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 129

Quote of the Day

It's possible to have emptied your savings account and be living in your friend's basement riding your bike everywhere because you can't afford a car and yet feel like you're bursting with vitality.  It's also possible to have lots of money in the bank, living in the house you had custom built, going on expensive vacations to exotic places, and yet you're miserable.

-- Rob Bell, How to Be Here, p. 122

Quote of the Day

Can forgiveness for the crimes done to a child be not just ineffective but actively harmful?  It certainly can because the body does not understand moral precepts.  It fights to make our conscious minds admit the truth and transcend our denial of genuine feelings.  This is something children cannot afford to do.  They have to deceive themselves and turn a blind eye to their parents' crimes in order to survive.  Adults no longer need to repress their feelings.  But if they do, the price they pay is high.  Either they ruin their own health or they make others foot the bill.

-- Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies, p. 167

Quote of the Day

The new heroin addiction is connectivity.  The only solution is not one that most people want to face, which is to become lovers of solitude and silence… I love to spend time alone in my room, and in my ideal world the first hour of every day would be in bed, writing down thoughts, harvesting dreams, before anyone phones or you have any Internet access.

-- V. Vale

Quote of the Day

The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.

-- James Garfield

Quote of the Day

For all its negative aspects, this restless spirit can, at times, be a blessing.  It is the appetite for life that continues to keep one young and alive.  It is the key to inspiration that fuels imagination and creativity.  "Never satisfied!" Walter Matthau once described me to his wife, Carol.  It was not meant as a compliment.  But I take it as one.  There is so much to be thankful for, and I am even thankful for my restless spirit.

-- Gloria Vanderbilt, The Rainbow Comes and Goes, p. 184

Quote of the Day

Arguably Donald Trump can somehow get away with an unprecedented degree of bad behavior because he's Donald Trump.  And arguably, Hillary Clinton has to mind her Ps and Qs -- and everything else for that matter -- because she's a woman.

-- Sally Kohn, "Trump's 'size' is now a campaign issue. How's Hillary Clinton supposed to deal with that?"

Quote of the Day

Only equality creates respect for the law, and only democratic families create democracy.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 105

Quote of the Day

If you are working on something, about to deliver it, moments from opening the doors, an hour from everybody arriving, a week from the release date, two minutes from getting the results back, and you have butterflies in your stomach, be grateful.  You are in a wonderful place.  Nerves are God's gift to you, reminding you that your life is not passing you by.  Make friends with the butterflies.  Welcome them when they come, revel in them, enjoy them, and if they go away, do whatever it takes to put yourself in a position where they return.  Better to have a stomach full of butterflies than to feel like your life is passing you by.

-- Rob Bell, How to Be Here, p. 106

Quote of the Day

Artificially induced positive feelings are not only short-lived, they also leave us in the state of a child hoping against hope that our parents will one day show their good sides, thus relieving us of the necessity to feel anger or fear in connection with them.  But if we want to attain true adulthood and live in our present reality, we must (and can) free ourselves of these illusory expectations.  To do so, we need to admit the so-called negative emotions and change them into meaningful feelings, instead of trying to banish them as quickly and effectively as possible.  Once they are admitted into our awareness, these emotions do not last forever, though in the relatively short time they persist they can liberate pent-up energies.  Only when we attempt to ignore or banish them altogether do they ensconce themselves in the body.

-- Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies, p. 162-163

Quote of the Day

Our songs are conversations, not sermons.  They move out into the world as dialogues, not only to entertain, but to engage.  They come to us to show us the way, and we offer them as gifts, generosities, to those who might receive them.

-- Mary Gauthier, "Mercy (and Love)"

Quote of the Day

There is no greater gift we give ourselves than to be authentic and stand in truth regardless of what the world may think.

-- Dawn Elizabeth Waters, Switching Teams, p. ix

Quote of the Day

To be clear, Donald Trump doesn't ever have to say he's "playing his man card" for it to be nonetheless true.  This is how race and gender privilege work in our society.  Arguably every president in the history of our nation has implicitly played his "man card" without ever having to say so directly, simply because leadership has always been correlated with masculinity.  And up until President Obama, every president also played his "white card" without lifting a finger.

-- Sally Kohn, "Trump maxing out his 'man card'"

Quote of the Day

When I am unhappy or dissatisfied, I recall what Virgil wrote, "Perhaps some day it will be pleasant to remember even this."  It gives pause, doesn't it?  Whenever you're restless or miserable, if you can imagine that at some point you may look back on that moment fondly, it may make the present more bearable.  Even what appears to be a terrible problem may in the future turn out to be a positive change.  You just never know.

-- Gloria Vanderbilt, The Rainbow Comes and Goes, p. 184

Quote of the Day

In some audiences [at college campus events], feminism is blamed for, say, divorce or plummeting birthrates or lower salaries -- instead of blaming unequal marriage or lack of child care or employers who profiteer -- but this is an education, too.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 103

Quote of the Day

Far too often, we don't start because we can't get our minds around the entire thing.  We don't take the first step because we can't figure out the seventeenth step.  But you don't have to know the seventeenth step.  You only have to know the first step.  Because the first number is always 1.

-- Rob Bell, How to Be Here, p. 92

Quote of the Day

Her therapist encouraged her to weigh up the good times against the bad and told her that as an adult she must understand that perfect parents simply do not exist, that all parents make mistakes.  But this is not the point.  The point is that this adult woman needed to develop empathy for the little girl she had once been, the little girl whose sufferings went unnoticed, who was used for the interests of her parents and who thanks to her unusual gifts was consummately good at living up to these expectations, although no one spared her sufferings so much as a thought.

-- Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies, p. 154

Quote of the Day

Dr. King began writing his mighty book Strength to Love when jailed for holding a prayer vigil outside Albany City Hall.  In his jail cell, Dr. King wrote, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."  So it was then, so it is now.  We are all writing from one kind of jail cell or another, working to free ourselves.

-- Mary Gauthier, "Mercy (and Love)"

Quote of the Day

The majority of my adult life took place along the beaten path.  Now, I live on the road less traveled.  This road is unpaved, riddled with potholes, and full of twists and turns.  This road is lined with those who are ready to define their lives and their surroundings based on their own terms.

-- Dawn Elizabeth Waters, Switching Teams, p. viii

Quote of the Day

This weekend, the New York Times ran a story based on interviews with dozens of women who worked with and interacted with Donald Trump throughout his career.  The aggregate portrait is unmistakably skeevy.  Here's Trump making Miss USA contestants line up and watch as he personally ranks which women are hottest.  Here's Trump only wanting the good-looking women in his office to take lunch orders in meetings.  Here's Trump waving around a copy of the New York Post in which Melania boasted that Trump was the best sex she'd ever had.  Here's Trump groping a woman during a business meeting.  It's like reading a script from "Mad Men," except the events are real and took place in the 1990s, not in the 1960s.  Part of the dramatic appeal of "Mad Men" was the contrast with how far we've come since.  Donald Trump, it would appear, didn't get the memo.

-- Sally Kohn, "Trump maxing out his 'man card'"

Quote of the Day

I have never let myself dwell on other people's opinions of me.  Perhaps they thought I was dabbling in acting, painting, or writing, but it doesn't touch me.  If that is what they think, so be it.  You can never change their minds, so why waste time trying?  Why agonize over it?  Better to concentrate on more important things.

-- Gloria Vanderbilt, The Rainbow Comes and Goes, p. 104

Quote of the Day

Sometimes, hostility shows up [at college campus events], and that is educational in itself.  Without campuses in the Bible Belt, I wouldn't know that the belief that women's subordinate role is ordained by God is still with us, or that it can take courage for a student from a strict Christian family -- or a Jewish or Muslim equivalent -- to go to any college that doesn't teach the New Testament, the Old Testament, or the Koran as the literal truth.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 103

Quote of the Day

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.

-- Elie Wiesel

Quote of the Day

The need for truth is Primal, as necessary as food and water.  And what is the truth?  We belong to each other.  We need each other.  Mercy (and love) are the roads we travel, home.  Spirit blows truth through songwriters on the winds of the creative process, and our creations have the power to free us from untruths.

-- Mary Gauthier, "Mercy (and Love)"

Quote of the Day

Success says, What more can I get?
Craft says, Can you believe I get to do this?

-- Rob Bell, How to Be Here, p. 84

Quote of the Day

Many therapists believe we can find peace through forgiveness, but this opinion is constantly refuted by the facts.  We know that priests intone the Lord's Prayer every day, which means that they pray for forgiveness, both for their own "trespasses" and for those who sin against us.  But this does not prevent some of them from yielding to the repeated compulsion to abuse children and young people, while repressing the fact that they are committing a crime ... Accordingly, I believe that preaching forgiveness is not only hypocritical and futile but also actively dangerous.  It masks the compulsion to repeat.  The only thing that can protect us from repetition is the admission of the truth -- the whole truth, with all its implications.

-- Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies, p. 152

Quote of the Day

It's unbelievable how much you don't know about the game you have been playing all your life.

-- Mickey Mantle

Quote of the Day

I know now that it's never too late to change the relationship you have with someone important in your life: a parent, a child, a lover, a friend.  All it takes is a willingness to be honest and to shed your old skin, to let go of the longstanding assumptions and slights you still cling to.

-- Anderson Cooper, The Rainbow Comes and Goes, p. 8

Quote of the Day

The accusation that feminism is bad for the family leads to understanding that it's bad for the patriarchal variety, but good for democratic families that are the basis of democracy.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 102

Quote of the Day

We must always take sides.  Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.  Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

-- Elie Wiesel

Quote of the Day

Mercy and love are who we are, unwounded.  Songwriting (and all the arts) are how we explore the depths of our being to ask the big questions of meaning, purpose and value.  The process is one of self discovery, more than self expression.

-- Mary Gauthier, "Mercy (and Love)"

Quote of the Day

There is a difference between craft and success.  Craft is when you have a profound sense of gratitude that you even get to do this.  Craft is when you relish the details.  Craft is your awareness that all the hours you're putting in are adding up to something, that they're producing in you skill and character and substance.  Craft is when you meet up with someone else who's serious about her craft and you can talk for hours about the subtle nuances and acquired wisdom of the work.  Craft is when you realize that you're building muscles and habits that are helping you do better what you do.  Craft is when you have a deep respect for the form and shape and content of what you're doing.  Craft is when you see yourself [as] part of a long line of people who have done this particular work.  Craft is when you're humbled because you know that no matter how many years you get to do this, there will always be room to learn and grow.

-- Rob Bell, How to Be Here, p. 82

Quote of the Day

A genuine relationship is possible only if both partners can admit their feelings, experience them and communicate them to each other without fear ... Why should we seek this exchange with our old parents, of all people?  They are no longer partners for us, in the genuine sense of the word.  The story that linked us with them is over once we have children of our own and once we can genuinely communicate with partners we have selected for ourselves.

-- Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies, p. 151-152

Quote of the Day

In a recent commencement address to the 2016 class of Howard University, President Obama insisted that the United States "is a better place today" than when he graduated from college more than 30 years ago.  This is unarguably true.  But I think some white men, particularly of the ilk supporting Trump, think that their identity group is worse off as a whole -- that it was indeed better to be a straight white man in the 1910s or 1950s.  This is, of course, objectively absurd from an economic perspective but as Matt Bruenig has written, many white men feel that gender and racial hierarchies provide them with a social benefit.  Social caste is all about relative ranking.  And for a number of those white men, any notion of equality for women or minorities is plainly a demotion over the past.

-- Sally Kohn, "Trump maxing out his 'man card'"

Quote of the Day

When we're young we all waste so much time being reserved or embarrassed with our parents, resenting them or wishing they and we were entirely different people.  This changes when we become adults, but we don't often explore new ways of talking and conversing, and we put off discussing complex issues or raising difficult questions.  We think we'll do it one day, in the future, but life gets in the way, and then it's too late.

-- Anderson Cooper, The Rainbow Comes and Goes, p. 6

Quote of the Day

At first, feminists were assumed to be only discontented suburban housewives; then a small bunch of women's libbers, "bra burners," and radicals; then women on welfare; then briefcase-carrying imitations of male executives; then unfulfilled women who forgot to have children; then women voters responsible for a gender gap that really could decide elections.  The last was too dangerous, so suddenly we were told we were in a "postfeminist" age, so we would relax, stop, quit.  Indeed, the common purpose in all these disparate and contradictory descriptions is to slow and stop a challenge to the current hierarchy. 

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 102

Quote of the Day

When you hear the attacks on "political correctness" this is what they mean.  Don't take my word for it -- listen to a Donald Trump supporter who was just selected to be an official Trump delegate in California.  William Johnson, one of the leaders in the white nationalism movement in California and nationwide, praises Trump for "allowing us to talk about things we've not been able to talk about."  Former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke, who has endorsed Trump, said, "when we say 'take America back,' we know exactly what that means ... and I think everybody who says that knows what it means."  This is the first and only time I have ever agreed with David Duke, who analysis is spot on here.  Donald Trump's support is not exclusively but largely fueled by the fact that he is a white man who pledges to "make America great again" for many other white men like himself. 

-- Sally Kohn, "Trump maxing out his 'man card'"

Quote of the Day

Some people find their (reason for being) by asking, What do I love to do?  Others find theirs by asking, What makes me angry?  What wrongs need to be righted?  What injustice needs to be resisted?

-- Rob Bell, How to Be Here, p. 60

Quote of the Day

Enforced love is not love.

-- Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies, p. 151

Quote of the Day

Public opinion polls have long proved there is majority support for pretty much every issue that the women's movement has brought up, but those of us, women or men, who identify with feminism are still made to feel isolated, wrong, out of step.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 102

Quote of the Day

Make no mistake about it, a substantial portion of the American public is supporting Donald Trump -- some implicitly, others explicitly -- because he is a man.  More precisely, Trump's version of misogynist machismo matches theirs.  Think of this reactionary backlash as a vintage fad in American politics: certain voters longing for the days of crew cuts, flagrant racial oppression and unimpeded sexual harassment.  In their minds, the good old days.  This mindset is quickly going out of fashion but some stubbornly cling to the past.

-- Sally Kohn, "Trump maxing out his 'man card'"

Quote of the Day

Whoever you are and whatever work you do, no one has ever lived your life with your particular challenges and possibilities.  No one has ever raised that child before, even if you've raised two already.  No one has ever worked in that particular office before with it peculiar mix of personalities and challenges.  No one has ever taken care of that patient at this moment with these particular challenges.  "You" hasn't been attempted before.

-- Rob Bell, How to Be Here, p. 50

Quote of the Day

This desire to be different from the way we are so as to make life easier for our parents in old age and perhaps finally receive love from them is understandable.  But it is in direct opposition to the genuine need, supported by the body, to be true to our own selves.  I believe that self-respect will come of its own accord once this need can be gratified.

-- Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies, p. 133

Quote of the Day

Punished people sometimes pass punishment downward, especially to members of their own devalued group.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 91

Quote of the Day

Creativity is the residue of time wasted.

-- Albert Einstein

Quote of the Day

There will always be someone who's smarter than you.  There will always be someone with more raw talent than you.  There will always be someone more experienced and better qualified and harder working and stronger and more articulate and more creative with more stamina who can sing better than you can.  But who you aren't isn't interesting.  And who they are isn't interesting when it comes to who you are and what your path is.

-- Rob Bell, How to Be Here, p. 47

Quote of the Day

The goal of a successful therapy is liberation from a painful dependency -- not reconciliation, which is only a moralistic and not a physiological demand.  The body does not consist solely of the heart, and our brain is not just some receptacle into which these absurdities and contradictions have been poured during religious instruction classes.  It is an organism that retains the complete memory of everything that has happened to it.  Anyone genuinely alive to this insight would say, "God cannot expect me to believe something that in my eyes is contradictory and does vital harm to me."

-- Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies, p. 131

Quote of the Day

Boredom is your window… Once this window opens, don’t try to shut it; on the contrary, throw it wide open.

-- Joseph Brodsky

Quote of the Day

Altogether, I can't imagine technology replacing bookstores completely, any more than movies about a country replace going there.  Wherever I go, bookstores are still the closet thing to a town square.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 53

Quote of the Day

Adolescence will always be an angry time.  And as long as the well-documented contradictions inherent in What a Woman (or Man) Must Be still exist, they're going to feed into young women's (and young men's) feelings of conflict and frustration.  Riot Grrrl, by encouraging girls to turn their anger outward, taught a crucial lesson: Always ask, Is there something wrong not with me but with the world at large?  It also forced us to confront a second question: Once we've found our rage, where do we go from there?

-- Sara Marcus, Girls to the Front, p. 329

Quote of the Day

Whatever has happened to you, whatever has come your way that you didn't want, whatever you have been through, you have today, you have this moment, you have a life that you get to create.

-- Rob Bell, How to Be Here, p. 31

Quote of the Day

The day I left the Church of Scientology, I became the lowest of their low -- a danger to everyone everywhere.  With a lot of help from my friends, I've recently begun to believe I may not be such an evil fuck after all.  Now I'm trying to reconcile what several religions and subcultures believe to be my evil nature with my heart's desire to be a source of compassion and delight as I walk through the world.

-- Kate Bornstein, A Queer and Pleasant Danger, p. 247

Quote of the Day

I am no longer a child, and my life no longer depends on recognition from "the family."

-- Alice Miller, The Body Never Lies, p. 128

Quote of the Day

Altogether, if I had to pick one place to hang out anywhere, from New York to Cape Town and Australia to Hong Kong, a bookstore would be it.

-- Gloria Steinem, My Life on the Road, p. 52-53