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