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