Will Shetterly > Will's Quotes

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”
― Gospel of Thomas

“Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“The struggle for a free intelligence has always been a struggle between the ironic and the literal mind.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“We live in a world in which people are censured, demoted, imprisoned, beheaded, simply because they have opened their mouths, flapped their lips, and vibrated some air. Yes, those vibrations can make us feel sad or stupid or alienated. Tough shit. That's the price of admission to the marketplace of ideas. Hateful, blasphemous, prejudiced, vulgar, rude, or ignorant remarks are the music of a free society, and the relentless patter of idiots is how we know we're in one. When all the words in our public conversation are fair, good, and true, it's time to make a run for the fence.”
― Daniel Gilbert

“[On hearing that 86% of gay teens have experienced harassment] Eighty-six percent? Eighty-six per-fuckin-cent WERE harassed?! That means fourteen per-fuckin-cent WEREN'T harassed? WHAT?!
At MY school a hundred percent of the children - gay, straight, transgendered, bi, sell... or trade - WERE harassed. She's saying that fourteen percent of the gay students were NOT harassed? That seems impossible.
At MY school any one of us would have sucked Elton John's COCK at a mandatory school assembly for a fourteen percent chance of NOT being harassed.”
― Penn Jillette

“I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.”
― George McGovern

“It is a pity that there are no big creatures to prey on humanity. If there were enough dragons and rocs, perhaps mankind would turn its might against them. Unfortunately man is preyed upon by microbes, which are too small to be appreciated.”
― T.H. White, The Book of Merlyn: The Unpublished Conclusion to The Once & Future King

“I believe that there will be ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation. I believe that there will be that kind of clash, but I don't think it will be based on the color of the skin...”
― Malcolm X

“When one thinks of all the people who support or have supported Fascism, one stands amazed at their diversity. What a crew! Think of a programme which at any rate for a while could bring Hitler, Petain, Montagu Norman, Pavelitch, William Randolph Hearst, Streicher, Buchman, Ezra Pound, Juan March, Cocteau, Thyssen, Father Coughlin, the Mufti of Jerusalem, Arnold Lunn, Antonescu, Spengler, Beverley Nichols, Lady Houston, and Marinetti all into the same boat! But the clue is really very simple. They are all people with something to lose, or people who long for a hierarchical society and dread the prospect of a world of free and equal human beings. Behind all the ballyhoo that is talked about ‘godless’ Russia and the ‘materialism’ of the working class lies the simple intention of those with money or privileges to cling to them. Ditto, though it contains a partial truth, with all the talk about the worthlessness of social reconstruction not accompanied by a ‘change of heart’. The pious ones, from the Pope to the yogis of California, are great on the’ change of heart’, much more reassuring from their point of view than a change in the economic system.”
― George Orwell, England Your England and Other Essays

“In the treatment of poverty nationally, one fact stands out: there are twice as many white poor as Negro poor in the United States. Therefore I will not dwell on the experiences of poverty that derive from racial discrimination, but will discuss the poverty that affects white and Negro alike.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“A criminal is a person with predatory instincts; but, without sufficient capital to form a corporation.”
― Clarence Darrow

“I know nothing that I may say can influence you," he said. "You have no souls to be influenced. You are spineless, flaccid things. You pompously call yourselves Republicans and Democrats. There is no Republican Party. There is no Democratic Party. There are no Republicans nor Democrats in this House. You are lick-spittlers and panderers, the creatures of the Plutocracy. You talk verbosely in antiquated terminology of your love of liberty, and all the while you wear the scarlet livery of the Iron Heel." Here”
― Jack London, The Iron Heel

“Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic.”
― Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“Show respect to people who don't even deserve it; not as a reflection of their character, but as a reflection of yours.”
― Dave Willis

“When you cut facilities, slash jobs, abuse power, discriminate, drive people into deeper poverty and shoot people dead whilst refusing to provide answers or justice, the people will rise up and express their anger and frustration if you refuse to hear their cries. A riot is the language of the unheard.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Abusive language and swearing are a legacy of slavery, humiliation, and disrespect for human dignity, one’s own and that of other people.”
― Leon Trotsky

“A class system is something you use to discriminate against someone who looks like you.”
― Reginald D Hunter

“Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egotistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.”
― G.K. Chesterton, A Miscellany of Men

“Slavery was not born of racism; rather, racism was the consequence of slavery.”
― Eric Williams

“Forty years ago, if you found yourself among a representative all-black crowd, you could assume that nearly half the people around you were poor, poorly educated, and underemployed. Today, if you found yourself at a representative gathering of black adults, four out of five would be solidly middle class.”
― Eugene Robinson, Disintegration

“Half or more of the black students entering elite universities such as Harvard, Princeton, and Duke these days are the sons and daughters of African immigrants.”
― Eugene Robinson, Disintegration

“Black Americans at the top of the scale, with incomes of more than $100,000 a year, were most likely to cling to the more traditional view that “blacks can still be thought of as a single race because they have so much in common.” Perhaps we should begin to think of racial solidarity as a luxury item. As”
― Eugene Robinson, Disintegration

“Black Americans at the top of the scale, with incomes of more than $100,000 a year, were most likely to cling to the more traditional view that “blacks can still be thought of as a single race because they have so much in common.” Perhaps we should begin to think of racial solidarity as a luxury item.”
― Eugene Robinson, Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America

“in 1968 it would have been noteworthy if a society dinner was racially integrated, even in a token sense. In 2008, it would have been noteworthy if such an affair was not.”
― Eugene Robinson, Disintegration

“encountering a rock-star Harvard professor who happens to be arrogant is like meeting a professional basketball player who happens to be tall.”
― Eugene Robinson, Disintegration

“The black Orangeburg we knew was cultured, well-traveled, and urbane, while the white Orangeburg we saw around us—basically a commercial depot and service center for an agricultural belt—seemed unlettered and uncouth”
― Eugene Robinson, Disintegration

“the few kids who overcome their surroundings, going on to success in college and beyond, are preternaturally self-motivated and almost always have solid, consistent, competent support from their parents.”
― Eugene Robinson, Disintegration

“Obama lays out the essential contradiction that Transcendent black Americans struggle constantly to resolve: not being outside anymore. For the younger Transcendents, this means holding on to experiences they never actually had—not an act of remembering but of imagining.”
― Eugene Robinson, Disintegration

“black immigrant children—defined as those who were immigrants themselves, or were the children of immigrants—were stellar academic achievers not only when compared to native-born blacks but when compared to whites as well.”
― Eugene Robinson, Disintegration

“They don’t enter a country that trains fire hoses on black people, they enter one that practices affirmative action and makes a special effort to enroll their children in the best colleges. They don’t enter a country that is obviously hostile to black entrepreneurs, they enter one with minority set-asides and small-business loans.”
― Eugene Robinson, Disintegration