Lgbt Rights Activists

"With inherited liberal principles, I feel that the free movement of all people is a good thing and one to be encouraged. ... The Declaration of Human Rights has for one of its Articles the right of the human being to take a nationality, to change it, and not to be denied the right arbitrarily to change it. I realise it is not as easy as that, but most of the difficulties are definable difficulties based on facts and situations which the economic planners now available to Government Departments should be able to grasp and measure. I believe that the basic problem which prevents more immigration is an economic one. ... [T]here is a nearer approach to the ideal of universal admission in the United States than there is here. I think we could learn something from that. ... If we were to work out some form of migration policy based on these lines we would be doing some service to that free movement of populations which is a vital prerequisite to understanding in all parts of the world."

"I wasn't a huge fan of Tony Benn, I think he was a fraud in many ways."

"[Benn was an] iconic figure of our age. He will be remembered as a champion of the powerless, a great parliamentarian and a conviction politician. Tony Benn spoke his mind and spoke up for his values. Whether you agreed with him or disagreed with him, everyone knew where he stood and what he stood for. ... He believed in movements and mobilised people behind him for the causes he cared about, often unfashionable ones. In a world of politics that is often too small, he thought big about our country and our world."

"He did one great thing in his life: he changed the constitution of the House of Lords. Apart from that he symbolised the sort of left-wing nuttiness that nearly destroyed the Labour party in the late 1970s and early 1980s."

"Tony Benn was a giant of socialism who encouraged me to join Labour in 1977: wonderful inspirational speaker and person: will be deeply missed."

"In the evening of his life, Benn became the most successful political prophet in British history, attracting huge audiences up and down the country."

"In the final decade of an extraordinary political life, Tony Benn was a great friend of Liberty and human rights. He spoke to packed audiences up and down the country against internment and identity cards and for values of internationalism and humanity. And he often shared the stage with speakers of different political stripes with considerable generosity. I shall never forget his many kindnesses to me, including when he ripped up a prepared speech he was about to deliver, in order to make my own nervous and novice remarks sound slightly less unplanned. In an age of spin, he was solid, a signpost and not a weathervane."

"[Benn was a] powerful, fearless, relentless advocate for social justice and people's rights."

"Tony Benn was one of those rare things: a genuine radical for all his life. He was a fearless campaigner and a legendary figure for the Labour movement. Even when I disagreed with him, I always had enormous respect for his brilliance, his passion and his commitment to the people of Britain and of the world."

"He was an absolutely brilliant speaker ... he had such clarity of expression. [He was] a charming, nice man. He made enemies and kept enemies but on the whole most people regarded him with a good degree of affection long before it came to the stage when it was thought he could cause no harm. He was out of step for many years with whoever was in the charge of the leadership. He wanted to make people think and that was an admirable thing."

"Tony was a true friend of the Irish people. A principled politician and activist, he spoke up passionately for the idea of a united Ireland. He remained an avid supporter of Irish freedom throughout his life."

"Admired so many things about Benn. Unwavering principles; always open to new ideas; stellar political speaker but unfailingly courteous."

"Tony Benn was at his apogee [in 1980], the hero of the left with an appeal that went far beyond their relatively small numbers. He was to me an enigma. Personally he was the sweetest of men, concerned about his friends and colleagues, ready to help, funny and self-effacing. His socialist values ran deep, owing more to the Levellers of the English Civil War than to Marx or Trotsky. The iconic leader for him was Colonel Rainborough of Cromwell's New Model Army, the man who declared during the famous Putney Debates: "The poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he." Benn's charisma overwhelmed his reason, and his eloquence washed away his logic when he was responding to an adoring audience. One of my journalist friends observed that, during his speech to the conference, Tony held forth through the applause, not pausing for it to die down. He seemed to be in a self-induced trance. Indeed, some of his own supporters began to get worried. Comments were made on his staring eyes, even his sanity."

"One of the twentieth century's most committed parliamentarians."

"Tony Benn is described as a politician by those who have never met him."

"Last night I had a talk with Tony Benn. He was the only person even half-right on the subject of North Sea oil. And how fascinating he is to talk to! His mind is so quick and versatile – but the loony prejudice (and this of course the motivation that keeps him active) never far below the surface. 'We want an Asia economy so as to be like Singapore – with its penal code' etc."

"Another star was Tony Benn, at that time still rattling his full complement of syllables as the Hon. Anthony Wedgwood Benn. From start to finish he and I have rarely agreed on anything, but he was always a courteous and effective debater, an English patriot, and as time has made socialism more and more a thing of the past, even a traditional figure. But perhaps we enjoy a sympathy based on our religious roots. When Tony became President of the Union I was invited to a celebration, attended by his father Viscount Stansgate, which, true to Tony's Nonconformist principles, was teetotal."

"There's so much plastic in this culture that vinyl leopard skin is becoming an endangered synthetic."

"the contributions of people whom we may now identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender are integral and central to how we conceptualize our national history. Without the work of social activists, thinkers, writers, and artists such as We'Wha, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Martha "Calamity" Jane Cannary Burke, Edith Guerrier, Countee Cullen, Ethel Waters, Bayard Rustin, Roy Cohn, Robert Mapplethorpe, Cherrie Moraga, and Lily Tomlin, we would not have the country that we have today."

"Remember we're all in this alone."

"I swear people don't want sex so much as they want somebody who'll listen to 'em … the first thing you learn after fellatio is how to listen."

"Your problem is your role models were models."

"I bet the worst part about dying is the part where your whole life passes before you."

"No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up."

"Sometimes I feel like a figment of my own imagination."

"If I had known what it would be like to have it all... I might have been willing to settle for less."

"All my life, I've always wanted to be somebody, but I see now I should have been more specific."

"If evolution was worth its salt, it should've evolved something better than "survival of the fittest." I think a better idea would be "survival of the wittiest." At least, that way, creatures that didn't survive could've died laughing."

"It's my belief we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain."

"When you're dancing the mystical dance of the molecules, you're not the one who's leading."

"Reality is a crutch for people who can't cope with drugs."

"Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it...."

"Reality is nothing but a collective hunch."

"I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework"

"Interviewer: You once said you had a drug problem... Lily: Yeah, I still do. It's so hard to find good grass these days."

"Why is it when we talk to God we're said to be praying — but when God talks to us, we're said to be schizophrenic?"

"The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat."

"The best mind-altering drug is truth."

"Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world."

"If you read a lot of books, you're considered well-read. But if you watch a lot of TV, you're not considered well-viewed."

"If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?"

"If the formula for water is H2O, is the formula for an ice cube H2O squared?"

"If love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question?"

"For fast acting relief, try slowing down."

"Don't be afraid of missing opportunities. Behind every failure is an opportunity somebody wishes they had missed."

"It's a more ridiculing, divisive humor today, especially with the advent of political incorrectness, which is a license to be as ridiculing and awful about certain groups... There should be room for everybody, absolutely, and then the culture is going to decide the prevailing weight. We can't decide it individually. Nobody is here without a reason. … I always had a different sensibility. I like a huge range of comedy — from broad and farcical, the most sensitive, the most understated — but I always wanted my comedy to be more embracing of the species rather than debasing of it."

"Listen, I have no judgment about anything. Some people will bring certain celebrities up to me who are presumably — or known to be — gay and ask "Why don't they come out?" But we don't know why they don't, and it's none of our business, really. In '75 I was making the Modern Scream album, and Jane and I were in the studio. My publicist called me and said "Time will give you the cover if you'll come out." I was more offended than anything that they thought we'd make a deal. But that was '75 — it would have been a hard thing to do at that time."

"Some journalists are just motivated by their own sense of what they want to say or what they feel comfortable saying or writing about. In '77, I was on the cover of Time. The same week I had a big story in Newsweek. In one of the magazines it says I live alone, and the other magazine said I live with Jane Wagner. Unless you were so really adamantly out, and had made some declaration at some press conference, people back then didn't write about your relationship."

"I respect her talent and her brain and who she is as a person — and that kind of admiration and respect is a big factor in binding someone in a relationship. I know what a good heart she has, and how empathetic she is with all kinds of people and issues — she's so brilliant on top of it that she can voice these things. And she's as funny as she can possibly be. She makes me laugh."

"Jane took me to another level because she's truly a wonderful writer. I'd put things together in the past and struggled with them. And then I met Jane. … I was doing my Edith Ann album in '71 — the album came out in '72. She'd done a thing on television called J.T. — it was about a kid in Harlem — and she won a Peabody for it. I later learned it was the first thing she'd ever written. It was written as an After School Special, but they played it in prime time — and they played it every year after that for about 25 years, or something. Anyway, I saw it and it was wonderful. It was poetic and sensitive and satiric and tender and funny and so many things compressed into this one hour. And I thought, "Oh, God, this is exactly what I want in a monologue." So I wrote Jane and asked her to help me do the Edith Ann album. I didn't hear from her for a while. Then, suddenly, about a week before I was supposed to go in and record, she sent me a lot of material. I persuaded her to come to California and help me produce it. Frankly, I was pretty taken with her as soon as I saw her. We just sort of clicked. We became a couple right away."