"[The Cinderella Complex] used to hit girls of sixteen or seventeen, preventing them, often, from going to college, hastening them into early marriages. Now it tends to hit women after college—after they've been out in the world awhile. When the first thrill of freedom subsides and anxiety rises to take its place, they begin to be tugged by that old yearning for safety: the wish to be saved."

"Only after she begins to disengage from her belief in her own helplessness can she break out of the vicious cycle of dependency and its brutal effect in her life."

"there’s this new era of social justice movement about, “Yeah, we’re going to organize in the streets.” And let me tell you, I mean, I grew up hearing people like Grace Lee Boggs and all, everybody, that said, “Don’t wait for somebody to introduce things in the halls of Congress or wait ’til the White House wakes up. We transform our country by movement work outside of the halls of Congress and in the White House.” And so, believe in that, because that’s exactly what we’ve done."

"by 1966, '67, she's well known particularly in Detroit circles, but also nationally, as a black power figure."

"A massive rebirth is needed right now for much of the industrialized world-one that will justly transition us beyond the extractive dominance of fossil fuels and into a new way of being. Over the past few years I've found myself rereading the manifesto that Grace Lee Boggs and other women leaders wrote in 2005 that proclaimed, "Another world is necessary, another world is possible, another world has already started." In it they declare, "This universal crisis is not only a danger but a promise, an opportunity to advance ourselves and our societies to a new level, based on a new vision, new principles and values." With each new pipeline approved, with each new gas permit granted, world leaders show that they are not ready for this rebirth. But the Earth knows what's necessary and is continuing to send shock signals that we cannot keep on postponing this transition. How do we keep on rolling this rebirth along, even despite all that is politically, economically, environmentally against us?"

"# Drown yourself in affirmations"

"# Do things you love"

"# Appreciate how special you are"

"# Find a replacement"

"If you want to live a life you've never lived, you have to do things you've never done."

"It's just as easy to believe we're awesome as it is to believe we're giant sucking things. Takes the same amount of energy. The same amount of focus."

"# Ditch the self-deprecating humor"

"In the interest of perpetuating such radical, reality-altering self-love, here are some of the best ways to win yourself over again:"

"# Let the love in"

"# Don't compare yourself to others"

"# Forgive yourself (Listen up! This one's extremely important.)"

"# Love yourself"

"Grace’s legacy for us who are left here really is to consider that for each of us, we have our own responsibility to transform ourselves. As a transformative leader, it wasn’t that Grace wanted us to do as Grace did, but rather to explore ourselves to see what we could do to be better human beings, to stretch our own humanity, and to be involved in the social justice issues of our day."

"Grace Boggs is the inspiration, in many ways, for Freedom Dreams. You know, we go back to like 1992, and she started this debate with me about, you know, you need to read Dr. King, you need to pay attention to people’s needs beyond protest. Like, how do you build the society we’re trying to establish in time, in the present, as opposed to just continuing to fight for reform? And so, we had this ongoing debate, and she forced me to rethink some things. Even after Freedom Dreams came out, she had more critiques, of course. And so, I end the book with an epilogue that has a very substantial section on what is being built in Detroit right now as a result of the Boggs Center and the work that Grace and Jimmy Boggs did. And so, that’s a really important part of the story, saying that freedom dreamers are basically building that society of creating new human beings, new ways of being together that don’t fall into the same old trap of, you know, the Marxist seizing state power."

"Grace has made more contributions to the black struggle than most black people have."

"When we think about Grace in the 20 century, she is very much an outsider. In the 21st century, she represents the uniting of people from different races and different backgrounds, in a way that is now defining America."

"Writing from bed is a time-honored disabled way of being an activist and a cultural worker. It's one the mainstream doesn't often acknowledge but whose lineage stretches from Frida Kahlo painting in bed to Grace Lee Boggs writing in her wheelchair at age 98. (preface)"

"Throughout this book, Martínez reminds readers again and again of why we should balance the wisdom of experience with the fire of youth and honor both perspectives. So many great leaders have boldly embodied this ethic, from the recently departed such as Yuri Kochiyama, Grace Lee Boggs, and Cedric Robinson, to those who carry on like Jamala Rogers, Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, and Betita Martinez herself."

"The question, which is actually from one of my teachers, Grace Lee Boggs, that she would always ask when we showed up to sit down and talk with her is, What time is it on the clock of the world? And I like this question. It always makes me kind of deconstruct time, when I’m like, oh, we’re in these looping patterns, actually. And we’re in a pattern that feels familiar in these ways and new in these other ways."

"I became so active in the black power movement that FBI records of that time say that I was probably Afro-Chinese."

"People thought of revolution chiefly in terms of taking state power. But we’ve had revolutions, and we’ve seen how the states which they have created have turned out to be like replicas of the states which they opposed. You have to bring those two words together and recognize that we are responsible for the evolution of the human species. It’s a question of two-sided transformation and not just the oppressed versus the oppressor. We have to change ourselves in order to change the world."

"We wanted to become part of the people who took responsibility for the country."

"Let me make a challenge to you, OK? With people of color becoming the new American majority in many parts of the country, how are we going to create a new vision for this country, a vision of a new kind of human being, which is what is demanded at this moment? So that’s your challenge."

"What you focus on, you create more of, and if you keep expecting people to annoy you they will not let you down. Focus on their finer points and encourage their good behaviour if you want to create more of it."

"I’ve come to believe that you cannot change any society unless you take responsibility for it, unless you see yourself as belonging to it and responsible for changing it."

"when you look out and all you see is vacant lots, when all you see is devastation, when all you see—do you look at it as a curse, or do you look at it as a possibility, as having potential? And we here in Detroit had to begin doing that for our own humanity."

"One of the difficulties when you’re coming out of oppression is that you get a concept of the messiah. You have to get to that point that we are the leaders we’ve been looking for. We are the children of Martin and Malcolm. I don’t know what the next American revolution is going to be like, but we might be able to imagine it, if your imagination were rich enough."

"If you want to attract good things and feelings into your life, send awesomeness out to everyone around you."

"It's important to look for ways to be grateful for all that you've manifested, even things that you might label under "No, thanks.""

"When we trust that we live in an abundant universe and allow ourselves to give freely, we raise our frequency, strengthen our faith, and feel awesome thereby putting ourselves in flow and the position to receive abundant amounts in return. When we're in fear, we hold on to what we've got because we don't trust that there's more. We pinch off the energy, we're scared to share, and we focus on, and create more of, the very thing we're hoping to avoid, which is lack."

"When is the last time when you physically hurt yourself? What did you do to get the pain to stop? And how long did you wait to do something about it? When we're in physical pain, we're usually extremely proactive about figuring out how to make it go away immediately because, you know, it hurts. Even if we have to go through more pain from pouring a disinfectant that stings on an open wound or suffering through getting stitches, we do it, right away, because we're very focused on our ultimate goal: relief. When it comes to our emotional pain, however, we're apparently way more game for seeing how much torture we can endure, wallowing in our guilt, shame, resentment, and self-loathing, sometimes for entire lifetimes."

"Every single person is born with unique and valuable gifts to share with the world."

"Holding on to resentment is like taking poison and waiting for your enemies to die."

"when you have been very active all your life, and suddenly you’re very restricted and don’t have much mobility, it’s tough. And it’s tough when you’ve been married for 40 years to be living alone."

"Everything you do along your journey contributes to where you're going."

"# Ask yourself why"

"# Always do your best"

"So how can you truly not care what other people think and be your most powerful Self?"

"# Trust your intuition"

"You are responsible for what you say and do. You are not responsible for whether or not people freak out about it."

"The trick is to not only deny the criticism any power over you, but, even more challenging, to not get caught up in the praise."

"# Find a temporary role model"

"Because if you base your self-worth on what everyone else thinks of you, you hand all your power over to other people and become dependent on a source outside of yourself for validation."

"Do not spend your life clinging to the insulting decisions you've made about yourself. Instead, make the conscious choice to replace them with new and improved ones."

"Comparison is the fastest way to take all the fun out of life."