Feminists From The United States

"I mean that it is more natural for me to be wicked than virtuous, when I do a bad act, and I've done many, I never feel wither shame, remorse or fear, I sometimes wish it was not necessary as I don't like the trouble, but as for any moral sense of principle, I haven't a particle. Many people are like me as actions prove, but they are not so frank in owning it and insist on keeping up the humbug of virtue. You'll find that is true, Rose, when you know the world better."

"Suppose I broke away and left you, or made it impossible for you to stay. That I was base and false; in every way unworthy of your love, and it was clearly right for you to go, what would you do then?"

"I was thinking what a curious thing love is; only a sentiment, and yet it has power to make fools of men and slaves of women. p. 45."

"For an hour Rosamond paced up and down the deck reveling in the breezy motion of the boat, the delicious sense of freedom which possessed her, the atmosphere of romance which surrounded her. Tempest lounged beside her, watching her beautiful face, listening to her happy voice, and enjoying her innocent companionship with the relish of a man eager for novelty and skillful in the art of playing on that delicate instrument, a woman's heart."

"Even at the cost of what is called honor and honesty? That is comfortable philosophy, and having preached and practiced it all my days I've no right to condemn it. But the saints would call it sinful and dangerous and tell you that life should be one long penance full of sorrow, sacrifice and psalm-singing."

"No, I never wish that. I don't intend to die till I've enjoyed my life. Everyone has a right to happiness and sooner or later I will have it. Youth, health and freedom were meant to be enjoyed and I want to try every pleasure before I am too old to enjoy them."

"'In the fitful light of the dusky hall the newcomer's face suddenly appeared fiery-eyed and menacing, and, glancing at a portrait of Mephistopheles, Rosamond exclaimed, "Why, you are the very image of Meph--""

"I tell you I cannot bear it! I shall do something desperate if this life is not changed soon. It gets worse and worse, and I often feel as if I'd gladly sell my soul to Satan for a year of freedom."

""Suppose I broke away and left you, or made it impossible for you to stay. That I was base and false; in every way unworthy of your love, and it was clearly right for you to go, what would you do then?" "Go away and–" He interrupted with a triumphant laugh, "Die as heroines always do, tender slaves as they are." "No, live and forget you", was the unexpected reply."

"I am more than half-persuaded that I am a man's soul put by some freak of nature into a woman's body...because I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man."

"Far away in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead."

"Is it not meningitis?"

"If I can do no more, let my name stand among those who are willing to bear ridicule and reproach for the truth's sake, and so earn some right to rejoice when the victory is won."

"I believe that it is as much a right and duty for women to do something with their lives as for men and we are not going to be satisfied with such frivolous parts as you give us."

"The child has talent, loves music, and needs help. I can't give her money, but I can teach her; so I do, and she is the most promising pupil I have. Help one another, is part of the religion of our sisterhood, Fan."

"Women have been called queens for a long time, but the kingdom given them isn't worth ruling."

"It is not a dirty word, "feminism." I just think that women belong in the human population with the same rights as everybody else. … The problem is, "A feminist looks like this, or is like that." We are taught not to like ourselves as women, we are taught what we're supposed to look like, what our measurements are supposed to be. I never hear what measurements men are supposed to be. Just women."

"on Catholicism:"

"on tolerance of gays: "You always have to remember - no matter what you're told - that God loves all the flowers, even the wild ones that grow on the side of the highway.""

"So when some man says to me, "Don't you wish you were beautiful?" those are like killing words. That's my death, if I don't pummel it into his soft, not-yet-completely-formed radio disc-jockey skull that I am already beautiful, and I wish for nothing, other than for him to go away. I am so beautiful, sometimes people weep when they see me. And it has nothing to do with what I look like really, it is just that I gave myself the power to say that I am beautiful, and if I could do that, maybe there is hope for them too. You can't even get to me. I got special service, boundaries like the rings of Saturn. I am protected. I am four–five faggots deep all around me, who don't see your name on the list, who will not let you in here looking like that, who will hold you in a cold, hard, unflinching stare or back hand compliment you until you cry. If you even had the courage to ask me out you would have to do it by mail, sent months in advance, on a single 5×7 sheet of eggshell vellum, signed in blood and sealed in gold and scented with a light mist of the new fragrance by Alan Cumming, just so I could throw it away without becoming repulsed."

"This presidential race is the biggest dick contest in history. "Your dick is indecisive!" "Your dick started an unnecessary war!" "Your dick didn't get injured enough in Vietnam!" "Your dick didn't even go to Vietnam!" "Your dick is soft on terrorism!" "Your dick started terrorism!" "Your dick blamed Vietnam vets for atrocities that made all vets unable to come home to a hero's welcome." "Your dick forged its way out of military service!" Has this kind of dick-waggling happened before outside of a pro-wrestling context?"

"Then there is Dick Cheney, who essentially said that if Kerry is voted in as president, terrorism will hit America again. How is that? Is Cheney going to make some calls? Apparently he has the hook up."

"We have been threatened by a local conservative group who said they will picket the show unless I am fired and taken off the bill and replaced by someone else. Sorry. I am now more excited than ever to meet y'all. Personally, if you are going to picket a show, fine, but the fact that you are picketing my show, means you are stepping up to me, which means some very bad things could possibly happen to you."

"Ugly. Is irrelevant. It is an immeasurable insult to a woman, and then supposedly the worst crime you can commit as a woman. But ugly, as beautiful, is an illusion. A matter of taste, a whim, an eye, a beholder, an opinion, a spin, light crossing the frame, paint, projection. The moment. Context."

"San Francisco fucking rules. I am so proud of my home town for legalizing gay marriage, sending gays and lesbians down to the city by the Bay that was built on rock and roll to tie the knot."

"Swept up in a grand illusion that I might be able to eat, have a roof over my head, own some pretty dresses and realize, in a vastly heady way, that I could make a living doing my art, which was the only dream I ever had, what could I say but "Yes, where do I sign?""

"When your young and hungry and nobody's ever really accepted you because of your color and class, the hurt of your own family having cast you out in the first place still inside you somewhere, you dance hard because there is no other way to live, and when opportunity knocks its more of an abduction than a housecall."

"I could care less where my breasts are as long as they are on my body, ... and I'm sorry I just don't care that much about gravity....My lawless, braless ways are rather outlaw."

"I am admittedly insecure about my racial identity, an attitude that has much improved since my younger days when I absolutely abhorred it. Any attention paid to me being different was incredibly shameful...but the mirrors became too much...what a disappointing reality check!"

"The quiet messages that affect and alter the way we view ourselves are controlled by an elite group of ignant men."

"Since the unfortunate victims pay for the pleasure themselves these are HIGH CRIMES that will go UNPUNISHED because they are self-inflicted."

"There was never a lack of reasons to hate myself, to hate my body."

"Body dysmorphia has got to go.Its similar to a disease called "crazy eyes" not the way others look at you, but the way you see yourself. The insanity which we use as our vision...."

"All of them who need to tell ladies to stop talking about sports and stay on the sidelines, because we are baby-making machines."

"With salons all over the West serving up specialties like "Barely Legal", removing all hair from the area to replicate the genitalia of an underage girl, as statutory rape seems all the rage."

"Feminism is nonnegotiable."

"What people need to understand is pussy is the Front Door to Life. Do you get that? Nobody ever thinks about it like that in the dusty ancient cabinet of old white men that think they know everything."

"If you are not a feminist, you do not deserve to live. Do you think you grew out of the ground?"

"The only way to push forward instead of wasting away in the purgatorial procrastination of worry is to just not care what the outcomes. I need to just start running downhill with my eyes shut. There are no guarantees that I will be able to survive this world, where the air is rare for minorities like myself. But that suits me just fine. I'm a risk taker that way."

"I am not so much angry as trying to find my own voice in the world, to find enough courage to speak up in the first place, then to go forth and use it, which both are monumental tasks and require more confidence than you'd think."

"Trying to fault gays and lesbians for standing up for their rights is backwards and unconscionable. We have no idea how powerful we actually are. We were never considered part of the general, respectable population."

"Playing it safe is not productive for anyone, because safety requires gays and lesbians to be invisible, and the inhumanity engendered by making people invisible is anything but safe, rather, it puts us all in danger. When we are banned from the places we should be welcomed, where we should not only be allowed but encouraged to speak, where should we go then?"

"If we don't talk about this epidemic we are going to die."

"Why am I political? Because society's consistent and constant disregard and lack of respect for minorities, even the title minority, is too much to bear silently. Their insistence at our invisibility, whether subtle as noninclusion, or as loud and violent as hate crimes, is contagious, and can make me hide from myself."

"As you read their names, imagine who they loved, who loved them, and those those left behind cope now without them. They're never coming home. Never."

"You will never make love, laugh, fight, eat, go to the movies, kiss, smile, dance, sing, run, skate, play the piano, buy candy for, argue jokingly, tell stories, look longingly at, jump on the bed with, pet the dogs with your faces, sing along with the song in the car and get the words wrong, share a secret, gossip, cop a feel, go hear a band that you both love, share a really good meal, carpool with people you don't like and make fun of them secretly later, cry, comfort, scratch backs, insist on pizza, catch them staring at you, put your arms around them, stay up too late, lean against warm bodies, feel safe with their feet sliding next to yours in bed, raise your children, go to boring dinner parties and get too drunk to drive home so you sleep in the car, spend alternate holidays with each others families, have uncontrollable lust with, followed by mind blowing fuck sessions lasting for hours and hours at a time, take a bath so hot one of you has to get out, all naked and wet and red and dizzy but not embarrassed because this is who you love and rarely are you shy with them, watch a TV show you both hate because the remote control is broken--merely happily, and maybe sometimes unhappily, share your life, and be with them, but you can't, because they're dead. Suddenly, unjustly,untimely, irretrievably--unconscionably dead."

"I am super glad about your four-hour erection, but I was wondering, where is the cure for AIDS? (regarding Viagra, Cialis, etc)"

"How many Americans lives have been lost in this brutal and needless war? How many Iraqi? How many names do we know on either side?"

"The military posts vengeance on their websites, and seeks publicity for their displays of inhumanity."

"Of course America is responsible for the total body count. We started it, we own it, we sow, we reap, but we are also disconnected from the responsibility of our won dirty acts of war."