You’re imperfect, and you’re wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.

I’m not afraid to die, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

He who falls in love with himself will have no rivals.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

When you get to a place where you understand that love and belonging, your worthiness, is a birthright and not something you have to earn, anything is possible.

This self-love is the instrument of our preservation; it resembles the provision for the perpetuity of mankind: it is necessary, it is dear to us, it gives us pleasure, and we must conceal it.

I will not leave South Africa, nor will I surrender. Only through hardship, sacrifice and militant action can freedom be won. The struggle is my life. I will continue fighting for freedom until the end of my days.

We have a tendency to condemn people who are different from us, to define their sins as paramount and our own sinfulness as being insignificant.

I’ve been called a moron since I was about four. My father called me a moron. My grandfather said I was a moron. And a lot of times when I’m driving, I hear I’m a moron. I like being a moron.

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

The outer passes away; the innermost is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

I like people and I like them to like me, but I wear my heart where God put it, on the inside.

The philosophical idea that there are no more distances, that we are all just one world, that we are all brothers, is such a drag! I like differences.

You can’t stop everything from happening. But we’ve gotten to a point where we’re certainly trying. If a car doesn’t have four hundred air bags in it, then it’s no good.

Many people think of perfectionism as striving to be your best, but it is not about self-improvement; it’s about earning approval and acceptance.

I have some good friends of my own who happen to be gay, and when it comes to gay, straight, or whatever, I’m for anything life-affirmative. I’m for gay power, straight power, male power, female power; everybody should feel empowered without oppressing anyone who’s different.

Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything.

Never in any case say I have lost such a thing, but I have returned it. Is your child dead? It is a return. Is your wife dead? It is a return. Are you deprived of your estate? Is not this also a return?

I always felt an outsider.

Things that I felt absolutely sure of but a few years ago, I do not believe now. This thought makes me see more clearly how foolish it would be to expect all men to agree with me.

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.

It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.

The big message of gospel is that you don’t have to keep fighting the universe; you can stop, and the universe is quite good to you. There is a loss of ego.

Every utopia – let’s just stick with the literary ones – faces the same problem: What do you do with the people who don’t fit in?

We have normality. I repeat, we have normality. Anything you still can’t cope with is therefore your own problem.

One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.

I have seen many storms in my life. Most storms have caught me by surprise, so I had to learn very quickly to look further and understand that I am not capable of controlling the weather, to exercise the art of patience and to respect the fury of nature.

Whether I’m wearing lots of makeup or no makeup, I’m always the same person inside.

Nothing I can say or devise, and nothing anybody else can say or devise, is going to be perfect.

I know what it feels like to struggle to get the education that you need.

Friends accept you the way you are.

The superior man is distressed by the limitations of his ability; he is not distressed by the fact that men do not recognize the ability that he has.

God tells us not to judge one another, no matter what anyone’s sexual preferences are or if they’re black, brown or purple.

I think what you’re seeing is a profound recognition on the part of the American people that gays and lesbians and transgender persons are our brothers, our sisters, our children, our cousins, our friends, our co-workers, and that they’ve got to be treated like every other American. And I think that principle will win out.

I do not want to foresee the future. I am concerned with taking care of the present. God has given me no control over the moment following.

I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.

The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.

I believe that God breathed life into every person and that every person is made in the image of God and you have accept them as they are, on their journey. I’m not here to preach hate or push people down.

Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be carved.

Beauty is an outward gift, which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.

Real beauty knocks you a little bit off kilter.

What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other’s folly – that is the first law of nature.

Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose.

Music is so therapeutic for me that if I can’t get it out, I start feeling bad about myself – a lot of self-loathing.

Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

The poetry you read has been written for you, each of you – black, white, Hispanic, man, woman, gay, straight.

I want the world to see my body.

The snow goose need not bathe to make itself white. Neither need you do anything but be yourself.

Where thou art, that is home.

It takes more than just a good looking body. You’ve got to have the heart and soul to go with it.

The answer I found is you stay away from the people who make fun of you, and you join these ad hoc groups who understand your craziness.

It all went wrong with football, the thing I loved most of all, and from there, my life slowly fell apart.

I would be stupid not to be on my own side. But I’m a human being, too. And I’m on the side of human beings, rather than on the side of crocodiles.

I think being able to age gracefully is a very important talent. It is too late for me.

We do not judge the people we love.

Anyone who cannot come to terms with his life while he is alive needs one hand to ward off a little his despair over his fate… but with his other hand he can note down what he sees among the ruins.

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.

The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.

I don’t go down the road of condemning.

It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals.

I don’t try to control my days.