July 2011
“It’s about living, not just getting by. It’s about reaching when there’s nothing inside. It’s about breathing when all is too much. It’s about standing when you wanna give up. Here I am now, standing on the edge, everything I know coming together. All my life I’ve seen it in my dreams, waiting for the day. I’m just a second away..”
—Carly Patterson (via eisforemily)
June 2011
“I’m worried that students will take their obedient place in society and look to become successful cogs in the wheel - let the wheel spin them around as it wants without taking a look at what they’re doing. I’m concerned that students not become passive acceptors of the official doctrine that’s handed down to them from the White House, the media, textbooks, teachers and preachers.”
—Howard Zinn (via illuminatedbeing)
J. K. Rowling uses lycanthropy as a metaphor for HIV/AIDS
JKR: “I know that I’ve said publicly that Remus Lupin was supposed to be on the H.I.V. metaphor. It was someone who had been infected young, who suffered stigma, who had a fear of infecting others, who was terrified he would pass on his condition to his son. And it was a way of examining prejudice, unwarranted prejudice towards a group of people. And also, examining why people might become embittered when they’re treated that unfairly.”
Transgender People Are the Least Protected, Most Persecuted Americans. Welcome to Their Civil Rights Battle. →
tnr.com
Reblogging again and not giving a fuck. If you don’t read it, at least read this.
“Transgender people are regularly evicted from their homes, fired from their jobs, and denied medical treatment. Last July, emergency room staff in an Indiana hospital refused to help a trans woman who was coughing up blood, referring to her as “it.” More than a quarter of transgender people surveyed say they have lost a job because of discrimination. Transgender people are more likely to become homeless (at an average age of 13, in New York City). And then there is the obstacle course of inconveniences that reminds transgender people every day that they don’t belong. One trans woman told me her company requires her to lock herself in when she uses the restroom—even though it’s multi-occupancy—so she is acutely aware of making other women wait.”
“To be a writer is to sit down at one’s desk in the chill portion of every day, and to write; not waiting for the little jet of the blue flame of genius to start from the breastbone – just plain going at it, in pain and delight. To be a writer is to throw away a great deal, not to be satisfied, to type again, and then again, and once more, and over and over…”
—John Hersey (via writingadvice)
“There comes a time when you look into the mirror and you realize that what you see is all that you will ever be. And then you accept it. Or you kill yourself. Or you stop looking in mirrors.”
—Tennessee Williams (via fabula)
“
I’ve had librarians say to me, “People in my school don’t agree with homosexuality, so it’s difficult to have your book on the shelves.” Here’s the thing: Being gay is not an issue, it is an identity. It is not something that you can agree or disagree with. It is a fact, and must be defended and represented as a fact.
To use another part of my identity as an example: if someone said to me, “I’m sorry, but we can’t carry that book because it’s so Jewish and some people in my school don’t agree with Jewish culture,” I would protest until I reached my last gasp. Prohibiting gay books is just as abhorrent…
Discrimination is not a legitimate point of view. Silencing books silences the readers who need them most. And silencing these readers can have dire, tragic consequences. Never forget who these readers are. They are just as curious and anxious about life as any other teenager.
” —David Levithan - Supporting Gay Teen Literature (via cake-light)
SERIOUSLY! I’m sick of LGBTQ culture being treated as just some political issue. Queer people aren’t just a handful of people who want to get married, okay? We’re real, and we’re fucking important, and we need to be represented accurately and positively in the media and on the book shelf, especially in schools, where kids are still discovering who they are and maybe they feel really alone and they need a book they can relate to …
(via riotisnotquiet)
“The basic practice of meditation is related with exposing the subconscious gossip of ego as well as exposing the conscious maneuvers of ego. Other schools of thought might say the practice of meditation is about trying to get higher, gain more, or stuff all kinds of things into your mind. In other words, these approaches are concerned with numerous techniques. But here, the idea of meditation is not designed to be collecting or producing more, but it is letting go.”
—Chogyam Trungpa (via nomindallthought)
