There is no Hierarchy of Oppressions

The speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don't miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.

How much of this truth can I bear to see and still live unblinded? How much of this pain can I use?

The sixties were characterized by a heady belief in instantaneous solutions.

It does not pay to cherish symbols when the substance lies so close at hand.

Because the machine will try to grind you into dust anyway, whether or not we speak.

Pain is important: how we evade it, how we succumb to it, how we deal with it, how we transcend it. ... pain will always either change or stop. Always. ... The confidence that it will change is what makes bearing it possible. So pain is fluid. It is only when you conceive of it as something static that it is unbearable.