We have a lot of trans friends. We know lots of people who have been trying to [model]; we know a lot about it.

I am where I am because I believe in all possibilities.

You couldn't always trust the history books. They told a diluted truth, a truth by committee.

When I was a kid they didn't call it dyslexia. They called it you know, you were slow, or you were retarded, or whatever. What you can never change is the effect that the words 'dumb' and 'stupid' have on young people. I knew I wasn't stupid, and I knew I wasn't dumb. My mother told me that. If you read to me, I could tell you everything that you read. They didn't know what it was. They knew I wasn't lazy, but what was it?

I grew up in a time when it would never have occurred to anyone to tell me there was anything I couldn't do.

Taliban-esque: Any behavior that imposes the beliefs of one person on everyone else. Conversations with the Taliban-esque are impossible. They aren't even conversations. With them, it's my way or no way.

What I am is a humanist before anything - before I'm a Jew, before I'm black, before I'm a woman. And my beliefs are for the human race - they don't exclude anyone.