Quotes About Community

People are always telling me to shut up about Chicago.

It's not about opening a door and shutting it right behind you. I want to keep it open so others can come behind me.

I never felt comfortable with myself, because I was never part of the majority. I always felt awkward and shy and on the outside of the momentum of my friends' lives.

Talk about your problems. There's no need to feel shy. It's always good to talk about issues that concern you.

We have lost the art of conversation. People are shy and don't know how to approach other people, and they are missing opportunities for relationships. And no one's entertaining at home anymore. They're not having people over for dinner.

In a Polynesian family it's not always about yourself, you've got to look after your parents and your younger siblings.

The great thing about coming from where I come from - Liverpool and my family - is that we're very close. I have a great relationship with my siblings and their kids.

Me and my three younger siblings, we sang together in grandma's church, and I was in the Chicago Children's Choir in high school, but I didn't think I had the voice to be a singer professionally.

My sister took me as her own. My mum had a lot of help raising me. That's what happens in large families: your siblings raise you.

My mother grew up in abject poverty in Mississippi, an elementary school dropout. Yet, with the support of women around her, she returned to school and graduated as class valedictorian - the only one of her seven siblings to finish high school. She became a librarian and then a United Methodist minister.

The example set by my grandparents and parents - that of giving one's time, talent, voice and resources, either from one's own home or from the highest office in the land - had a profound effect on me and my siblings.

I remember in grade school having a group of friends and enjoying that sense of community, enjoying living in an imaginary world that wasn't just by yourself or your sibling but a whole group of people.

Now, thanks to weightlifting, our life in Zamboanga changed. I was able to buy land for my sibling and for my gym. I was able to help my family and kids who grew up without a home.

My mom was Sicilian, my dad was Sicilian. Mom was a great cook, but all the women were.

I grew up in the Lower East Side, an Italian American - more Sicilian, actually.

I believe that everyone, regardless of who they are, should do something that is greater than themselves. Whether it's adoption, or helping people who are sick or poor, or whatever. That's what God put us on this earth to do.

There are pastors who won't go to people's sick beds. How can people of God turn their back on the sick, poor and hungry?

There are so many bad influences out there. I don't care if a kid is rich or poor, if he lives in a million-dollar house or the ghetto, he is going to find some sick things on the street. And if we don't clean it up soon, we're all going to pay the price.

There have been times when we've been playing, and people who were sick were totally healed.

Our little house was way back in the country. We had one house close to us, and hell the next one would've been a mile. If you got sick, you could holler and wouldn't nobody hear you.

I think - I think you have a conscience growing up in a loving family with a nurturing community. And I think what happens is, and that's part of the problem of being in the closet which is a very sick place. I mean it's self loathing. It's self denial. And you keep that separate.

I have sat in with the Burbank Philharmonic and the Topanga Orchestra when they need someone if someone gets sick or something.

Growing up in Bombay, I saw many sick people.

It's true that eviction affects the young and the old, the sick and the able-bodied. It affects white folks and black folks and Hispanic folks and immigrants. If you spend time in housing court, you see a really diverse array of folks there.