Quotes About Courage

He should have told Vlad that in the old days a collection of poems could change your life, but a single poem could also cost the life of its author.

Giulio was against our meeting. He didn't want me getting mixed up in things that, in his opinion, were no concern of mine. For decades the respectable people here did nothing but repeat that the Mafia was no concern of theirs but only involved the people involved in it. But I used to teach my pupils that the see-nothing, know-nothing attitude is the most mortal of sins. So now that its my turn to tell what I saw, I'm supposed to take a step back?

Women have been taught that, for us, the earth is flat, and that if we venture out, we will fall off the edge.

You tell the truth and people can shit all over it... but somehow once it's said it can't be unsaid; it stays living, somewhere, in someone's heart.

I hope for nothing; I fear nothing; I am free.

How did I become who I am? I have a heart easily hurt. I believed that cruelty was most often caused by ignorance. I thought that if everybody knew, everything would be different. I was a silly child who believed in the revolution. [...] I can`t be bought or intimidated because I`m already cut down in the middle. I walk with women whispering in my ears. Every time I cry there`s a name attached to each tear. [...] I long to touch my sisters; I wish I could take away the pain.

and if you are a stubborn child, a strong-willed child, you say the almost-ten-year-old version of fuck you something happened all right the fuck put his hands in my legs and rubbed me all over; my legs; *my legs*; me; my; my legs; my; my; my legs; and he rubbed

I always wanted excellence. I wanted to attain it. I didn't start out with apologies. I thought: I am. I wanted to mix with the world, hands on, me and it, and I'd have courage. I wasn't born nice necessarily but nurture triumphed over nature and I wanted to be the good citizen.

I had an abhorrence for killing, but it was raped from me, raped from my brain; obliterated, like freedom.

I'm a veteran of Birkenau and Massada and deep throat, uncounted rapes, thousands of men, I'm twenty-seven, I don't sleep. They leave the shell for reasons of their own. I have no fear of any kind, they fucked it out of me some time age, it's neither here nor there, not good or bad, except girls without fear scare them.

I want writers to write books because they are committed to the content of those books. I want writers to write books as actions. I want writers to write books that can make a difference in how, and even why, people live. I want writers to write books that are worth being jailed for, worth fighting for, and should it come to that in this country, worth dying for.

My fiction is not autobiography. I am not an exhibitionist. I do not show myself. I am not asking for forgiveness. I do not want to confess. But I have used everything I know—my life—to show what I believe must be shown so that it can be faced. The imperative at the heart of my writing—what must be done—comes directly from my life. But I do not show my life directly, in full view; nor even look at it while others watch.

Walk toward the fire. Don't worry about what they call you. All those things are said against you because they want to stop you in your tracks. But if you keep going, you're sending a message to people who are rooting for you, who are agreeing with you. The message is that they can do it, too.

While adulation has its moments and can be like a bath in warm water after coming in from a snowstorm, the psychic high from standing up for what you believe in and being attacked for it far surpassed the comfort to be derived from that bath of praise.

I realized that what I had feared most—expulsion and derision—didn't really even hurt, not when you are standing up for what you believe.

He that cannot reason is a fool, He that will not a bigot, He that dare not a slave.

Pioneering don't pay.

But fear doesn't need doors and windows. It works from the inside.

I almost tell him that I'd never be able to do something like that, just take out my instrument and begin playing on a street corner. But it feels to personal. Yes, I'm shy, but why bring it to his attention? I'm too shy to talk about how shy I am.

It's about 65 degrees, so it feels like when the air conditioner is up on high. I can bear it, so I'm going for a walk. Today. Right now. In the sunshine. Because I can. Because I want to. Because I'm not going to just sit around and wait for stuff to happen anymore. I'm still me, and I have a life. It's a weird life, but it's still mine. It's still mine.

Alan Turing, however, cared nothing for the opinion of society, and therefore was ahead of his time in laying bare the role of the state.

The greatest of all weakness is the fear of appearing week.

The greatest of all weaknesses is the fear of appearing weak. • J. B. Bossuet, Politics from

The greatest of all weaknesses is the fear of appearing weak. • J. B. Bossuet, Politics from Holy Writ, 1709