For the hundreds of thousands of Californians in gay and lesbian households who are managing their day-to-day lives, this decision affirms the full legal protections and safeguards I believe everyone deserves.

...to her all books were the same and, as with her subjects, she felt a duty to approach them without prejudice...Lauren Bacall, Winifred Holtby, Sylvia Plath - who were they? Only be reading could she find out.

Healthy" and "diseased," as Susan Sontag points out...are often subjective judgments that society makes for its own purposes. Women have long been defined as sick as a means of subjecting them to social control.

When you are growing up there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you. The public library is a great equaliser.

We ought to be free to meet and mingle, --to rise by our individual worth, without any consideration of caste or color; and they who deny us this right are false to their own professed principals of human equality.

But when they brought Sabira out, the crowd parted almost magically. A sea of hands rose faster than a swell and a bidding war commenced, amongst these civilized gentlemen who made their living off the backs of slaves.

I'm not a concept. Too many guys think I'm a concept or I complete them or I'm going to make them alive, but I'm just a fucked up girl who is looking for my own peace of mind. Don't assign me yours.

Y’know, it’s not that we need equality. Because everyone’s already equal, it’s just that a ton of idiots lost the memo. Indeed, everyone just needs to be TREATED like the equal they already are.

Once lay down the rule that the job comes first and you throw that job open to every individual, man or woman, fat or thin, tall or short, ugly or beautiful, who is able to do that job better than the rest of the world.

Even when repressed, inequality grows; only the man who is below the average in economic ability desires equality; those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom, and in the end superior ability has its way.

No matter whether you’re a gay or a mixed race couple; when you’re drawn together, ultimately it doesn’t matter what everybody thinks because it’s so honest, true, and sincere. How can that be wrong?

The division is based on knowledge, based on qualifications - but as I learned from the factionless, a system that relies on a group of uneducated people to do its dirty work without giving them a way to rise is hardly fair.

Wherever you find a great man, you will find a great mother or a great wife standing behind him -- or so they used to say. It would be interesting to know how many great women have had great fathers and husbands behind them.

[S]ex trafficking and mass rape should no more be seen as women's issues than slavery was a black issue or the Holocaust was a Jewish issue. These are all humanitarian concerns, transcending any one race, gender, or creed.

[Mo] sapeva che a Caterina, Cecilia e Maria, quando avessero messo piede su Deneb, nessuno avrebbe chiesto di compilare un modulo sbarrando la F. e non la M. per relegarle di conseguenza in uno scompartimento di seconda categoria.