Terence

“If I could describe a 'human being' I would be more than I am - and probably living in the future, because I think of human beings as something to do with the luminous image you see in a bright child's eyes - the exploring, wondering, eagerly grasping, undestructive quest for life. I see that undescribed spirit as central to us all.”
― James Tiptree Jr.

“Hearken unto me, fellow creatures. I who have dwelt in a form unmatched with my desire. I whose flesh has become an assemblage of incongruous anatomical parts. I who achieve the similitude of a natural body only through an unnatrual process, I offer you this warning: the Nature you bedevil me with is a lie. Do not trust it to protect you from what I represent, for it is a fabrication that cloaks the groundlessness of the privilege you seek to maintain for yourself at my expense. You are as constructed as me; the same anarchic Womb has birthed us both. I call upon you to investigate your nature as I have been compelled to confront mine. I challenge you to risk abjection and flourish as well as have I. Heed my words, and you may well discover the seams and sutures in yourself.”
― Susan Stryker, My Words to Victor Frankenstein above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage

“The paradox of education is precisely this — that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, to say to himself this is black or this is white, to decide for himself whether there is a God in heaven or not. To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions, is the way he achieves his own identity. But no society is really anxious to have that kind of person around.”
― James Baldwin

“An old man says to his grandson: 'There's a fight going on inside me. It's a terrible fight between two wolves. One is evil - angry, greedy, jealous, arrogant, and cowardly. The other is good - peaceful, loving, modest, generous, honest, and trustworthy. These two wolves are also fighting within you and inside every other person, too.' After a moment, the boy asks, 'Which wolf will win?' The old man smiles. 'The one you feed.”
― New York Review of Books