Bonnie Dufault

“TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”
― Howard Zinn

“What’s true of all the evils in the world is true of plague as well. It helps men to rise above themselves.”
― Albert Camus, The Plague

“I'm an undammable river of mother love. I'm a torch-brandishing one-woman mob, and I will go after anyone who casts doubt upon the rightness of my child. Even if that person is me.”
― Catherine Newman, Wreck

“Do you have the patience to wait
Till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
Till the right action arises by itself?”
― Lao tzu