Completelybanned

“Hero knew that lust was one of the time-honored antidotes to sorrow, but that had never been her relationship to sex. Whatever sorrows lived in her heart were either too superficial to need such soothing, or too burrowed-in and settled to be eased out by something as mundane as coming for the fourth or fifth time against Rosalyn's fingers in the kitchen late at night when the restaurant was long closed; Rosalyn multitasking by leaving eggs and longanisa frying in an oily pan while grinding into Hero's lap, hand down her unzipped jeans, until Hero unclenched her teeth from Rosalyn's ear and said, Something's, uh, burning, and Rosalyn cursed and hopped off.”
― Elaine Castillo, America Is Not the Heart

“Some day you will find out that there is far more happiness in another's happiness than in your own.”
― Honoré de Balzac, Père Goriot

“Yes, Marcos is gay. Marcos is gay in San Francisco, black in South Africa, an Asian in Europe, a Chicano in San Ysidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, a Mayan Indian in the streets of San Cristobal, a Jew in Germany, a Gypsy in Poland, a Mohawk in Quebec, a pacifist in Bosnia, a single woman on the Metro at 10pm, a peasant without land, a gang member in the slums, an unemployed worker, an unhappy student and, of course, a Zapatista in the mountains.
Marcos is all the exploited, marginalised, oppressed minorities resisting and saying `Enough'. He is every minority who is now beginning to speak and every majority that must shut up and listen. He is every untolerated group searching for a way to speak. Everything that makes power and the good consciences of those in power uncomfortable -- this is Marcos.”
― Subcomandante Marcos

“You have noticed that the truth comes into this world with two faces. One is sad with suffering, and the other laughs; but it is the same face, laughing or weeping. When people are already in despair, maybe the laughing face is better for them; and when they feel too good and are too sure of being safe, maybe the weeping face is better for them to see.”
― Black Elk, Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux