Being holy . . . does not mean being perfect but being whole; it does not mean being exceptionally religious or being religious at all; it means being liberated from religiosity and religious pietism of any sort; it does not mean being morally better, it meas being exemplary; it does not mean being godly, but rather being truly human.
The great thing about modern feminism is that women can define what it means to them: it can mean being ambitious, it can mean being emotional, it can mean being sensitive and compassionate and also a leader. It can mean all those things.
Being Black and poor is, I think, radically different from being anything else and poor. Poor, to most Blacks, is a state of mind. Those who accept it are poor; those who struggle are middle class.
There is a difference between broke and being poor. Being broke is a temporary economic condition, but being poor is a disabling frame of mind and a depressed condition of your spirit, and you must vow to never, ever be poor again.
Being 'contented' ought to mean in English, as it does in French, being pleased. Being content with an attic ought not to mean being unable to move from it and resigned to living in it; it ought to mean appreciating all there is in such a position.
What was alien was being ordinary, being humdrum, being trapped into appeasing...having to crush and stifle my opinions, not being allowed to be brilliant, tricking myself into mediocrity.
Being poor is not like being a victim. Being poor means that you don't have one resource.
Artful without being pretentious, well-made without being staid, Trey Moody's investigations of our weird and ordinary world are a little off, by which I mean that they're onto something. Read 'em and be crept into.
Does being practical mean we prop up a legal system that's unfair, that bears its weight down on black men and black women, and by extension if you are Hispanic or indigenous or poor? Does being practical mean you don't say to the American people you deserve better than you're getting? That's not the practical we want.
The world does not have time to be with the poor, to learn with the poor, to listen to the poor. To listen to the poor is an exercise of great discipline, but such listening surely is what is required if charity is not to become a hatred of the poor for being poor.
There's a big difference between "not caring" or being "nihilistic" about a topic and simply not being enrolled by the drama presented by other people. Just because my characters choose not to react in standard, socially-appropriate ways - that does not mean they don't care. They just reject ordinary dramas.
Forgiveness doesn't mean being a wimp. It doesn't mean being weak. It doesn't mean having no principles and no values. Sometimes we have to stand firm for what we believe and make really hard decisions.
Being poor is a mere trifle. It is being known to be poor that is the sting.
When I came out, when I was 17 years old, it was one of those things where I realized that there was going to be so many obstacles, but being gay doesn't mean being weak. And being gay doesn't mean that you are less than anybody else. It's just who you are.
I did it to myself. It wasn't society... it wasn't a pusher, it wasn't being blind or being black or being poor. It was all my doing.
I got songs about being broke, being on welfare, being poor, Section 8.