Queer Inspirational Quotes

There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.

To love another man is to leave no one behind to forgive me.

When he overheard the boys whispering that he was a queer, he said he regarded that as a compliment since so many of the world’s great men had been homosexual. Alas, I’ve been sentenced to a life mundane heterosexuality. I can only hope that a few of you will be more fortunate.

I feel very strongly about putting questions; it partakes too much of the style of the day of judgement. You start a question, and it's like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others; and presently some bland old bird (the last you would have thought of) is knocked on the head in his own back garden, and the family have to change their name. No, sir, I make it a rule of mine: the more it looks like Queer Street, the less I ask.

ten reasons to love being queer viii. the people within our community are so supportive and so caring and so loving, most of the time towards people they don’t even know and it is in moments like that when you realize that the queer community is more than a community we are a family

It is very queer that the unhappiness of the world is so often brought on by small men. They are so much more energetic and compromising than the big fellows.

A very queer, composite being thus emerges. Imaginatively she is of the highest importance; practically she is completely insignificant. She pervades poetry from cover to cover; she is all but absent from history. She dominates the lives of kings and conquerors in fiction; in fact she was the slave of any boy whose parents forced a ring upon her finger. Some of the most inspired words, some of the most profound thoughts in literature fall from her lips; in real life she could hardly read, could scarcely spell, and was the property of her husband.

In all the tales of adventure Clara had ever heard, it was never young girls, who were daring. It was always boys running off to rescue a friend or fetch much-needed medicine or stumble into good fortune. Clara knew girls would be daring if given half the chance. And she intended to take that chance, right from under the pale nose of Mr. Earwood.

Colin smirks, "The only things I have to do are stay queer and die.

they want us to believe that to be queer, to be trans, to be confused, to be questioning is equivalent to being a sinner but conveniently forget that we are all sinners in God’s eyes that every day we all sin that sin dates all the way back to Adam and Eve, and ever since then we have all been deemed sinners in God’s eyes but sinners can be forgiven

But she hadn't chosen me. She was never going to. And it didn't matter how caring I was, or how much effort I put into my hair and makeup, or how much time I put in. It was me, as I was, that wasn't doing it for her. There wasn't anything I could do to change that. And that made me feel like there was something inherently not good enough about me.

Express and reinvent yourself but, above all, accept yourself.

Watching Prudence, Kit suddenly felt a queer prickling along her spine There was something different about her. The child's head was up. Her eyes were fastened levelly on the magistrate. Prudence was not afraid!

ah yes I know them well who was the first person in the universe before there was anybody that made it all who ah that they dont know neither do I so there you are they might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he didnt know of Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and old captain Groves and the sailors playing all birds fly and I say stoop and washing up dishes they called it on the pier and the sentry in front of the governors house with the thing round his white helmet poor devil half roasted and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and their tall combs and the auctions in the morning the Greeks and the jews and the Arabs and the devil knows who else from all the ends of Europe and Duke street and the fowl market all clucking outside Larby Sharons and the poor donkeys slipping half asleep and the vague fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the steps and the big wheels of the carts of the bulls and the old castle thousands of years old yes and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda with the old windows of the posadas glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and the pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

And I am proud, but mostly, I’m angry. I’m angry, because when I look around, I’m still alone. I’m still the only black woman in the room. And when I look at what I’ve fought so hard to accomplish next to those who will never know that struggle I wonder, “How many were left behind?” I think about my first-grade class and wonder how many black and brown kids weren’t identified as “talented” because their parents were too busy trying to pay bills to pester the school the way my mom did. Surely there were more than two, me and the brown boy who sat next to me in the hall each day. I think about my brother and wonder how many black boys were similarly labeled as “trouble” and were unable to claw out of the dark abyss that my brother had spent so many years in. I think about the boys and girls playing at recess who were dragged to the principal’s office because their dark skin made their play look like fight. I think about my friend who became disillusioned with a budding teaching career, when she worked at the alternative school and found that it was almost entirely populated with black and brown kids who had been sent away from the general school population for minor infractions. From there would only be expulsions or juvenile detention. I think about every black and brown person, every queer person, every disabled person, who could be in the room with me, but isn’t, and I’m not proud. I’m heartbroken. We should not have a society where the value of marginalized people is determined by how well they can scale often impossible obstacles that others will never know. I have been exceptional, and I shouldn’t have to be exceptional to be just barely getting by. But we live in a society where if you are a person of color, a disabled person, a single mother, or an LGBT person you have to be exceptional. And if you are exceptional by the standards put forth by white supremacist patriarchy, and you are lucky, you will most likely just barely get by. There’s nothing inspirational about that.

I sat down in the middle of the garden, where snakes could scarcely approach unseen, and leaned my back against a warm yellow pumpkin. There were some ground-cherry bushes growing along the furrows, full of fruit. I turned back the papery triangular sheaths that protected the berries and ate a few. All about me giant grasshoppers, twice as big as any I had ever seen, were doing acrobatic feats among the dried vines. The gophers scurried up and down the ploughed ground. There in the sheltered draw-bottom the wind did not blow very hard, but I could hear it singing its humming tune up on the level, and I could see the tall grasses wave. The earth was warm under me, and warm as I crumbled it through my fingers. Queer little red bugs came out and moved in slow squadrons around me. Their backs were polished vermilion, with black spots. I kept as still as I could. Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.

I'm not ashamed of myself. I'm ashamed that the world isn't good enough yet. Because it should be.

It means you're perfect just the way you are. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise.

You don’t have to be strong or powerful. Anyone can stand up for what is right and help other people, show them some kindness. That’s what makes someone a true hero.

If we have to fight for anything . . . then we should fight for peace, freedom, and love.

Isn’t it queer how we go through life, always thinking that the things we want to do are the things that can’t be done?

I woke up at four a.m. this morning after an inspired dream and realized - alliteration! We should be the Queer and Questioning Qlub. Qlub with a Q. Triple Q. That'll definitely increase recruitment.

I always wish for the same thing. a boyfriend, someone to love or love me. This year, I think I'm going to wish for something else. The wisdom and the maturity to realise that I won't find what I want by looking for it, not expect someone else to give me what I never gave myself, that I'm not a half, waiting to be made a whole, and even if that special person never comes along, I'll be just fine.

I woke up at four a.m. this morning after an inspired dream and realized - alliteration! We should be the Queer and Questioning Qlub. Qlub with a Q. Tripple Q. that'll definitely increase recruitment.

Anyway, you never get there, you just keep going. Things are repeated, and sometimes we mistake the fact of their repetition for their value. It can make it seem like we aren’t supposed to change, or like our love has to be just so. It can make it seem as though what we know is best, which it only sometimes is. But maybe that’s okay. Even when imagining takes us away, it still begins with what’s already here.

I do theology as a matter of survival,” explained Rev. Broderick Greer, who is black and gay, “because if people can do theology that produces brutality against black, transgender, queer, and other minority bodies, then we can do theology that leads to our common liberation.

...And maybe folks in Muskox Hollow thought their arrangement was strange, or their parties too rambunctious, or that a lady should have a family and children instead of two gentlemen and thirteen tiny dogs, but no...I don't think Peder Johansen was terribly scandalous.' 'Scandalous or not, my love for the legend of Sullen Johansen was now exponential.

The disabled people populating these billboards epitomize the paradoxical figure of the supercrip: supercrips are those disabled figures favored in the media, products of either extremely low expectations (disability by definition means incompetence, so anything a disabled person does, no matter how mundane or banal, merits exaggerated praise) or extremely high expectations (disabled people must accomplish incredibly difficult, and therefore inspiring, tasks to be worthy of nondisabled attention).

The nutritionist said I should eat root vegetables. Said if I could get down thirteen turnips a day I would be grounded, rooted. Said my head would not keep flying away to where the darkness lives. The psychic told me my heart carries too much weight. Said for twenty dollars she’d tell me what to do. I handed her the twenty. She said, “Stop worrying, darling. You will find a good man soon.” The first psycho therapist told me to spend three hours each day sitting in a dark closet with my eyes closed and ears plugged. I tried it once but couldn’t stop thinking about how gay it was to be sitting in the closet. The yogi told me to stretch everything but the truth. Said to focus on the out breath. Said everyone finds happiness when they care more about what they give than what they get. The pharmacist said, “Lexapro, Lamicatl, Lithium, Xanax.” The doctor said an anti-psychotic might help me forget what the trauma said. The trauma said, “Don’t write these poems. Nobody wants to hear you cry about the grief inside your bones.” But my bones said, “Tyler Clementi jumped from the George Washington Bridge into the Hudson River convinced he was entirely alone.” My bones said, “Write the poems.

Love of other people may take many forms, from brotherly love between members of a faith community to the love that inspires us to mete out justice fairly, clothe the naked, and feed the hungry. When an earthquake strikes, it is an act of love to give of our time and resources to those who are suffering. When injustice takes place, it is an act of love to shout in protest. And when a population is vilified, subjugated, and despised; when the members of that group are mischaracterized and slandered; when selective teachings of religious faith are used as cudgels—then the mandate to love compels us to learn more, engage more, and finally to stand up for those who have been wronged.

It is almost inconceivable that so many filmmakers could think of nothing -- be inspired by nothing -- nothing, nothing, nothing -- but the politics of representation, 'performitivity', gender, race, queer theory etc. There must be other subjects, in the world outside or in their inner lives, which belong on the silver (or digital) screen. This degree of conformity is unsettling. It should alarm cultural elites rather than comfort them. Yet the art world's ideological atmosphere is so thick and pervasive that those inside of it don't even realise it as the air they breathe." "Forgive me, I forgot to mention the other permissible topic: 'consumptive capitalism', that oppressive economic system which creates vast sums of taxable wealth, which in turn allows the UK government to fund even this nonsense.

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will, When the road you're trudging seems all uphill, When the funds are low and the debts are high, And you want to smile, but you have to sigh, When care is pressing you down a bit, Rest if you must, but don't you quit. Life is queer with its twists and turns, As every one of us sometimes learns, And many a fellow turns about When he might have won had he stuck it out. Don't give up though the pace seems slow — You may succeed with another blow. Often the goal is nearer than It seems to a faint and faltering man; Often the struggler has given up When he might have captured the victor's cup; And he learned too late when the night came down, How close he was to the golden crown. Success is failure turned inside out — The silver tint in the clouds of doubt, And you never can tell how close you are, It might be near when it seems afar; So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit — It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

What If God Is a Creep? What if God is a creep who wishes He was taller who didn't get the girl who picks on people not His own size? What if God laughed when Jesus had second thoughts? What if His sense of order is no more complex than kids playing King of the Hill or Smear the Queer? What if God is really a creep who beats His wife embezzles when He can and jerks off to violent porn? Perhaps God put Darin on earth to help us understand that the very traits of man which survive the longest and determine the fittest are God's own favorite attributes? Maybe He's a boss who expects favors a professor who makes others feel stupid a witness obstructing justice. What if God is really just a creep? Maybe Machiavelli was His inspired son and The Prince remains our most sacred text. What if Hitler sits at God's right hand tended by a heavenly host of bigots, bullies, soldiers and other serial killers who look to an angel name Manson for advice. A God capable of biological brilliance and genetic genius is no more likely to care about justice and kindness than His creations are. Why assume that God likes women any more than men do? Why imagine He wouldn't hurt His children? God's morality might be just as steeped in struggle as accented by abuse as spiced with exploitation and as baked with brutality as our own common recipes. Drink up. One taste and you are in Heaven. If God really is a creep that certainly would explain a lot.

In the logic of ableism, anyone who can handle such an (allegedly) horrible life must be strong; a lesser man would have given up in despair years ago. Indeed, Reeve's refusal to “give up” is precisely why the FBL selected Reeve for their model of strength; in the “billboard backstories” section of their website, they praise Reeve for trying to “beat paralysis and the spinal cord injuries” rather than “giv[ing] up.” Asserting that Goldberg is successful because of her hard work suggests that other people with dyslexia and learning disabilities who have not met with similar success have simply failed to engage in hard work; unlike Whoopi Goldberg, they are apparently unwilling to devote themselves to success. Similarly, by positioning Weihenmayer's ascent of Everest as a matter of vision, the FBL implies that most blind people, who have not ascended Everest or accomplished equivalently astounding feats, are lacking not only eyesight but vision. The disabled people populating these billboards epitomize the paradoxical figure of the supercrip: supercrips are those disabled figures favored in the media, products of either extremely low expectations (disability by definition means incompetence, so anything a disabled person does, no matter how mundane or banal, merits exaggerated praise) or extremely high expectations (disabled people must accomplish incredibly difficult, and therefore inspiring, tasks to be worthy of nondisabled attention).

You and your friends played a big role in the aesthetic sensibility bred in the anarchist milieu in the early 2000s. While most anarchists and radicals were occupied with identity politics, accountability processes, justice, and ethical living and consumption, you and your friends started projects that had a more nihilist bent. Queer hedonism and negation, ‘doing-being totally out of control’. What inspired this turn, and what were you guys doing? The aesthetic sensibility we bred corresponded with the (re-)emergence of the hipster. While the hipster identity was about separating oneself out into a certain identity, to us it was more about being able to become anything. To welcome the power that comes with being malleable. To turn this weak metropolitan subject against itself. There were university occupations across the country, at the New School, in California, mini-riots across the Midwest and in the South. That also corresponded to the English translation of The Invisible Committee’s The Coming Insurrection, which was an important moment. Notably, that book was the same blue as Obama’s branding, and was a book instead of some zine somewhere. The new interest in insurrectionist aesthetics beyond the anarchist milieu provided a sort of opening. Part of the program behind Institute for Experimental Freedom, why I made all this aesthetic crap, why Politics is Not a Banana was a bright-ass pink book, was to take advantage of this opening.

Prayer: Father God, as I look upon the everyday drudgeries of life, may I recognize my commitment to You. May I see the eternal light in these tasks so that I can recognize that You are building eternal character in my life. Amen.   Action: Examine two or three of your drudgeries to see how God can make these into opportunities for character building.   Today’s Wisdom: When things go wrong, as they sometimes will, When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill, When the funds are low and the debts are high, And you want to smile, but you have to sigh, When care is pressing you down a bit, Rest, if you must—but don’t you quit. Life is queer with its twists and turns, As every one of us sometimes learns, And many a failure turns about When he might have won had he stuck it out; Don’t give up, though the pace seems slow— You might succeed with another blow. Often the goal is nearer than It seems to a faint and faltering man, Often the struggler has given up When he might have captured the victor’s cup, And he learned too late, when the night slipped down, How close he was to the golden crown. Success is failure turned inside out— The silver tint of the clouds of doubt— And you never can tell how close you are, It may be near when it seems afar; So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit— It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.

By arguing that folk knowledge has proven true, white gay men—citing counterculturist thought and affirming it in conversation—assert that an Indigenous gay nature comprises their sexual and spiritual heritage. In the early pages of RFD, a passage from European paganism to a global and transhistorical indigeneity answered white gay men’s settler colonial inheritance by making them more like Indigenous people than the settlers they otherwise represent. Making indigeneity their truth performed settler modernity by incorporating, embodying, and yet transcending indigeneity when asserting their belonging on stolen land. In RFD and among its readers, such realizations arose in conversations on an ancient and spiritual Indigenous gay nature, inspired by and inspiring of the object berdache. Early

This change in naming is life-giving for women, certainly, but for all of humanity, too, shifting all those relationships... All throughout the Scriptures, we see this tradition in which a new name signals a new reality.

Je suis toujours triste lorsque les hommes ne voient en moi qu’une femme. Ils ne comprennent pas que mon genre est pluriel, que je puisse partager avec eux une tradition masculine sans être uniquement un homme. À leurs yeux, c’est mon côté imparfait, raté ou non assumé. Je sais pourtant leurs manières de s’approprier le monde et de parler, de se tenir, de rire. Je sais intuitivement la distance à entretenir, la force à mettre dans la poignée de main, l’intensité à placer dans le regard. Nous partageons aussi la même masculinité toxique dont nous tentons de nous défaire. Mais je ne rebute pas ma voix aiguë, mes seins, ni mon visage sans barbe et cela les étonne. Ils ne comprennent pas ma familiarité avec les femmes, leurs forces, leurs inspirations, leurs peurs et leurs luttes. Ils ne comprennent pas que je ne souhaite jamais passer complètement pour un homme. À mes yeux, cette double condition est ce qui me permet d’être complète et d’apparaître dans le réel. J’existe en ce monde dans la traversée des genres. Je suis simultanéité. Je ne peux pas choisir entre être un homme ou être une femme, car ce serait choisir entre une moitié de cœur et l’autre. J’ai besoin des deux pour vivre. C’est un tissage de récits impossible à défaire ; leurs brins entrelacés constituent ma matière et me donnent forme en ce monde. Je ne voudrais pas vivre autrement (p. 126-127).

Why do men entertain this queer idea that what is sordid must always overthrow what is magnanimous; that there is some dim connection between brains and brutality, or that it does not matter if a man is dull so long as he is also mean? Why do they vaguely think of all chivalry as sentiment and all sentiment as weakness? They do it because they are, like all men, primarily inspired by religion. For them, as for all men, the first fact is their notion of the nature of things; their idea about what world they are living in. And it is their faith that the only ultimate thing is fear and therefore that the very heart of the world is evil. They believe that death is stronger than life, and therefore dead things must be stronger than living things; whether those dead things are gold and iron and machinery or rocks and rivers and forces of nature.

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will, When the road you're trudging seems all uphill, When the funds are low and the debts are high, And you want to smile, but you have to sigh, When care is pressing you down a bit, Rest if you must, but don't you quit. Life is queer with its twists and turns, As every one of us sometimes learns, And many a fellow turns about When he might have won had he stuck it out. Don't give up though the pace seems slow — You may succeed with another blow. Often the goal is nearer than It seems to a faint and faltering man; Often the struggler has given up When he might have captured the victor's cup; And he learned too late when the night came down, How close he was to the golden crown. Success is failure turned inside out — The silver tint in the clouds of doubt, And you never can tell how close you are, It might be near when it seems afar; So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit — It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

The Sun didn't burn the Moon but lit up its path.

Be yourself. Be over the top. Outlast them. Show them that no amount of fear will ever make you change who you are.

her queer eye stay watching God.

The more you try to bury us, the firmer our roots. The more you try to silence us, the louder our song.

The modern sitcom, in particular, is almost wholly dependent for laughs and tone on the M*A*S*H0inspired savaging of some buffoonish spokesman for hypocritical, pre-hip values at the hands of bitingly witty insurgents. [. . .] Its promulgation of cynicism about authority works to the general advantage of television on a number of levels. First, to the extent that TV can ridicule old-fashioned conventions right off the map, it can create an authority vacuum. And then guess what fills it. The real authority on a world we now view as constructed and not depicted becomes the medium that constructs our world-view. Second, to the extent that TV can refer exclusively to itself and debunk conventional standards as hollow, it is invulnerable to critics' changes that what's on is shallow or crass or bad, since and such judgments appeal to conventional, extra-televisual standards about depth, taste, quality. Too, the ironic tone of TV's self-reference means that no one can accuse TV of trying to put anything over on anybody. As essayist Lewis Hyde points out, self-mocking irony is always 'Sincerity, with a motive.' [. . .] If television can invite Joe Briefcase into itself via in-gags and irony, it can ease that painful tension between Joe's need to transcend the crowd and his inescapable status as Audience-member. For to the extent that TV can flatter Joe about 'seeing through' the pretentiousness and hypocrisy of outdated values, it can induce in him precisely the feeling of canny superiority it's taught him to crave, and can keep him dependent on the cynical TV-watching that alone affords this feeling. [. . .] Television can reinforce its on queer ontology of appearance: the most frightening prospect, for the well-conditioned viewer, becomes leaving oneself open to others' ridicule by betraying passé expressions of value, emotion, or vulnerability.

Reflecting on this order, which lays out a job of work and breathes the very spirit of unhurried calm, one is conscious of that queer feeling of exasperation which, even at this distance, McClellan's acts occasionally inspire. With everything in the world at stake, both for the country and for McClellan personally, why couldn't the man have taken fire just once?

If you are able to find flames of joy in the wastelands of this world, in the rubble of your fading mind, do not second-guess it or search for hidden evil. Close your eyes and breathe it in. It's worth it, I promise.

Friendship is the most important thing to Mr. Aquarius. It’s a thing of beauty and inspiration to this highly gentle man.

I remembered the deep sense of satisfaction, the inspired joy I once felt, when I read about some gay kid who learned to accept himself, who opened himself up to a fuller life than he ever believed possible. But Uncle Martin was not a boy; he was not some just-sprung-from-the-closet queer finally coming to the electrifying realization that his life could get better. Uncle Martin was a grown man with an adult life he had constructed in the only way he could imagine it. He had segregated the disparate elements of his happiness, stashed them in different rooms in different buildings on different streets: a home, a church, a rented five-by-ten-storage space, different dimensions that were allowed to coexist so long as they remained blissfully ignorant of each other. He had a career, friends, a relationship with the God he believed in, and a wife he cared about. He had everything to lose. Still there’s immeasurable value in being true to yourself, even if your defining moment comes late in life, and at great cost, even if your life is the final price you pay for your honesty.

In an 1872 essay on poetry that both Vincent and Zola read, the philosopher Hippolyte Taine had described with astonishing prescience the imagery at the end of Vincent’s tortuous journey: Less a style, indeed, than a system of notation, superlatively bold, sincere and faithful, created from instant to instant, out of anything and everything in such a fashion that one never thinks of the words but seems to be in direct touch with the gush of vital thought, with all its palpitations and starts, with its suddenly checked flights and the mighty beating of its wings.… It is queer language, yet true even in its least details, and the only one capable of conveying the peaks and troughs of the inner life, the flow and tumult of inspiration, the sudden concentration of ideas, too crowded to find vent, the unexpected explosion into imagery and those almost limitless blazes of enlightenment which, like the northern lights, burst out and flame in a lyrical mind… Trust the spirit, as sovereign nature does, to make the form; for otherwise we only imprison spirit, and not embody. Inward evermore to outward—so in life, and so in art, which still is life … Poetry, thus conceived, has only one protagonist, the soul and mind of the poet; and only one style—a suffering and triumphant cry from the heart.

I chose to... Float in contentment and forgive all the deep pains Accept the shadows of my queer past … Encounter faith and that magic love from within Enrich my spirit with graceful emotions of who I am … Listen to the essence of life and collect its charm Cultivate the fascinating practice of spiritual well-being (Excerpted from Mindfulness, chapter Resilience)

She moved like a woman whose body not only provided her with pleasure, but peace and ease. She moved like a fully embodied universe of her own making.

Happiness is two-hour long baths during an energy crisis because it's fantastically irresponsible and fabulous for your soul. Happiness is fresh Spanish perfume on your collarbone and sipping ice-cool Caipirinhas with fun people whilst Mariah Carey's 'Babydoll' plays in the background on a booming system. Happiness is never giving a fuck about becoming fat because you will always fuck, and instead enjoying delicious, deeply satisfying suya and switching your phone off for a whole weekend. Happiness is bad bitches who no longer front like insanity is not festering on every floor of the Western Promise and finally stop giving a fuck. That's happiness.

Happiness is day drinking in the middle of Oxford Street whilst dancing to Megan Thee Stallion on a busy weekend after having mixed up all your meds because surprises are fun, and sometimes it's important to be reminded of why you first moved to this weirdly wonderful, obscenely overpriced city. That is happiness and you don't need a therapist or a witchy, wasted transwoman to tell you that shit. Invest in a bombass vibrator, be nice to sweet old ladies on the tube because if you're really lucky, you too will one day grow old and you'll want someone to treat you with a modicum of kindness and care. And stop making yourself go grey with needless stress! Now get the fuck out of my house. You're starting to harsh my buzz.

Magic is happiness and happiness is vast quantities of quality hemp oil. It's good for the mind, the body, the skin, and the sex drive. Happiness is hemp oil and Reece's Pieces ice-cream drizzled with melted Nutella followed by so much masturbation that you pass out pronto.

Happiness is wildly indiscreet vibrators that make your whole clapped-out building quake and Jill Scott sex jams and Judd Apatow comedies set in L.A, preferably featuring Leslie Mann. Yes! Happiness is Leslie Mann because she's joyful and she always laughs like she's got an abundance of delightful secrets.

The goal of Queer Theory is to use political activism to make people conscious of the “prison” society locks us all into, thereby making people conscious of the prison they have constructed for themselves. This queer consciousness is the state of being awake to the “truth” of Queer Theory. In developing a queer consciousness, one becomes a radical activist who uses Queer Theory as the lens through which they view all of society. Queer Theory informs how those with queer consciousness think and act in the world. Queer consciousness inspires one to view society as a prison they must dismantle and break free from to free their soul. In short, Queer Theory is a vehicle for a complete and perpetual cultural and personal revolution.

For me, practising Islam feeds my desire to understand the beauty and complexity of the universe and to treat everyone, regardless of their beliefs, with respect. My faith inspires kindness, patience, and self-reflection in my daily interactions. Relearning how to pray—focusing on the words and the prayer steps, such as kneeling in front of God in sajda—taught me that completely surrendering yourself to something you love is a gift. In fact, it’s in the getting lost that you find yourself.

Eventually I would find writers who were able to put my fears and insecurities into words, and artists who would inspire me to do the same, but for many years I was an outsider looking in, compelled by a mix of wonder and envy.

In summary, Culturally Relevant Teaching claims that the dominant culture uses schools to sustain and reproduce itself. The goal of the Culturally Relevant Teacher is to tailor her methods and practices to identify and deconstruct this dominant culture. She must determine how the dominant culture(s) marginalizes other cultures—other ways of reading, writing, doing math, practicing science, behaving, and “knowing the truth”—in her classroom. Likewise, the goal of the Culturally Relevant Teacher is to help students deconstruct their own culture(s) and determine how they specifically are oppressed by the dominant culture(s), or how their culture(s) oppress the marginalized culture(s). After modeling this deconstruction, the Culturally Relevant Teacher’s mission is to empower and inspire her students to change the dominant culture through social justice activism. Her job is to push her students to develop critical consciousness.