Young Allies Quotes & Sayings

It was the fact that she was in every piece, in every corner, on every shelf. She was everywhere, reminding me how much in love with her I was. — Fisher Amelie

The Romans were the tonal incarnate, complete order. — Frederick Lenz

Inside Critics
The critical voices in our own heads are far more vicious than what we might hear from the outside. Our "inside critics" have intimate knowledge of us and can zero in on our weakest spots.
You might be told by the critics that you're too fat, too old, too young, not intelligent enough, a quitter, not logical, prone to try too many things ...
It's all balderdash!
Some elements of these may be true, and it's completely up to you how they affect you. Inside critics are really just trying to protect you. You can:
Learn to dialogue with them.
Give them new jobs.
Turn them into allies.
You can also dismantle/exterminate them. — SARK

Slight small injuries, and they will become none at all. — Thomas Fuller

I am so convinced of the advantages of looking at mankind instead of reading about them, ... that I think there should be a law amongst us to set our young men abroad for a term among the few allies our wars have left us. — Lord Byron

So, in the case of trees, being old doesn't mean being weak, bowed, and fragile. Quite the opposite, it means being full of energy and highly productive. This means elders are markedly more productive than young whippersnappers, and when it comes to climate change, they are important allies for human beings. — Peter Wohlleben

Now, many of our printers make no scruple of gratifying the malice of individuals by false accusations of the fairest characters among ourselves, augmenting animosity even to the producing of duels; and are, moreover, so indiscreet as to print scurrilous reflections on the government of neighboring states, and even on the conduct of our best national allies, which may be attended with the most pernicious consequences. These things I mention as a caution to young printers, and that they may be encouraged not to pollute their presses and disgrace their profession by such infamous practices, but refuse steadily, as they may see by my example that such a course of conduct will not, on the whole, be injurious to their interests. — Benjamin Franklin

During World War II, the British spy agency MI8 secretly recruited a crew of teenage wireless operators (prohibited from discussing their activities even with their families) to intercept coded messages from the Nazis. By forwarding these transmissions to the crack team of code breakers at Bletchley Park led by the computer pioneer Alan Turing, these young hams enabled the Allies to accurately predict the movements of the German and Italian forces. Asperger's prediction that the little professors in his clinic could one day aid in the war effort had been prescient, but it was the Allies who reaped the benefits. — Steve Silberman

Watch, hell,' Walt said. 'This is strip poker. What kind of homo wants to sit around and watch four guys get naked? — David Sedaris

That night I looked Stephanie [Burt] up online and started reading more about her work...I kept encountering a striking factoid...: she's often cited as the most influential poetry critic of her generation. And she's openly trans. This is not the world I was taught I would grow into when I was a young trans child -- the one where transgender people are heard, are brilliant, are influential, are even the best. At anything. Being trans, I'd learned subliminally, was supposed to keep you from being that -- even if you loved your trans self, and even if some other trans people and a few allies did too, the world at large would keep your potential tamped down."

- from "Surface Difficulty: An Adventure in Reading Trans Poetry," Original Plumbing Magazine 2014 — Mitch Kellaway

Those of us who hope to be their allies should not be surprised, if and when this day comes, that when those who have been locked up and locked out finally have to chance to speak and truly be heard, what we hear is rage. The rage may frighten us; it may remind us of riots, uprisings and buildings aflame. We may be tempted to control it or douse it with buckets of doubt, dismay or disbelief. But we should do no such thing. Instead, when a young man who was born in the ghetto and who knows little of life beyond the walls of his prison cell and the invisible cage that has become his life, turns to us in bewilderment and rage, we should do nothing more than look him in the eye and tell him the truth. — Michelle Alexander

I'm going to say this once here, and then - because it is obvious - I will not repeat it in the course of this book: not all boys engage in such behavior, not by a long shot, and many young men are girls' staunchest allies. However, every girl I spoke with, every single girl - regardless of her class, ethnicity, or sexual orientation; regardless of what she wore, regardless of her appearance - had been harassed in middle school, high school, college, or, often, all three. Who, then, is truly at risk of being "distracted" at school? — Peggy Orenstein

Writing means sharing. It's part of the human condition to want to share things - thoughts, ideas, opinions. — Paulo Coelho

Quitting my day job and starting my life as a writer was a tremendous risk. It was a fool's leap, a shot in the dark. But anything of any value in our lives, whether that be a career, a work of art, a relationship, will always start with such a leap. And in order to be able to make it you have to put aside the fear of failing and the desire of succeeding. ( ... ) Because things that we do without lust of result are the purest actions that we shall ever take. — Alan Moore

Fundamentalism isn't about religion, it's about power. — Salman Rushdie

But artists aren't the only marginalized folks controlling real estate. Think about the colonizing role that wealthy white gay men have played in communities of color; they're often the first group to gentrify poor and working-class neighborhoods. Harlem is a good example. Gays have moved in and driven up rents, as have renegade young white students, who want to be cool and hip. This is colonization, post-colonial-style. After all, the people who are "sent back" to recover the territory are always those who don't mind associating with the colored people! And it's a double bind, because some of these people could be allies. Some gay white men are proactive about racism, even while being entrepreneurial. But in the end, they take spaces, redo them, sell them for a certain amount of money, while the people who have been there are displaced. And in some cases, the people of color who are there are perceived as enemies by white newcomers. — Bell Hooks

CORE was committed to nonviolence, but I was not. — June Jordan

Panic is something that good operations officers plan for. — Tom Clancy

As time passed there was no more buying food, no money, no supplies. On some days, we wouldn't even have a crumb to eat. There's a vivid scene in Nanni Loy's The Four Days of Naples, a movie made after the war about the uprising of the Neapolitans against the occupying Germans, in which one of the young characters sinks his teeth into a loaf of bread so voraciously, so desperately, I can still identify with him. In those four famous days in late September, when Naples rose up against the Germans - even before the Allies arrived, it was the climax of a terrible period of deprivation and marked the beginning of the end of the war in Italy. — Sophia Loren

Latinos are concerned about the same pocketbook issues that matter to most middle class Americans - creating good-paying jobs in this country, making sure our children get a quality education, and ensuring that our families have access to affordable and quality healthcare. — Linda Sanchez