"When my husband died, because he was so famous and known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me-it still sometimes happens-and ask me if Carl changed at the end and converted to a belief in an afterlife. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don’t ever expect to be reunited with Carl. But, the great thing is that when we were together, for nearly twenty years, we lived with a vivid appreciation of how brief and precious life is. We never trivialized the meaning of death by pretending it was anything other than a final parting. Every single moment that we were alive and we were together was miraculous-not miraculous in the sense of inexplicable or supernatural. We knew we were beneficiaries of chance… . That pure chance could be so generous and so kind… . That we could find each other, as Carl wrote so beautifully in Cosmos, you know, in the vastness of space and the immensity of time… . That we could be together for twenty years. That is something which sustains me and it’s much more meaningful… . The way he treated me and the way I treated him, the way we took care of each other and our family, while he lived. That is so much more important than the idea I will see him someday. I don’t think I’ll ever see Carl again. But I saw him. We saw each other. We found each other in the cosmos, and that was wonderful."
"Whenever people of color bring up the issue of racism in their lives we seem to want to say, “Oh, you’re hypersensitive, you’re seeing things, you have a chip on your shoulder,” and I really think, and I hope that we can see this kind if dismissiveness for the racism that it is because what that amounts to is saying, “You black people are so irrational, so illogical, so unintelligent that you can’t even be trusted to interpret your own lives so let me, in my whiteness, interpret it for you."
"I think this is the point where the mind has to go on an evolving stage. The lazy mind cannot grasp it. The lazy mind cannot function. Things like cynicism and irony and negativity, those are syndromes of a lazy mind. It takes no effort to give in. It’s too easy to be a cynic. It’s too easy to be ironic. It’s too easy to be negative. It’s a lot more harder to be like Charles Bukowski or Tom Waits and find a piece of trash on the street and be like, “You know what? This is the best f***ing thing I’ve ever seen in my f***ing life.” It’s a hardcore romanticism. I kind of come from that school of thought. I think that being here on Earth is a gift to make a full use of before whatever the next stage is. A lot effort is required for that. I’m not scared of the effort and willing to give my 100% to speed up evolution. Something has got to happen."
masquerades of birds and bees: Yohji Yamamoto
"Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn’t watching. He’s singing and dancing. He’s pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother’s busy holding your attention every moment you’re awake. He’s making sure you’re always distracted. He’s making sure you’re fully absorbed. He’s making sure your imagination withers. Until it’s as useful as your appendix. He’s making sure your attention is always filled. And this being fed, it’s worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what’s in your mind."
"Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short and wear shirts and boots because it’s okay to be a boy; for girls it’s like promotion. But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading, according to you, because secretly you believe that being a girl is degrading."
"My tits flew south for winter and never came back for spring."
