Harvey Milk Quotes

I was born of heterosexual parents. I was taught by heterosexual teachers in a fiercely heterosexual society. Television ads and newspaper ads - fiercely heterosexual. A society that puts down homosexuality. And why am I a homosexual if I'm affected by role models? I should have been a heterosexual. And no offense meant, but if teachers are going to affect you as role models, there'd be a lot of nuns running around the streets today. ~ Harvey Milk

I know that you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. And you ... And you ... And you ... Gotta give em hope. ~ Harvey Milk

I fully realize that a person who stands for what I stand for, an activist, a gay activist, becomes the target or the potential target for a person who is insecure, terrified, afraid, or very disturbed with themselves. ~ Harvey Milk

Some people call me the unofficial mayor of Castro Street. ~ Harvey Milk

Let's make no mistake about this: The American Dream starts with the neighborhoods. If we wish to rebuild our cities, we must first rebuild our neighborhoods. And to do that, we must understand that the quality of life is more important than the standard of living. To sit on the front steps--whether it's a veranda in a small town or a concrete stoop in a big city--and to talk to our neighborhoods is infinitely more important than to huddle on the living-room lounger and watch a make-believe world in not-quite living color.

...

And I hardly need to tell you that in the 19- or 24-inch view of the world, cleanliness has long since eclipsed godliness. Soon we'll all smell, look, and actually be laboratory clean, as sterile on the inside as on the out. The perfect consumer, surrounded by the latest appliances. The perfect audience, with a ringside seat to almost any event in the world, without smell, without taste, without feel--alone and unhappy in the vast wasteland of our living rooms. I think that what we actually need, of course, is a little more dirt on the seat of our pants as we sit on the front stoop and talk to our neighbors once again, enjoying the type of summer day where the smell of garlic travels slightly faster than the speed of sound. ~ Harvey Milk

Every gay person must come out ... Once they realize we are indeed their children, we are indeed everywhere, every myth, every lie, every innuendo will be destroyed once and for all. ~ Harvey Milk

The American Dream starts with the neighborhoods. ~ Harvey Milk

If you are not personally free to be yourself in that most important of all human activities ... the expression of love ... then life itself loses its meaning. ~ Harvey Milk

We will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets. ~ Harvey Milk

All young people, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, deserve a safe and supportive environment in which to achieve their full potential. ~ Harvey Milk

I have tasted freedom. I will not give up that which I have tasted. ~ Harvey Milk

Rights are won only by those who make their voices heard. ~ Harvey Milk

Burst down those closet doors once and for all, and stand up and start to fight. ~ Harvey Milk

If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door. ~ Harvey Milk

If it were true that children mimicked their teachers, you'd sure have a helluva lot more nuns running around. ~ Harvey Milk

Hope is never silent. ~ Harvey Milk

I ask for the movement to continue, for the movement to grow, because last week I got a phone call from Altoona, Pennsylvania, and my election gave somebody else, one more person, hope. And
after all, that's what this is all about. It's not about personal gain, not about ego, not about power - it's about giving those young people out there in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias, hope.
You gotta give them hope. ~ Harvey Milk

Politics is theater. It doesn't matter if you win. You make a statement. You say, I'm here, pay attention to me ~ Harvey Milk

In New York now, they have Harvey Milk High School for gay students. They don't have much of a football team, but the half-time show ... ~ Bill Maher

I like to sit in the window and watch the cute boys walk by. ~ Harvey Milk

If we wish to rebuild our cities, we must first rebuild our neighborhoods. ~ Harvey Milk

Every gay person must come out. As difficult as it is, you must tell your immediate family. You must tell your relatives. You must tell your friends if indeed they are your friends. You must tell the people you work with. You must tell the people in the stores you shop in. Once they realize that we are indeed their children, that we are indeed everywhere, every myth, every lie, every innuendo will be destroyed once and all. And once you do, you will feel so much better ~ Harvey Milk

All over the country, they're reading about me, and the story doesn't center on me being gay. It's just about a gay person who is doing his job. ~ Harvey Milk

Coming out is the most political thing you can do. ~ Harvey Milk

Gay brothers and sisters ... You must come out. Come out to your relatives ... come out to your friends ... Come out to your neighbors ... to your fellow workers ... to the people who work where you eat and shop ... break down the myths, destroy the lies and distortions. For your sake. For their sake. For the sake of the youngsters who are becoming scared ... ~ Harvey Milk

I grew up a witness to gay politics in its early days. I remember seeing Harvey Milk and been moved by him. ~ Margaret Cho

Never take an elevator in city hall. ~ Harvey Milk

Let me have my tax money go for my protection and not for my prosecution. Let my tax money go for the protection of me. Protect my home, protect my streets, protect my car, protect my life, protect my property ... worry about becoming a human being and not about how you can prevent others from enjoying their lives because of your own inability to adjust to life. ~ Harvey Milk

I know you can't live on hope alone; but without hope, life is not worth living. So you, and you and you: you got to give them hope; you got to give them hope. ~ Harvey Milk

Out of the bars and into the streets! ~ Harvey Milk

Hope will never be silent. ~ Harvey Milk

All men are created equal. Now matter how hard they try, they can never erase those words. That is what America is about. ~ Harvey Milk

I finally reached the point where I knew I had to become involved or shut up. ~ Harvey Milk

It takes no compromise to give people their rights ... it takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no political deal to give people freedom. It takes no survey to remove repression. ~ Harvey Milk

My dad had a flock of sheep, which he used to milk, and then my mum used to make cheese and yogurt out of the sheep's milk and sell it. It was kind of an unusual upbringing, really. ~ Joanne Froggatt

Mackay's Moral: If you are persistent, you will get it. If you are consistent, you will keep it. ~ Harvey MacKay

The living body is intelligent beyond our understanding; it is incomprehensibly intelligent. ~ Harvey Diamond

What we want most is to be held ... and told..that everything (everything is a funny thing, is baby milk and papa's eyes, is roaring logs on a cold morning, is hoot owls and the boy who makes you cry after school, is mama's long hair, is being afraid and twisted faces on the bedroom wall) ... is going to be alright. ~ Truman Capote

I thought you were makin' small talk about the weather."
"When have I ever made small talk with you?"
"When we first met."
"No, I made small talk with Bessie, your shotgun, until you removed her double barrels from my kisser."
Violet and a typical conversation with Harvey ~ Ann Charles

I am sorry to say that Peter was not very well during the evening.
His mother put him to bed, and made some camomile tea; and she gave a dose of it to Peter!
'One table-spoonful to be taken at bed-time.'
But Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail had bread and milk and blackberries for supper. ~ Beatrix Potter

Imagine, what could you really accomplish if your speech was filled with more statements that began with "I can" than with "I can't"? How far could your dreams soar if you said, "Why not me?" instead of "Why me?" more often? And just like when you are learning a new language, you're still going to slip up and say, "I could have done . . ." instead of "I will do . . ." Surround yourself with native successful speakers, and before you know it, you'll begin to speak the life of your dreams into existence. ~ Steve Harvey

Be happy, Caro, because that's what you deserve.
I love you, I have always loved you, and where I go after this world, I will always love you.
Sempre e per sempre. ~ Jane Harvey-Berrick

Speech gave man a unique power to lead a double life, he could say one thing and do another. ~ James Harvey Robinson

It was a beautiful night, warm and filled with stars and the songs of crickets and frogs. White flowers glowed in the grass. It was a night made for poetry. We should have been kissing. A lot.
Instead we were sneaking out of the caves to a blood-soaked clearing where we'd been ambushed not twenty-four hours earlier. Not exactly an ordinary date. ~ Alyxandra Harvey

-Kit-He said my name again and again.Just ... Kit.We held each other tight,rocking,trying to milk the last drops of sensation.Wring the last flashes of lightening.Riders on the storm. ~ Josh Lanyon

Digging

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it. ~ Seamus Heaney

What motivates Olympic athletes to train for years for one event - in some cases, for just seconds of actual competition? It's the same thing that kept my friend Pete nosing around old bookstores for years. It's the same thing that makes a person venture out of a comfortable job to start a new business. We see it in the artist who spends day after day in a studio chipping away at a block of stone. Look closely and you'll find it in the shopper who passes up the good deal in search of the best deal. It's one of the things that makes us most human. We consciously pursue what we value. It's not simply a matter of being driven by biology or genetics or environmental conditioning to satisfy instinctive cravings. Rather, we perceive something, prize it at a certain value, then pursue it according to that assigned value because we were created that way. This ability to perceive, prize, and pursue is part of our essential humanness, and it's the essence of ambition. ~ Dave Harvey

Don't patronize me, Caro", he said, sounding even angrier. "You think I don't know what it means to make this commitment but I do ... Don't dismiss how I feel just because ... just because I'm younger than you. ~ Jane Harvey-Berrick

The filmmaker wanted me to know what I already knew: I had no power. He saw my need and used it against me. My hatred for him was immediate. Like the first swallow of milk that's already gone off - rot strafing the nostrils, flooding the entire skull. The filmmaker laughed at me, and so did the others, the older man who would later place my hand on his dick while he drove me home. None of this was rare. Things like this happened hundreds of times. Maybe more. The hatred that vibrated beneath the surface of my girl's face - I think Suzanne recognized it. ~ Emma Cline

This is my Italy, she thought. The power and beauty of the antiquities, the detailed frescos, the imposing statuaries carved of milk white granite, Don Martinelli's hammered gold chalice, the glorious tones of the music, the Italy of Puccini and Verdi, Caruso and Toscanini, not the Italy of the shattered spirits in Hoboken and the drunken, desperate Anna Buffa. This was the Italy that fed her soul, where hope was restored and broken hearts were mended in the hands of great artists. ~ Adriana Trigiani

I have great faith in the United States. It's the only country I would ever live in. ~ Harvey Fierstein

Well it seems to me, that all real communities grow out of a shared confrontation with survival. Communities are not produced by sentiment or mere goodwill. They grow out of a shared struggle. Our situation in the desert is an incubator for community. ~ Larry Harvey

John H. Watson might have been many things - a doctor, a storyteller, and by most accounts a kind and decent man-but he clearly wasn't a zoologist. There's no such thing as a swamp adder. And the idea that Sherlock Holmes deduced its existence from a saucer of milk is ridiculous- snakes have zero interest in milk. They also can't hear anything but vibrations, so they wouldn't hear a whistle. But they do breathe, so a snake couldn't survive in a locked safe. ~ Brittany Cavallaro

I avow myself the partisan of truth alone. ~ William Harvey

Turn left here," I said about fifteen minutes later.
"I know what you're doing," he told me, but he turned anyway. The road cut through thick bushes and red pine groves. The moon was bright enough to cast blue moonshadow over the snow. If I squinted I could just barely make out a house light through the trees, close to the mountains. We passed the familiar landmarks: the lightning-struck ash, the boulder shaped like a bull, the hill where wild daffodils grew in spring.
My phone rang the very second we crossed onto Drake land.
"Lucy Hamilton, you just keep on driving."
I gulped at Helena's stern voice. "Oops. Bye!" I wrinkled my nose at Kieran. "Busted. Keep driving. ~ Alyxandra Harvey

the Dallas Police Department felt that, in Lee Harvey Oswald, it had a good catch. ~ Jim Bishop

I want you to know that I am one of the more fortunate people in life. There aren't too many of us that somebody selects and says, 'You know, that guy ought to be an umpire.' That's what happened to me. ~ Doug Harvey

Comics are words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures. ~ Harvey Pekar

My great grandma always told me to drink a lot of milk because it's good for the skin. ~ Barbara Palvin

We become our own opposition when we accept the following: procrastinating, lying to ourselves, comparing ourselves to others, and having self-doubts - in short, anything that gets in the way of our becoming who we were created to be. ~ Steve Harvey

Teaching is a great way to keep learning. ~ Matthea Harvey

I'm ninety-five years old. I can have ice cream ten times a day if I want. ~ Sarah N. Harvey

I see things written about the golf swing that I can't believe will work except by accident . ~ Harvey Penick

When we use animals to convert crops into meat, eggs, or milk, the animals use most of the food value to keep warm and develop bones and other parts we can't eat. Most of the food value of the crops we have grown is wasted - in the case of cattle, we get back only 1 pound of beef for every 13 pounds of grain we feed them. With pigs the ratio is 6 pounds of grain to 1 pound of pork. And even these figures underestimate the waste, because meat has a higher water content than grain.30 The world is not running out of food. The problem is that we - the relatively affluent - have found a way to consume four or five times as much food as would be possible, if we were to eat the crops we grow directly. ~ Peter Singer

I woke up this morning for three minutes. I rolled out of bed, put on my slippers, and stared at myself in the bathroom mirror. That was all I could take. I went back to sleep. I didn't go back to bed. I just went back to sleep. I slept all day. I sleep most days. I'm asleep when I go to school, asleep when I'm telling the barista which form of caffeine I prefer. It never wakes me up, but I spend $3.50 on it anyway. I'm asleep when my professors are talking, asleep when I go to the store to pick up milk. Sometimes I wake up, but it's terrifying so I go back to sleep right away. I want to wake up. I want to have a reason to wake up.
I brush my teeth every night before bed and wonder how many times I will brush my teeth before they are clean enough to never brush again. I eat lunch and wonder how much more I will have to eat until I'm full enough to never eat again. It's easy to sleep through routine; I guess that's why I stay here. I wish I could be done with this life so I could finally sleep properly. ~ Marianna Paige

I think my father knew how to be Jewish, but he didn't teach us. He must have thought we would absorb it with our mother's milk. ~ Edith Hahn Beer