“Setting up absurd worlds with rules to violate - it's one of the things I hope to achieve with my work.” WorldAchieveSettingAbsurdSettings Author:Jimenez Lai
“The popular idea of a role model implies that an adult's influence on a child is primarily occupational, and that all a black child needs is to see a black doctor, and then this child will think, "Oh, I can become a doctor too."” ThinkingNeedsChildrenI CanIdeasBlackRolesInfluenceModelsAdultsDoctorsRole Models Author:Richard Rodriguez
“I have a good black friend who is a doctor, but he didn't become a doctor because he saw other black men who were doctors. He became a doctor because his mother cleaned office buildings at night, and because she loved her children. She grew bowlegged from cleaning office buildings at night, and in the process she taught him something about courage and bravery and dedication to others.” MenChildrenMotherNightProcessBlackSawsBuildingTaughtGrewOfficeDoctorsBraveryDedicationCleaningBravery And CourageOffice Buildings Author:Richard Rodriguez
“I became a writer not because my father was one - my father made false teeth for a living. I became a writer because the Irish nuns who educated me taught me something about bravery with their willingness to give so much to me.” GivingMadeFatherTaughtBraveryTeethEducatedWillingnessNun Author:Richard Rodriguez
“I think the universities have co-opted the intellectual, by and large. But there is an emerging intellectual set coming out of Washington think tanks now. There are people who are leaving the universities and working for the government or in think tanks, simply looking for freedom.” PeopleThinkingGovernmentIntellectualLeavingUniversityComing OutTanksEmerging Author:Richard Rodriguez
“The university has become so stultified since the sixties. There is so much you can't do at the university. You can't say this, you can't do that, you can't think this, and so forth. In many ways, I'm free to range as widely as I do intellectually precisely because I'm not at a university. The tiresome Chicanos would be after me all the time. You know: "We saw your piece yesterday, and we didn't like what you said," or, "You didn't sound happy enough," or, "You didn't sound proud enough."” ThinkingKnowsWaySaidEnoughWould BeSoundSawsPiecesProudUniversityYesterdayRangeSixtyTiresome Author:Richard Rodriguez
“I've once gotten in trouble with certain gay activists because I'm not gay enough! I am a morose homosexual. I'm melancholy. Gay is the last adjective I would use to describe myself. The idea of being gay, like a little sparkler, never occurs to me. So if you ask me if I'm gay, I say no.” IfsLittlesIdeasEnoughUseLastsCertainAsksTroubleGayAsk MeMelancholyActivistHomosexualAdjectivesBeing GayDescribe MyselfMorose Author:Richard Rodriguez
“After the second chapter of Days of Obligation, which is about the death of a friend of mine from AIDS, was published in Harper's, I got this rather angry letter from a gay-and-lesbian group that was organizing a protest against the magazine. It was the same old problem: political groups have almost no sense of irony.” ProblemPoliticalGroupsMinesGayLettersAngryAidsObligationMagazinesIronyProtestChaptersHarperDeath Of A FriendPolitical Groups Author:Richard Rodriguez
“For them [LGBT group], language has to say exactly what it means. "Why aren't you proud of being gay?" they wanted to know. "Why are you so dark? Why are you so morbid? Why are you so sad? Don't you realize, we're all okay? Let's celebrate that fact." But that is not what writers do. We don't celebrate being "okay." If you want to be okay, take an aspirin.” IfsKnowsWantMeanFactsWantedLanguageRealizingDarkGroupsProudGayOkayCelebrateLgbtMorbidBeing GaySo SadAspirinBeing Okay Author:Richard Rodriguez
“In some ways I consider myself more Chinese, because I live in San Francisco, which is becoming a predominantly Asian city. I avoid falling into the black-and-white dialectic in which most of America still seems trapped. I have always recognized that, as an American, I am in relationship with other parts of the world; that I have to measure myself against the Pacific, against Asia. Having to think of myself in relationship to that horizon has liberated me from the black-and-white checkerboard.” ThinkingWorldWayStillsSeemsAmericaFallBlackWhiteCitiesBecomingChineseHorizonTrappedBlack And WhiteAsiaAsianSan FranciscoLiberatedPacificDialecticsRelationships With OthersCheckerboard Author:Richard Rodriguez