"The repeal of don't ask, don't tell didn't change things for transgender people in the military. What it has done, though, I think, is it has taught our military leaders that they don't need to be afraid of these issues."

“Publishing a book is a great thing, and I'm grateful, but it's also a horrible, exposing thing. Once you've published a book, you never write quite as freely again. You're aware, from that point onward, of the kinds of things critics might say about it. You're aware of the kinds of things your publishers might like and dislike about it. You're half-aware of marketing strategies - of all the stuff around the book. Whereas with your very first piece of fiction, if you're lucky, those things barely occur to you at all.”

Source : Source: www.guernicamag.com

“There are two things. There was the moral responsibility, and that, first, is creating an atmosphere where the security forces can kill with impunity, where they can turn up at a place, shoot seven people - really at point-blank fashions - and then get away with it and be, in fact, promoted. And then there is the actual responsibility, the governmental responsibility. My aunt's government forbade us, initially, from filing a police report - which is every Pakistani citizen's right under the law.”

Source : Source: www.sbs.com.au

“There is, in lovers, a certain infatuation of egotism; they will have a witness of their happiness, cost that witness what it may.”

“People get bored of hearing the same genre of music over and over again. Observe the current musical landscape and predict what "mood" people will be in next. Ask yourself what would be the most natural transition or reaction to the current genre. Then create it!”

“We find what we expect to find, and we receive what we ask for.”

Source : Jo Coudert (2003). “Advice from a Failure”, p.29, iUniverse

“Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving your fellow man.”

“Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer.”

“My grandmother's feet had been bound when she was two years old. Her mother...first wound a piece of white cloth about twenty feet long round her feet, bending all the toes except the big toe inward and under the sole. Then she placed a large stone on top to crush the arch.”