Jay Ellis Quotes

HIV changed my life, but I think I've accepted it. I don't even think about it unless someone brings it up.

HIV changed my life, but it doesn't keep me from living.

I just want to recognize, the HIV epidemic was solved by the community, the HIV advocates and activists who stood up when no one was listening and got everyone's attention.

A lot of people have forgotten the severity of this disease, of HIV. So I think it's important that we just talk about things like this: how we can prevent it, how we can make sure that people are safe, how they can move forward, too, if they do have HIV.

I have AIDS. I am surprised that I do. I have not been exposed since1977, which is to say that my experience, myadventures in homosexuality took place largely in the1960s and '70s, and back then I relied on time and abstinence to indicate my degree of freedom from infectionand to protect others and myself.

If you have HIV, I don't think there's anything to be ashamed of. Get treatment and don't think that you're out of options or resources because you're not.

My having HIV has no bearing on my business.

I'll hear people say every so often that having HIV must not be so bad - 'Just look at Magic and how well he's doing.'

HIV brings out the best and the worst in humanity, and the laws reflect these attitudes.

People with HIV are still stigmatized. The infection rates are going up. People are dying. The political response is appalling. The sadness of it, the waste.

You might get AIDS in Kenya, people have AIDS, you’ve got to be careful. I mean, the towels could have AIDS.

When we can get the incidence of HIV down enough to turn the trajectory of the pandemic, it will assume a momentum of its own in diminishing HIV.

The general population still thinks HIV is something that came in the 80s and went away, or that it only affects the gay population or intravenous drug users.

Some countries have good laws, laws which could stem the tide of HIV. The problem is that these laws are flouted. Because stigma gives unofficial license to treat people living with HIV or those at greatest risk unlike other citizens.

Laws that treat people living with HIV or those at greatest risk with respect start with the way that we treat them ourselves: as equals. If we are going to stop the spread of HIV in our lifetime, then that is the change we need to spread.

Eighty percent of Americans with HIV do not know they are infected.

People wait in line to see me, saying there's plenty of living to be done even if you have an HIV diagnosis. People say they are 10- or 15-year survivors and still moving forward.

We can sharply deflect the curve of HIV incidence.

Where you criminalize people living with HIV or those at greatest risk, you fuel the epidemic.

HIV AIDS is a preventable disease and should never be a source of shame!

In strictly medical terms, there's no difference between HIV and diabetes; they're not curable, but they're very, very highly treatable, and early information is power. The only thing - literally the only thing - that is different is the stigma. And we have to overcome it, because it is now the only reason people are dying.

We think that if we get tested, that means you have to have HIV. Or we think that just by knowing someone with HIV, we're going to get HIV or because he's gay or she's a lesbian or whatever. This false information has been put out there and it's created this stigma that stops us from going to find out if we're infected. The truth is it doesn't matter who you are, if you're having sex, you need to be getting tested, plain and simple.

It is only when you despair of all ordinary means, it is only when you convince it that it must help you or you perish, that the seed of life in you bestirs itself to provide a new resource.

It's pretty impossible to be a South African and not have been personally affected by HIV or AIDS.

HIV/AIDS has been a big epidemic for my generation, it's been around for as long as I've been alive.