Tim Cook Quotes

I knew that I was gay in every bone of my body. So I did the only thing I could do. I started the movement.

My mom has always been a big advocate, especially in the gay, lesbian, transsexual and bisexual community, so for me it's always been a part of my soul.

Every gay who is in the closet is ultimately a threat to the freedom of gays. I don't want to seem intolerant to them and I think we have to say that to them with a great deal of affection, but remaining in the closet is the other side of the prejudice against gays. Because until you challenge it, you are not playing an active role in fighting it.

My views on equality are pretty obvious. I mean, I did play a highly complex lesbian techno DJ on TV, but I know it's not always easy to come out and tell the world where you stand.

I don't get this shitty attitude that only gays should care about gay issues and only women should care about women's issues.

I have always been very open and honest about this part of my life with my friends, my family, and my colleagues. In a perfect world, I don't think it's anyone else's business, but I do think there is value in standing up and being counted. I’m not an activist, but I am a human being and I don't give that up by being a journalist.

I think it's kind of awkward when everyone knows you're gay but you don't say it. I had been thinking about coming out for almost a year before I did. I thought about it seriously on the plane ride home from the World Cup, while I was casually talking to my friend Lori Lindsey. She said, "Dude, you should just come out." She was right. Everyone in my life already knew. If you want to stand up and fight for equal rights but then won't even stand up for yourself and say "I'm gay" - that just started to feel weird.

When I came out, when I was 17 years old, it was one of those things where I realized that there was going to be so many obstacles, but being gay doesn't mean being weak. And being gay doesn't mean that you are less than anybody else. It's just who you are.

Just as I love women, I love gay men. I always say it: inside me there is a gay man who wants to come out.

I never had a moral problem with being gay.

I'm gay. I just didn't think it was anybody's business.

He had risked his freedom and his pride to buy her this, to acknowledge that part of her that everyone else seemed to want to get rid of.

We have the history of slavery or inequality to women, and now the civil rights movement of the 21st century is the struggle for equality for the gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people. And I think it's important for Americans to know about the times that we failed.

When in fact we live in a society that makes life hell for gays and lesbians, this community has got to stand up and say, ‘We’re on your side as you struggle for dignity,’ and, ‘Yes, we will defy anybody who says otherwise, even if we have to go to Disneyland to prove it.’

Tonight, somewhere in America, a young person, let's say a young man, will struggle to fall to sleep, wrestling alone with a secret he's held as long as he can remember. Soon, perhaps, he will decide it's time to let that secret out. What happens next depends on him, his family, as well as his friends and his teachers and his community. But it also depends on us - on the kind of society we engender, the kind of future we build.

Black gay activists should try to build coalitions of people for the elimination of all injustice.

So let me be clear: I'm proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me.

I have been reluctant to lobby on other issues I most care about - nuclear weapons (against), religion (atheist), capital punishment (anti), AIDS (fund-raiser) because I don't want to be forever spouting, diluting the impact of addressing my most urgent concern - legal and social equality for gay people worldwide.

You have to take your hat off to the homosexual and gay community cause right now they're as strong as black people USE to be when it comes to their rights.

I'm gay and always have been, even when I was David Jones.

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.

I cannot prevent anyone from getting angry, or mad, or frustrated. I can only hope that they'll turn that anger and frustration and madness into something positive, so that two, three, four, five hundred will step forward, so the gay doctors will come out, the gay lawyers, the gay judges, gay bankers, gay architects I hope that every professional gay will say 'enough', come forward and tell everybody, wear a sign, let the world know. Maybe that will help.

I don't feel there's anything about my experience of being gay that gives me more insight into "don't ask, don't tell," for example, than anybody else.

Gays are beginning to realize what blacks learned long ago: Unless you are out here fighting for yourself then nobody else will help you. I think the gay community has a moral obligation to continue the fight.

There's a better way to speak out against President Putin and call out his bigotry for exactly what it is: speaking up for equal rights and educating people around the world about the persistence of homophobia. Rather than boycott, I, along with several amazing organizations including Athlete Ally and All Out, plan to use the Sochi Games as a teachable moment for the world.