Masha Gessen Quotes

My applications submitted to the Tribunal regarding my interview during the hunger strike were misinterpreted, and it was published in the press that I was going to offer defence, though in reality I was never willing to offer any defence.

If he is convicted, Dr. Kevorkian says he will die a martyr's death by going on a hunger strike.

It's no fun to protest on an empty stomach.

In the final years of his life, when former Communist Party Chief Zhao Ziyang lived under house arrest, in Beijing, his aging friends resorted to donning white doctors' coats in order to slip past the guards stationed outside his home.

Rebellions of the belly are the worst.

A fast is not a hunger strike. Fasting submits to God's commands. A hunger strike makes God submit to our demands.

To say that I could manipulate one of the men who has shown the most courage before the Cuban government, who gets beaten every day, who did a hunger strike that freed political prisoners... I think that's absurd.

I know that when I was on my hunger strike, I reacted very negatively to people telling me what I should and shouldn't do.

When someone who wields political power does something you dislike or disagree with, it's incumbent upon you to object, criticize, and demand a different course. Those who refuse to do so are abdicating the most basic duty of citizenship and rendering themselves impotent.

The Soviet Union at this time was being run by the Communists, a group of men fierce in their dedication to wearing hilariously bad suits. Their leader was Josef Stalin (Russian for "Joey Bananas")

I like to think I have the guts to stand up anonymously in a western democracy and call for things no-one else believes in - like peace and justice and freedom.

What would things been like [in Russia] if during periods of mass arrests people had not simply sat there, paling with terror at every bang on the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but understood they had nothing to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people?

I think people would be up in arms. I think we would most likely have a similar situation to what happened in the 60s. I don't know if it would be as violent, I think it would be difficult to say that. But I think that, from what I can understand, our nation as a whole is largely against the war as it stands.

The spirit of rebellion is present in every great city, and the great task of wise government is to keep it dormant, for if it wakes it is a torrent which no dam can hold back.

I don't think we live in a place where we don't want people to be able to say when they disagree with the president or incoming administration.

The "October Revolution" is a myth generated by the winners, the Bolsheviks, and swallowed whole by progressive circles in the West.

It is quiet here and restful and the air is delicious. There are gardens everywhere and police spies lie in the bushes. There are nightingales in every garden, but police spies only in mine, I think. They sit under my windows in the darkness of the night and try to get a glimpse of how I spread sedition in Russia.

Even if they're functioning out of ignorance, they are still participating and must be suppressed. In China, even one million people can be considered a small sum.

I'm sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic, and we should stand up and say, "We are Americans and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration!"

As well as being a vulgar producer of her own spectacle, and an embarrassment to her family, Cindy Sheehan is at best a shifty fantasist.

I thought in 1965 that my job was to convince most Americans to be against the war. So I spent summers knocking on doors, handing out literature, trying to talk to people who didn't agree with me, trying to get them to see the war was wrong. And by 1968 a majority of Americans did oppose the war.

While women weep, as they do now, I'll fight.

We've got a [Canadian] prime minister who seems to be intent on destroying our health system and education system. But I have gotten a thicker skin. I can get angry about these things without feeling like vomiting, if you know what I mean.

Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. If Casy knowed, why, I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad an’—I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry n’ they know supper’s ready. An’ when our folks eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they build—why, I’ll be there.

I'll say this about the war protesters: At least most of them are only putting duct tape across their mouths so I can still tell the rest of them to blow it out their ass.