Dan Savage Quotes

I don't apologize for my behavior anymore. Whatever I do or don't do shouldn't matter. Moral certainty is dangerous. Moral certainty is what makes people go to war unnecessarily and illegally. Morality, as any halfway intelligent human being would tell you, is a very subjective thing.

I just do what I want to do without hurting other people and you know, I wish other people would do the same.

There were people who lied for gain, people who lied from pain, people who lied simply because the concept of telling the truth was utterly alien to them . . . and then there were people who lied because they were waiting for it to be time to tell the truth.

I'm neutral on lying, seeing as how there's times when the truth just hurts people.

Me, myself, personally, I like to keep myself private. I have never said I am a paragon of virtue, a model of morality. I simply do what I do.

I don't give a damn what other people think. It's entirely their own business. I'm not writing for other people.

People have a right to their own lives, and if you can't help somebody, you ought to get out of their way.

Who's married and who isn't married. I have my standards but I shouldn't have to impose my standards on others. Other people have their standards and they have no right to impose their marriage standards on me.

Nobody can tell you to do things a way that you don't want to do them. Nobody can say really what's right or what's wrong. It's like some people don't feed their children meat. Some people do. It's a crazy world.

I think forcing people to uncover their head is as tyrannical as forcing them to cover it.

Don't get caught up in other people's expectations. Don't take anything for granted, either.

I'm not one to hide anything, but I don't feel the need to comment directly on [my relationships]... I think it would be a shame to not live in the moment and not enjoy everything that's happening in fear of other people's opinions.

Sometimes I don't tell the truth, which is telling the truth about not telling the truth. I think people don't tell the truth when they're afraid that something bad's going to happen if they tell the truth. I say things all the time that I could really get into trouble for, but they kind of blow over.

People can think what they want to think, I don't go after people. I think most people I talk to, like me, are very quiet and keep to themselves, they maintain their lives.

Today I will realize that I'm powerless over other people's expectations of me. I'll think about what I want and consider that how I respond to others' needs will affect the course of my life. I will own my own power and choose the course that's right for me.

I get that some people just want to do work and keep their lives private. I think for me, it just felt like I needed to be open about who I am. It just felt like the right thing for me to do.

Freedom is for honest people. No man who is not himself honest can be free – he is his own trap.

There are problems connected with infidelity and problems connected with being faithful at any cost, and I am for letting those concerned choose the problems they'd prefer. There need not be one rule for all. Infidelity is enlarging and fragmenting and very very dangerous, but it has been known to retrieve people as well as marriages, so it can't be only bad.

No man must encroach upon my province, nor I upon his. He may advise me, moderately and without pertinaciousness, but he must not expect to dictate to me. He may censure me freely and without reserve; but he should remember that I am to act by my deliberation and not his. I ought to exercise my talents for the benefit of others; but that exercise must be the fruit of my own conviction; no man must attempt to press me into the service.

You want to make a difference in your world? Live a holy life: Be faithful to your spouse. Be the one at the office who refuses to cheat. Be the neighbor who acts neighbors. Be the employee who does the work and doesn't complain. Pay your bills. Do your part and enjoy life. Don't speak one message and live another. People are watching the way we act more than they are listening to what we say.

I think the idea is that every person has to live for his or her own life and then make the choice to share it with other people. Maybe that is what makes people "participate.

I'm done living for other people. I'm done being a people pleaser. I'm done thinking about what people think about me.

Lies are a tremendous karmic setback. Keep it up and you'll come back in the next life as something without a spine. You're not fine. And you don't have to be fine.

Yes. The way people behave, the paradoxes, the contradictions. All these things we have to live with and still pretend that everything is only black or white. That, I think, is the most interesting thing in human nature. The fact that we have to do one thing and pretend something else. That’s when it becomes very interesting. If you can literally speak the way you feel, then it’s not interesting anymore. It’s when you have to lie that it becomes interesting.

You have to just do your thing. As long as you don't hurt anybody along the way.