Sharon Draper Quotes

It's good to get out of the closet and talk about it and find out other people's views.

The Trevor Project is committed to providing all young people, regardless of sexual identity, the opportunity to be heard and the encouragement to be themselves.

I think teenagers just want a place to feel safe and understood and heard, while also understanding that it's really scary right now in the world. We don't want to be told, "It's all going to be okay." We want to talk honestly about what's happening and what we can do.

I help out at Tall Trees, which my aunt set up on the Central Coast. It's where intellectually impaired young people can paint. Their artwork's sent to hospitals all over Australia to brighten up their rooms.

Lets tell young people the best books are yet to written; the best painting, the best government the best of everything is yet to be done by them.

Talk about your problems. There's no need to feel shy. It's always good to talk about issues that concern you.

I tend to focus on young people and on giving a voice to groups of people who don't normally get their voices heard.

When you start targeting a community there is that feeling of anger the frustration and hatred that comes in and that brings the young people away from the community and goes into the extreme hands.

We have to let young people know that we care about them and their future. I want to involve them to a level where they become the leaders and the advocates because, right now, a lot of these young people don't believe they have an advocate.

I'm passionate about speaking out against bullying and speaking up for self-awareness with young people and body-image issues and self-esteem issues.

I think fathers, mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers - we should look at what young people are saying to us.

The Trevor Project provides crisis-intervention and suicide-prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning teens and young adults. It's truly a lifeline to so many young people who just need someone to listen to them.

I just want to use my voice and my platform to help people. Whether it be political or therapeutic.

Gurls Talk is my baby. It's just about opening up a space within schools where we as women and girls can talk about whatever we want.

I honestly always really try to get people to share their feelings. I always say to everyone that communication is key.

I founded the Me Too Movement because there was a void in the community that I was in. There were gaps in services. There was dearth in resources, and I saw young people - I saw black and brown girls - who are hurting and who needed something that just wasn't there.

Creativity, for a lot of young people, is a coping mechanism. It's the only place they feel comfortable. It's the only time they feel like they're being heard or can make a difference, is if they can go into a room and do a drawing or go to a garage and play a song or retreat to this world.

We're seeing young people find their own voices and find their activism.

Young people should be at the forefront of global change and innovation. Empowered, they can be key agents for development and peace. If, however, they are left on society's margins, all of us will be impoverished. Let us ensure that all young people have every opportunity to participate fully in the lives of their societies.

What I can do is to go out and talk about the problems and solutions, make people aware of the scope of the problems, get them to become advocates for a turnaround, and convince them to develop an action plan, targeted to their community, to deal with young people. [They need to] find out what the kids want to do - dances, midnight-basketball leagues.

Dear young people, do not give up your dreams of a more just world!

I used to feel so bad before I got to the clubhouse, I didn't know what to do. But when I put that ballsuit on, I don't know where I got the spark to save my life.

It's easy to become hopeless. So people must have hope: the human brain, the resilience of nature, the energy of young people and the sort of inspiration that you see from so many hundreds of people who tackle tasks that are impossible and never give up and succeed.

I'm lucky enough to have a kid with me who is actually really intellectually up with what's going on in the world and actually puts his money where his mouth is and goes and does something about it; he goes and talks about it. It livens you up a bit and it brings you into the 21st Century.

A lot of people in the jazz community are looking at how much notoriety we're getting. And we're an inspiration to a lot of young people, because now there's something new they can aim for that's in their grasp. Because a lot of times when you attend a jazz college it's all about the history, none of the teachers there are forward-thinking, for the most part, so they don't teach you how to be yourself and embrace the music around you.