Saul Alinsky Quotes

Working with the Jewish community is essential to me and what I stand for.

That was very difficult for me on 'American Idol' to feel like I had to be a certain way. It wasn't that the producers were saying that you shouldn't be gay or whatever, but there was this unspoken energy around saying you have to appeal to Middle America, and Middle America at that point was not ready for all that.

I have more respect for somebody who points at his ideal - in this case, the ideal of the pirate - and then becomes something that's more radical, more exciting, more subversive than a pirate could ever be.

Now, when an American has an idea, he directly seeks a second American to share it. If there be three, they elect a president and two secretaries. Given four, they name a keeper of records, and the office is ready for work; five, they convene a general meeting, and the club is fully constituted.

I don't imagine my parents are too excited about my kind of life. The surrounding weirdness bothers them. Still, I think they're pretty good. Their lives are based on what their friends think, just like ours are.

The reason most people don't express their individuality and actually deny it, is not fear of what prime ministers think of us or the head of the federal reserve, It's what their families and their friends down at the bar are going to think of them.

Muslim communities themselves, as they expect mainstream society to stand down racists, must do more to also stand down the Islamist extremists.

Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves.

I am different than some people would like me to be. I just don't buy into that the personal can be political.

Fitting in is boring. But it takes you nearly your whole life to work that out.

We should not judge Islam by terrorists. All civilizations and cultures produce terrorists. Every time there is a flag-burning, killing, or provocative films, I'm worried, not because something radical will happen, and this time, some people are killed. We're very sorry for that.

I'll do anything. I'll shave my head for the right job. I'm partial to my facial hair, I guess, but I also enjoy doing something where I look totally different, which is kind of the reason why I've always worn long hair. I can really change my look radically by getting rid of it.

I grew up in Dallas, with cowboys. I was the only guy in sixth grade with long hair and an earring. Let's just say I got a lot of, er, flak for being different.

Religion is a very delicate subject in Lebanon. You have to know how to say things in a very delicate way in order to be accepted.

Understand: as children and young adults, we are taught to conform to certain codes of behavior and ways of doing things. We learn that being different comes with a social price.

I would prefer a society where we don't have to explain ourselves. But I get that many people just need those labels to understand it. And if I make my situation or beliefs more understandable by putting labels on it, I'm happy to do it.

We really pride ourselves on the notion that what makes our program special is that we really do our very best to make sure that everything we do is culturally responsive and relevant.

I don't think drag will ever be mainstream because it's counter to what the mainstream directive is, which is picking an identity and sticking with it for the rest of your life.

Revolutionary moments attract those who are not good enough for established institutions as well as those who are too good for them.

I will say that the power of being a stranger in someone else's religious community has its own lessons, really. It is something like the power of visiting another very happy extended family and being at their table.

There are five things that societies do: They reproduce; they produce food; they organize themselves in terms of law; they organize themselves in terms of belief; and they make art. Four of them are about conformity, and in these, everything would go more smoothly if people just would shut up and do what they're told. But in art it doesn't work that way.

The reason they want you to fit in... is that once you do, then they can ignore you.

Working with the Jewish community is essential to me and what I stand for. I do explicitly see Jewish people as a people - not either a religion or an ethnicity but a people. The Tories take Jewish London for granted. I will not.

Assassination, kidnappings and suicide attacks have become too much the standard operating procedure in the Islamic world. So much so that the name of Islam itself has been diminished in the eyes of many people. It is the responsibility of all of us, and particularly those in the Islamic world who care about their religion, to rescue it from its increased association with violence.

If the man doesn't believe as we do, we say he is a crank, and that settles it. I mean, it does nowadays, because now we can't burn him.