Elton John Quotes

Because of the lack of education on AIDS, discrimination, fear, panic, and lies surrounded me.

I remember specifically, in the summer of 2002, the rate of women infected with HIV/AIDS was beginning to match the rate of men, and nobody was talking about it. It was as if it was on nobody else's radar. I had made up my mind to do something about it.

I thought, wait and see—maybe it [AIDS] is not as hot as some are making it appear. I definitely admit to a gross underestimate. We're running scared.

Fear and ignorance fuel so much homophobia.

Most men's awareness doesn't extend past their dinner plates.

My parents taught me that AIDS was a man-made disease designed to get rid of the undesirable people.

There is a misconception that I've experienced in my life about people that live in the South. I got sent away to school in Connecticut in the late Eighties, and kids were honestly asking me, 'Do people there wear shoes?'

Domestic violence is an epidemic, and yet we don't address it. Until it happens to celebrities.

People are less likely to think it's immoral to walk away from their home if they know others who have done so. And if enough people do it, the stigma begins to erode.

Boxing is for the poor man. A lot of people don't know what's going on, but I've been able to see it first-hand, and if I can speak out on the behalf of fighters going through problems, I will, because... it's important to create awareness. Everyone should speak up. Because if people are aware, maybe there can be change.

You can spread awareness through entertainment.

I suffered a lot when I tried to make sanitary napkins and promote the idea. My family - including my mother and wife - deserted me. Villagers even tied me to a tree and beat me. But after seeing me successful now, they come and say that they all knew that I would become famous one day.

There are so many things we don't know about because they don't get spoken about, and people might be embarrassed to speak up or might be shamed into not speaking up.

Music must awaken people to do their duty as citizens and act.

Prince was not scared. The first time I heard someone sing about AIDS, it was Prince: 'In France, a skinny man died of a big disease with a little name.' He was not afraid of taboos.

I don't really pay attention to the news or stuff like that or what's going on in politics.

... not talking about things she doesn't understand to people who do or about things she does to people who don't.

You don’t get black power by chanting it. You get it by doing what the other groups have done. The Irish kept quiet. They didn’t shout “Irish Power”, “Jew Power”, [or] “Italian Power”. They kept their mouths shut and took over the police department of New York City, and the mayorship of Boston.

Knowing your HIV status is such an easy thing to do, but again, we've created this stigma around even going to get tested.

Individuals bearing witness do not change history; only movements that understand their social world can do that. Movements encourage solidarity; the moral individual is likely, all unwittingly, to do the opposite, for bearing witness is lonely: it breeds feelings of superiority and moralistic anger against those who are not doing the same.

I don't know how to change the world but I know if I keep talking about how dirty it is out here, somebody gon clean it up.

The complete emancipation of women from the ties which held them back in the past, during the ages of despotism and ignorance, is a basic aim of the Party and the Revolution. Women make up one half of society. Our society will remain backward and in chains unless its women are liberated, enlightened and educated.

When the AIDS epidemic first started there were people who said, "Well, if there weren't gays, then we wouldn't have this problem. It's got to be because of them - let it be them instead of us." But when you educate yourself about it, you can't help but realize that we're all affected by it. I think that things like that just become too daunting for people.

Ten years ago, when I was on an airplane and I introduced myself to my seatmate, and told them [I was a psychologist], they'd move away from me. ... And now when I tell people what I do, they move toward me.

The AIDS epidemic has rolled back a big rotting log and revealed all the squirming life underneath it, since it involves, all at once, the main themes of our existence: sex, death, power, money, love, hate, disease and panic. No American phenomenon has been so compelling since the Vietnam War.