Gradual Awareness Quotes

People say, 'When did you decide you were gay?' and you think, 'When did you decide you were heterosexual?' It's not a decision: it's something you gradually begin to realise about yourself.

At the exact moment any decision seems to be being made, it's usually long after the real decision was actually made--like light we see emitted from stars.

You have to be very careful introducing the truth to the black man, who has never previously heard the truth about himself. The black brother is so brainwashed that he may reject the truth when he first hears it. You have to drop a little bit on him at a time, and wait a while to let that sink in before advancing to the next step

I woke in bits, like all children, piecemeal over the years. I discovered myself and the world, and forgot them, and discovered them again.

The need for an office sort of crept up on me.

If somebody says, 'Do you remember the first time you heard a Rolling Stones song?' if you say you do, you're crazy. You've just always heard them. You might remember the first time it impacted you, but the first time you heard one, you were in a cradle.

She thought she would know when it happened. But now, as she looked around, she wondered if it was really like that at all. Maybe it happened in a million different ways, when you were thinking of it and you weren't. Maybe there was no gap, no jump, no chasm. You didn't forget yourself all at once. Maybe you just looked around one time or another and you thought, Hey. And there you were.

Insight that dawns slowly seems to me to have more lasting effects than a fitful idealism, which is unlikely to hold out for long.