“John Brown first swam into my vision in the 1960s when I was a politic...” — Russell Banks Quote

“John Brown first swam into my vision in the 1960s when I was a political activist in the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement at Chapel Hill, where I went to university.”

“First of all it's usually women who run these higher primate sanctuaries, rarely men. They are white. They come from privileged backgrounds. They are educated.”

“Although I still occasionally paint and draw, my life has now been shaped by my writing.”

“But really, it was reading that led me to writing. And in particular, reading the American classics like Twain who taught me at an early age that ordinary lives of ordinary people can be made into high art.”

“Every morning, before beginning our day's labor, we gathered together in the parlor for prayers and Father's brief sermon, and even though I had grown long used to these solemn services, they nevertheless uplifted me, as I believe they did the others, and made the day's work easier, for despite my unbelief, the services connected our labor to something larger than ourselves and our petty daily needs. Father's intention, I am sure, was precisely that–to lead us to understand our woodcutting and plowing and constant care of animals, the day-long manufacture of our meals and the permanent ongoing repair of our tools and equipment, and our endless preparation for the long winter, such that we would believe that we were participating in a great cycle of life, as if we were tiny arcs of an enormous curve, a universal template that began with birth and ended with death and which, if participated in fully and without shirking, would lead us to a second and still larger cycle of rebirth and regeneration, to an infinite spiral, as it were. Thus, as the fields were prepared and sown, so too were our inner lives being prepared and sown, and as our land and our livestock grew fruitful and multiplied, so did our spirits blossom and bear fruit, and as we dried and salted and stored our food and supplies in sawdust and hay for winter, so would our spirits and minds be prepared to endure the inescapable suffering and deaths of our loved ones, which would come to us as inevitably as the freezing winds and the deep, drifting snows of winter.”

“I have an ideological umbilical cord with the BJP... we are three-generation party supporters... my grandfather was a swayamsevak, my mother, a BJP booth activist.”

“My mother said, 'Did you ever believe you would be an activist?' I said, 'No, not really.' But I just felt in my heart that I needed to step up and be a leader in the forefront.”

“I'm really not a politician: I don't have a political background, though I've been an activist fighting for my community for years. So I had to learn a lot about my government.”

“I don't think I'm a gay activist. I used to be.”

“I think the point is that each of us, in our own unique ways, can make a contribution. You don't have to be a full time activist or even run for office. Start small, commit to it, and build on it.”

“For a generation, Republicans have tried to unravel the activist government under which Americans have lived since the 1930s, when Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt created a government that regulated business, provided a basic social safety net, and invested in infrastructure.”