“My father was a physicist and also an activist. My first public protes...” — Joan Baez Quote

“My father was a physicist and also an activist. My first public protest was with my dad at Stanford. I came by all that honestly.”

“The easiest kind of relationship for me is with ten thousand people. The hardest is with one.”

“I spend a lot of time with Buddhists. I'm not a Buddhist, but their relationship with death interests me.”

“I would be an activist but never a politician. As an activist, nobody owns you.”

“For years I was the only publicly out gay person who was not a full-time gay activist: my position as a quasi-foreigner gave me a privileged perch, and my ability to earn money by writing for western publications made me almost impervious to discrimination. Other Russians were not in a hurry to come out.”

“You know, I was a community activist, so I'm used to standing out in front of an elected official's office and protesting.”