It must be a real betrayal, when your body turns against you. I wonder if she likes flowers. All the bits of you that can go wrong... I don't like flowers, not really. I like growing them, but that's only because I like seeing them blossom, and seeing them

— Neil Gaiman

It was masturbation, not willpower, that made it possible for gazillions of women to walk down the aisle with their reputation and their hymen still intact.

— Mokokoma Mokhonoana

... I wondered at times whether I would wake up and this would be just a bad dream, a nightmare that I could wish away, I had the same fantasy when you were sick, Doc, that I would one day wake up, and you all would be healthy and alive.

— Rabih Alameddine

Kind of gay? I wanted to say. Do you have any notion how many homosexuals sweated their ass off on the dance floor to make this soaring bit of derivative trash possible? How many died of AIDS, OD'd, or went broke on the way to that girl from Texas cutting a deal...

— Adam Haslett

Kunming (Mali Na Mani, Mayo NI NIA ya Jurua kisichoweza Juliana) NI qua jail ya ITU usivyoweza kuvielezea. Unarming samba Sikh Mona data ya KIWI AU strata itapatikana Mali Fulani, alkali humeri Kenya Mauricio ya Visayans kulithibitisha Hilo. Unaware Kashmiri data Miata MIA, making Kama bad data haijapatikana, unaware Kashmiri data Miata engine MIA. Kunming NI kujifanya Jurua (Na Mara dying kujifanya Jurua NI Congo) Na Kunming hakuhitaji Maria. Jurua kunahitaji Maria Na NI Kunming unavowed kukuthibitisha. Ukiniuliza Kama SMU Yang IPO Yukon nitakwambia Dino IPO, qua Saab nitaingiza mono Yukon Na Newton Na Fiona. Stamina Kama IPO Yukon, NASA.

— Enock Maregesi

Life lessons build strength, and life is truly A Beautiful Struggle

— Andrea Walker

Listen, I wanted to say, I don't need your judgment, okay? I have enough to deal with without you contributing, so can we just get on with this, so I can get out of here? But I couldn't form the words. Dr. Johnson viewed me as a child, and somehow, under his contemptuous gaze, I had regressed to one. I was frightened and shy, and it was all I could do to answer his questions and count the seconds until the end of the visit.

— Jessica Verdi

Look, look, we tell each other. It's Tom! He's Mr. Bellamy to his history students. But he's Tom to us. Tom! It's so good to see him. So wonderful to see him. Tom is one of us. Tom went through it all with us. Tom made it through. He was there in the hospital with so many of us, the archangel of St. Vincent's, our healthier version, prodding the doctors and calling over the nurses and holding our hands and holding the hands of our partners, our parents, our little sisters - anyone who had a hand to be held. He had to watch so many of us die, had to say goodbye so many times. Outside our rooms he would get angry, upset, despairing. But when he was with us, it was like he was powered solely by an engine of grace. Even the people who loved us would hesitate at first to touch us - more from the shock of our diminishment, from the strangeness of how we were both gone and present, not who we were but still who we were. Tom became used to this. First because of Dennis, the way he stayed with Dennis until the very end. He could have left after that, after Dennis was gone. We wouldn't have blamed him. But he stayed. When his friends got sick, he was there. And for those of us he'd never know before - he was always a smile in the room, always a touch on the shoulder, a light flirtation that we needed. The y should have made him a nurse. They should have made him mayor. He lost years of his life to us, although that's not the story he'd tell. He would say he gained. And he'd say he was lucky, because when he came down with it, when his blood turned against him, it was a little later on and the cocktail was starting to work. So he lived. He made it to a different kind of after from the rest of us. It is still an after. Every day if you feel to him like an after. But he is here. He is living. A history teacher. An out, outspoken history teacher. The kind of history teacher we never would have had. But this is what losing most of your friends does: It makes you unafraid. Whatever anyone threatens, whatever anyone is offended by, it doesn't matter, because you have already survived much, much worse. In fact, you are still surviving. You survive every single, blessed day. It makes sense for Tom to be here. It wouldn't be the same without him. And it makes sense for him to have taken the hardest shift. The night watch. Mr. Nichols passes him the stopwatch. Tom walks over and says hello to Harry and Craig. He's been watching the feed, but it's even more powerful to see these boys in person. He gestures to them, like a rabbi or a priest offering a benediction." Keep going," he says. "You're doing great." Mrs. Archer, Harry's next-door neighbor, has brought over coffee, and offers Tom a cup. He takes it gratefully. He wants to be wide awake for all of this. Every now and then he looks to the sky.

— David Levithan

May we each find in ourselves the courage we forgot we have, to see the beauty we forgot is inside us, while battling the demons we forgot we can slay, on a battlefield we forgot we can win.

— Agnostic Zetetic

(Note: I realize this is horrifying. Just keep reading.) "Turn to Leviticus 20:13, because I actually discovered the cure for AIDS. If a man also lie with mankind, as he laity with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. And that, my friend, is the cure for AIDS. It was right there in the Bible all along — and they’re out spending billions of dollars in research and testing. It’s curable — right there. Because if you executed the homos like God recommends, you wouldn’t have all this AIDS running rampant." This is an American pastor openly calling for the death of all homosexuals. The anti-gay movement is now so extreme, some, (not all) call for genocide. So how about instead of Alex from Target or pumpkin spice lattes, we get this out on the media. Because this is disgusting. No one should have to be called worthless, better in death, for a problem they did not cause. AIDS did not start with homosexuals, and it's not going to end with them. The only thing that has to end is hate like this.

— Anomymous pastor and myself