Rachel Maddow on Coming Out

The single best thing about coming out of the closet is that nobody can insult you by telling you what you've just told them. —Rachel Maddow

Rachel Maddow on Feminism

Feminism is itself a challenge. Feminism is a challenge to the way things are in the world. It is by definition an oppositional movement, because it’s trying to accomplish something. I’ve never felt like feminism was a consciousness raising effort in isolation. Everything about feminism is about getting something in the world to get better for women, and to get the world to be less stupid on gender bifurcation terms. I think that feminism over time gets better, or it gets better and worse and better and worse at achieving the goals that it’s trying to achieve, but the overall mission stays the same. I guess I don’t think of it as feminism versus anti-feminism; I sort of think of it as feminism versus the world. I don’t think of it as a competition; there’s no winning. In feminism, you’re always trying to make stuff better. It’s opposition to which you cannot attribute a tally. —Rachel Maddow

Let's face it, writing is hell.

I get a fine, warm feeling when I’m doing well, but that pleasure is pretty much negated by the pain of getting started each day. Let’s face it, writing is hell.

William Styron (June 11, 1925–November 1, 2006). Interviewed in The Paris Review. (Spring 1954,
No. 5).

Styron wrote The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967) and Sophie's Choice (1979, among other things.