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John Ralston Saul

John Ralston Saul (born 19 June 1947) is a Canadian writer, political philosopher, and public intellectual. Saul is most widely known for his writings on the nature of individualism, citizenship and the public good; the failures of manager-led societies; the confusion between leadership and managerialism; military strategy, in particular irregular warfare; the role of freedom of speech and culture; and critiques of the prevailing economic paradigm. He is a champion of freedom of expression and was the International President of PEN International, an association of writers.

Voltaire's Bastards (1992)

 * Voltaire's Bastards : The Dictatorship of Reason in the West (1992)

 * [T]he ideal of the rugged individual opening up the American West is still applied as an essential truth to ten million citizens living in the small area of New York City, as if ten million bulls should and could be squeezed into a china shop.

 * Just as the unleashing of ideas and myths in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries cleared the way for endless changes in state and social structures, so the subsequent pinning down and splitting up of language into feudal states has now made it impossible for the citizen to participate seriously in society. The inviting humanist irony of the early days has given way to the off-putting rational cynicism and sloganeering of our time.

 * Elites quite naturally define as the most important and admired qualities for a citizen those on which they themselves have concentrated.

 * We talk endlessly of the individual and of individualism, for example, when any sensible glance at major issues indicates that we live in an era of great conformism. Our societies turn upon democratic principles, yet the quasi totality of our leading citizens refuse to take part in that process and, instead, leave the exercise of political power to those for whom they have contempt. Our business leaders hector us in the name of capitalism, when most of them are no more than corporate employees, isolated from personal risk.

 * Thus the Age of Reason has turned out to be the Age of Structure; a time when, in the absence of purpose, the drive for power as a value in itself has become the principal indicator of social approval. And the winning of power has become the measure of social merit.

 * Neither Capitalism nor Socialism can pretend to be an ideology. They are merely methods for dividing ownership and income. What is most peculiar for such theoretically practical methodologies, which are also theoretically opposed to each other, is that neither of them has ever existed, except in a highly tentative form. And even then they are invariably mixed together. Their mutually exclusive vocabularies have more to do with basic similarities than with differences.

 * [S]hould we attempt to use sensible words to deal with these problems, they will be caught up immediately in the structures of the official arguments which accompany the official modern ideologies — arguments as sterile as the ideologies are irrelevant. Our society contains no method of serious self-criticism for the simple reason that it is now a self-justifying system which generates its own logic.

 * A man who uses power to do evil is in theory judged to have been conscious of his acts and to be as fit for punishment as a perpetrator of premeditated murder. But the technocrat is not trained on that level. He understands events within the logic of the system. The greatest good is the greatest logic or the greatest appearance of efficiency or responsibility for the greatest possible part of the structure.

 * This breakdown of social order — rules of dress, sexual controls, speech patterns, family structures — has been seen as a great victory for the individual. On the other hand, it may simply be a reflection of the individual's frustration at being locked up inside a specialization. These acts of personal freedom are irrelevant to the exercise of power. So in lieu of taking a real part in the evolution of society, the individual struggles to appear as if no one has power over his personal evolution. Thus victories won for these individual liberties may actually be an acceptance of defeat by the individual.

 * Today, more than ever, women are occupying positions of influence. However, in the past they have been the exceptions to the rule and were usually obliged to hold on to their power by deforming themselves into honorary men or into magnified archetypes of the female who manipulated men. It still is not clear that women can successfully become part of the established structures without accepting these deformations.

 * The pinning on of stars reaches its full cynical significance when sanctified valour and bereaved families are used to lend dignity to wars stupidly fought. The courageous and their families are drawn into a circular trap. The sacrificed soldier was valorous under the orders of a commander who has rewarded his effort. The battle was therefore worth fighting. Courage made it worthwhile. The basic rule of war — that it is fought to be won — has been forgotten.

 * The rational elites, obsessed by structure, have become increasingly authoritarian in a modern, administrative way. The citizens feel insulted and isolated. They look for someone to throw stones on their behalf. Any old stone will do. The cruder the better to crush the self-assurance of the obscure men and their obscure methods. The New Right, with its parody of democratic values, has been a crude but devastating stone with which to punish the modern elites. The New Left, which will eventually succeed it, could easily turn out to be equally crude.

 * Societies grow into systems. The systems require management and are therefore increasingly wielded, like a tool or a weapon, by those who have power. The rest of the population is still needed to do specific things. But the citizens are not needed to contribute to the form or direction of the society. The more "advanced" the civilization, the more irrelevant the citizen becomes.

 * [T]he free market may be a good, bad or insufficient idea, but, in any case, it is just a crude commercial code. Now it is regularly equated with or given credit for or even precedence over the freedom of man. But the freedom of man is a moral statement on the human condition, both in the practical and in the humanist sense. To equate it with a school of business is to betray a certain confusion. An unconscious unease.

 * [Modern capitalism] is masterful at producing services people don't need and in large part probably don't want. It is brilliant at convincing people that they do need and want them. But it has difficulty turning itself to the production of those services which people really do need. Not only that, it often spends an enormous amount of time and effort convincing people that those services are either unrealistic, marginal or counterproductive.

 * The individual has been allowed out of his socially constructed cage. That, at least, is the contemporary myth. What is not clear, however, is what that liberation has to do with the fulfullment of individualism. The lessons of history seem relatively clear. Societies on the rise are simple, unadorned and relatively uncompromising. Those on the decline are given to open-mindedness, self-indulgence and the baroque.

 * Superficial nonconformism... leaves our rational structures indifferent. Questions of moral action and of physical appearance are increasingly irrelevant; they are categorized either as justified self-expression or conversely as suitable subjects for agitated public debate. In either case they are harmless vents.

 * If Marx were functioning today, he would have been hard put to avoid saying that imaginary sex is the opiate of the people.

 * The idea underlying such endless discussion and dreaming about the physical act is that sexual expertise confers worldliness and is therefore part of becoming an affirmed individual. This is a curious suggestion... Sex is many things — a need, a desire, an emotion, a release — but it has nothing to do with worldly sophistication, character building or even existential action. Sex, in general, is more of an obstacle than anything else for those who wish to free themselves and act as individuals... [W]e aren't dealing with a successful affirmation of responsible individualism in the real world. We are creating private dreams which compensate for the fracturing of the individual and the castration of his or her power in public life.

 * There is little to envy in the woman's position either. For perhaps the first time in history, she has a general sense of herself as an individual apart from men. This self-confidence gives her drive and makes her want to succeed. As a result she is eager to join the system. She does not have a clear idea of what it will do to her. Her focus is on her own past and on what men did to women — not on the male structure and what it does to men.

 * Societies either roll on blindly to disaster or they find the inner strength to stop themselves long enough to find ways for reform from within.

The Doubter's Companion (1994)

 * The Doubter's Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense (1994)

 * The conclusion drawn by … most of our élites … is that the population constitutes a deep and dangerous well of ignorance and irrationality; if our civilization is in crisis the fault must lie with the populace which is not rising to the inescapable challenges. And yet civilizations do not collapse because the citizenry are corrupt or lazy or anti-intellectual. These people do not have the power and influence to either lead or destroy. Civilizations collapse when those who have power fail to do their jobs.
 * "Anti-Intellectualism"

 * In helping the arms industry to work with the Pentagon to work with the security agencies to work with the oil industry to work with the environmental agencies and so on, he encourages nationwide stability. If successful he will have indirectly eliminated interference from that rival system — citizen-based democracy — which technically maintains legal control over the constitutional structures of the Republic.
 * "Applied Corporatism"

 * Capitalism was reasonably content under Hitler, happy under Mussolini, very happy under Franco and delirious under General Pinochet.
 * "Capitalism"

 * We are the raison d'être of the entire system. We are also the employers of those in public office and in the public service. Why should we accept from them a discourse which suggests contempt for us and for the democratic system?
 * "Criticism"

 * Faith: The opposite of dogmatism.
 * "Faith"

 * Freedom: An occupied space which must be reoccupied every day.
 * "Freedom"

 * Freud, Sigmund: A man so dissatisfied with his own mother and father that he devoted his life to convincing everyone who would listen — or better still, talk — that their parents were just as bad.
 * "Freud"

 * Happy family: The existence and maintenance of [this] is thought to make a politician fit for public office. According to this theory, the public are less concerned by whether or not they are effectively represented than by the need to be assured that the penises and vaginas of public officials are only used in legally sanctioned circumstances.
 * "Happy family"

 * It is undoubtedly easier to believe in absolutes, follow blindly, mouth received wisdom. But that is self-betrayal.
 * "Humanism"

 * Which is ideology? Which not? You shall know them by their assertion of truth, their contempt for considered reflection, and their fear of debate.
 * "Ideology"

 * An important newspaper baron...explains that the cause of poverty throughout the world is indolence. Ten per cent of Americans would not be on food stamps if they simply worked harder.... If only they had followed his father's advice, they'd have "stuck it to the bastards" and become really rich. This image of hundreds and hundreds of millions of millionaires sticking it to each other, there no longer being any other category of citizen to stick it to, is so all-inclusive that there is no need for others to concern themselves with this word.
 * "Indolence"

 * [W]e have more than two options... a critique of reason does not have to be a call for the return of superstition and arbitrary power.... [O]ur problems do not lie with reason itself but with our obsessive treatment of reason as an absolute value. Certainly it is one of our qualities, but it functions positively only when balanced and limited by the others.
 * "Instrumental Reason"

 * In the humanist ideal, the mainstream is where interesting debate, the generating of new ideas and creativity take place. In rational society this mainstream is considered uncontrollable and is therefore made marginal. The centre ground is occupied instead by structures and courtiers.
 * "Mainstream"

 * Left to its own devices the market is capable of the most miraculous of inventions and the silliest of self-delusions. It is an extreme romantic. It also has a real purpose — the same one it has always had. That is to organize the supply and exchange of goods or to finance the production of goods — thus facilitating and financing the economy. But the market cannot achieve in a regular and lasting manner its own purpose because it is only an unconscious and abstract mechanism. The factor which must be added in order to create the restraint, balance, and consciousness necessary for long-term prosperity is human leadership. That leadership takes the form of effective regulation.
 * "Marketplace"

 * In all earlier civilizations, it should be remembered, commerce was treated as a narrow activity and by no means the senior sector in society.
 * "Marketplace"

 * Moral crusade: Public activity undertaken by middle-aged men who are cheating on their wives or diddling little boys. Moral crusades are particularly popular among those seeking power for their own personal pleasure, politicians who can't think of anything useful to do with their mandates, and religious professionals suffering from a personal inability to communicate with their god.
 * "Moral crusade"

 * Myrmecophaga jubata: The anteater. The existence of this predator demonstrates that thinking 71 percent of the time, as ants do, won't prevent you from being eaten. Thinking less than that, as humans do, will almost guarantee it.
 * "Myrmecophaga jubata"

 * Panic: A highly underrated capacity thanks to which individuals are able to indicate clearly that something is wrong.... Given their head, most humans panic with great dignity and imagination. This can be called democratic expression or practical common sense.
 * "Panic"

 * Pessimism: A valuable protection against quackery.
 * "Pessimism"

 * It is the considered opinion of most members of our rational élites that, in any given difference of opinion with reality, reality is wrong.
 * "Reality"

 * "The recession is over." This phrase has been used twice a year since 1973 by government leaders throughout the West. Its meaning is unclear. See: Depression.
 * "Recession"

 * The transnational corporations and the money markets have declared the era of human-designed regulations over. Now the market must reign. Because few people in the business community are paid to think about phrases such as "Western civilization," they don't seem to realize that they are proposing the arbitrary denial of 2,500 years of human experience.
 * "Regulation"

 * [C]ontent [is] an obstacle to the exercise of power.
 * "Triumph of the Will"

 * United States: .... A nation given either to unjustified over-enthusiasms or infantile furies.
 * "United States"

 * Venereal: From Venus, the goddess of love, this word refers to the reality of desire. With the rise of Protestantism and science, the word "disease" was tacked on in a revealing combination of categorization and moralizing. "Which disease?" "The disease of love."
 * "Venereal"

 * On June 22nd, [1633,] in the morning, in the great hall of the Convent of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, Galileo was found guilty of holding a false doctrine. He went down on his knees and both abjured and condemned his own errors. He swore never to argue such doctrines again. It was thus definitely confirmed that the sun did rotate around the earth...Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. Saint Mary Over Minerva. Power over wisdom.
 * "Wisdom"

 * There is something silly about grown men and women striving to reduce their vision of themselves and of civilization to bean counting.

The Unconscious Civilization (1995)

 * [G]iven our inability over the past two decades to deal with an unbreakable chain of unemployment, debt, inflation and no real growth, we have drifted farther and farther out into a cold, unfriendly, confusing sea. The new certitude of those in positions of authority — those out of the water — is that the certain answer is to cut away the life preservers.

 * Each [ideology], in the oppressive air of conformity which ideologies create, will force public figures to conform or be ruined on the scaffold of ridicule. In a society of ideological believers, nothing is more ridiculous than the individual who doubts and does not conform.

 * [O]ur élite is primarily and increasingly managerial. A managerial élite manages. A crisis, unfortunately, requires thought. Thought is not a management function.

 * Because the managerial élites are now so large and have such a dominant effect on our educational system, we are actually teaching most people to manage, not to think. Not only do we not reward thought, we punish it as unprofessional.

 * I would remind you...that Socrates was executed not for saying what things were or should be, but for seeking practical indications of where some reasonable approximation of truth might be. He was executed not for his megalomania or grandiose propositions or certitudes, but for stubbornly doubting the absolute truths of others.

 * [T]hree of [Newt Gingrich's] "Five Principles of American Civilization" deal with business, technology, and organization — all characteristics of work. There is no mention of liberty or equality or, for that matter, of democracy.

 * But now, in this century of ideologies, the Gods and Destiny have been given new life. "Miracles in the world are many," Sophocles wrote in the fifth century BC. "There is no greater miracle than man." Suddenly, at the end of the twentieth century, we discover that no, after all, it isn't true. Historical inevitability is a greater miracle than man. As is the dialectic. As is the superiority of various groups according to blood type. As is the genius of an abstract mechanism called the market. As is the leadership of inanimate objects — called technology — which worker bees create and then, inevitably, are led by. These inevitabilities are great leaps backward into the arms of the Gods and Destiny.

Reflections of a Siamese Twin (1997)

 * Reflections of a Siamese Twin: Canada at the End of the Twentieth Century (1997)

 * Realism isn't pessimism. And though the anti-reform interests have won an unconscionable number of battles over the last decade, the war is by no means over.

 * Canada was built from its very beginnings on the belief that public leadership in the economy and on social issues would be as effective and cheap as anything done by the private sector.

 * Indeed you can usually tell when the concepts of democracy and citizenship are weakening. There is an increase in the role of charity and in the worship of volunteerism. These represent the élite citizen's imitation of noblesse oblige; that is, of pretending to be aristocrats or oligarchs, as opposed to being citizens.

 * The rise of democracy was driven by the citizens' desire to escape from the paternalistic and arbitrary charity of those with money. They accomplished this by replacing charity with a fair, balanced, arm's-length system of public obligation. The principle tool of that obligation was taxation.

 * There is absolutely no reason why we have to deal with the mid-life crisis of our social policies by putting a bullet through their heads.

 * The state-initiated referendum has always been a part of this [anti-democratic] logic. Stop the talk, we're going to decide, yes or no. At this point the citizen's role is to wave one flag or the other and cheer for one side of the simple question or the other. In other words, we're reduced to children.

 * A referendum is little more than a "rumour of choice." The idea behind the mechanism, ever since its first modern manifestations two centuries ago under Napoleon, has been to replace democracy with the sensation of democracy. That is: to replace the slow, complex, eternally unclear continuity of democracy, and all the awkwardness of citizen participation, with something clear and fast which allows those in power to impose their agenda. Through an apparently simple question with a one-syllable answer, those who ask can get a blank cheque from the citizenry; that is, if they choose their moment well and come up with a winning question.

 * This is a citizenry which is annoyed, confused, insulted, and uncertain of how to protect the structures of the public good they struggled so long to put in place. Abruptly the national élites seem to prefer playing another game in which the public good is subjected to what they say are larger truths. All of these turn out to be either pedantically utilitarian or highly romantic. The utilitarian involves the reduction of society to self-interest. The romantic involves the selling of economic mythology as a new universal religion.

 * The strength of representative democracy is its ability to slow down those in power who wish to govern by blank cheque, but also those not in power who wish to yank the state about on the sole basis of their self-interest.

 * There are two fairly standard approaches to political power used by those who seek it. Some seek power with the assumption that the citizenry are the source of legitimacy and are to be treated with respect. Others concentrate on identifying whatever insecurities there are within the citizenry and on exploiting them.'

 * I am struck by the curious reflection that if everything is inevitable, as our élites tell us, well then we don't really need them. After all, this is the biggest and most expensive élite in history. Either they should do their job or make way.

 * The citizenry insist and insist and insist that they are proud of the Medicare system and that they want it to work. They continually send instructions to this effect to their governments. They do so in every imaginable way. And yet, day by day, the governments and the bureaucracies chip away at the system as if in the hope that, by opening holes in it and creating a new ineffectiveness, the citizenry will drop their commitment to it.

 * All the lessons of psychiatry, psychology, social work, indeed culture, have taught us over the last hundred years that it is the acceptance of differences, not the search for similarities which enables people to relate to each other in their personal or family lives.

 * The dominant system of power in the west has been Platonist — a system which functions on highly developed levels of structure and law. This is the school of pure rationality and fear of the undefined — fear of doubt. The minority system has been Socratic or humanist. It is interested in doubt and not overwhelmed by the Platonist-Hobbesian desperate need to tie things down.

 * We seem to be unable to allow ourselves the dignity of engaging in this sort of straightforward reconsideration of our acts. After all, questioning is the great strength of democracy; the ability to doubt without losing face. Instead we charge on, chanting 'Free Trade — Prosperity', the way in 1212 on the Children's Crusade they must have chanted 'Jesus and Jerusalem!' Most were snatched up before they could reach the coast and sold into slavery or sent across the Mediterranean, again to be slaves.

 * After all, in both languages we were dealing in large measure not with English and French, but with Scots and Irish, Bretons and Normans....There could be no more eloquent illustration of the colonial mind-set than a bunch of Celts and Vikings in a distant northern territory insulting each other as les anglais and the French as if they were the descendants of the people who had subjected and ruined them.

 * Canada is either an idea or it does not exist. It is either an intellectual undertaking or it is little more than a resource-rich vacuum lying in the buffer zone just north of a great empire.

 * The old cliché about having all your eggs in one basket takes on new meaning with Canada and the United States, because there is something even more wrong about having all your eggs in someone else's basket. It is worse still if that country is much larger than you and worst of all if they don't have all their eggs in your basket. This is not a relationship. It is a dependency. Canada's survival will depend largely on its ability to change that dependency back into a relationship. And one of the key factors in doing that will be the redistribution of our trade. But we can't do that if we have no politicians willing to take the lead.

 * Ever since the democratic systems permitted their various courts to give corporations the status of persons, the individual as citizen has been on the defensive. How could it be otherwise? If you are a person before the law and Exxon or Ford is also a person, it is clear that the concept of democratic legitimacy lying with the individual has been mortally wounded.

 * What I am describing is not only a society dominated by corporatist structures, but by the received wisdom of a corporatist atmosphere: one in which the élites are interest-driven, whatever their jobs. And so the society is gradually being redrawn to suit this ethic-free system.

 * As you would expect when individualism is based only on opportunity, no one asks what happens to those who have neither the financial nor the political clout to exercise their tiny portion of that opportunity.

 * Ten per cent of our neighbours survive on charity. 10 per cent of Canadians eat through charity. 10 per cent. Surely if you were prime minister or minister of trade or of industry, you would wake up each day thinking that, for reasons that escape you, the central policy chosen to drive the economy is not working. It is not working because it is not meeting the needs of a democracy in which legitimacy lies with the citizenry.

On Equilibrium (2001)

 * The clarity of Socrates' situation is remarkable. ... his exit is wonderfully seductive. It is calm, clear, convincing. Friends are present, wise words are said, the ethical unfolding of life is tied up in a neat package. And then he slips away, slowly becoming stone-cold from the feet up. It is our fantasy of the normal death, with the addition of social and prophetic implications, to say nothing of heroic proportions. Again, most of us will likely drop dead on a subway platform, in the middle of an orgasm or straining on a toilet seat early in the morning. The real tragedy of death may be just how often it is comic.
 * "Non-fiction", on the other hand, declares itself to be the carrier of fact, an expression of reality, and thus of truth. Why then does most fact-based work have a remarkably short shelf life? The reply might be that additional facts come along. That we are learning all the time. In that case, it was never an expression of reality or truth. And even if the facts are overtaken, the arguments built upon them should not date with such terrifying rapidity. Decade-old serious "non-fiction" often seems arcane, irrelevant. The written style itself seems to become old-fashioned. Two-centuries-old decent "fiction" on the other hand can easily remain fresh.
 * Of course, corporations and governments have a right to something for their money. They pay the wages. But they don't have the ethical right to literally purchase the copyright of a citizen's potential contribution to society. In a democracy they should not have the legal right to silence the quasi-totality of the functioning élite in order to satisfy a managerial taste for control and secrecy.
 * Romans disapproved of Greek sports because the athletes competed nude. That was shocking. On the other hand, people dripping with blood and dying for entertainment was fine. This is strangely similar to the moral standards of today's commercial television and family movies.

A Fair Country (2008)

 * A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada (2008)

 * ...a clever Toronto lawyer was deep into a technical argument before the Supreme Court. His position was dependent upon a close reading of the legal text and turned on the letter of the law. Suddenly the chief justice, Beverley McLachlin, leaned forward and asked the counsel if his argument also worked in French. After all, the law is the law in both languages and a loophole in one tends to evaporate in the other. Only an argument of substance stands up. The lawyer had no idea what to reply.
 * p. 128

title: John Ralston Saul


text:
Margaret Cho

Moran "Margaret" Cho (born December 5, 1968) is a Korean-American actress and comedian.

Quotes

 * Whenever anyone has called me a bitch, I have taken it as a compliment. To me, a bitch is assertive, unapologetic, demanding, intimidating, intelligent, fiercely protective, in control — all very positive attributes. But it's not supposed to be a compliment, because there's that stupid double standard: When men are aggressive and dominant, they are admired, but when a woman possesses those same qualities, she is dismissed and called a bitch. These days, I strive to be a bitch, because not being one sucks. Not being a bitch means not having your voice heard. Not being a bitch means you agree with all the bullshit. Not being a bitch means you don't appreciate all the other bitches who have come before you. Not being a bitch means since Eve ate that apple, we will forever have to pay for her bitchiness with complacence, obedience, acceptance, closed eyes, and open legs.

 * I wanna fuck her, but I don't want to vote for her.
 * On Sarah Palin, interview with Perez Hilton

Drunk With Power CD

 * Something traumatic happened to me when I was younger. I was with this old black woman, and she was very wise, very Alice Walker, The Color Purple...she looked at me and she says, "Baby...you know I used to be able to fly but I can't fly no more, baby. But baby, you...? You too fat to fly."

 * I was working on this movie and the makeup artist was just so ugly! I just wanted to say "Physician, heal thyself!" She looked exactly like Aaron Neville, and she was trying her hardest to make me look exactly like Aaron Neville. This one time, she leaned into my face with the mascara wand almost touching my eye and she says, "Whass my name?"

 * Then there was this extra on the set who runs up to me and says, "Oh, I know you! I know who you is, I seen you before. You that comedienne, Margaret Cho! I saw you at the Comedy Store. You was wearin' a kimono and you was bowin'." "No, that's the other one." "Oh, right! Now I remember. I just didn't recognize you because you've put on a little weight since your show." And it didn't piss me off that she said that, but it was that she said, "You put on a lot of *gestures* weight!" so I'll know exactly where I put it. And it pissed me off, so I just sort of talked about it to everybody for the whole day. The next day I come into work and the assistant producer comes over to me and says, "Uh, you know that lady from the other day? Well, don't worry. We took care of her." Oh my God! What did you do?! Suddenly I felt like I was running around like this tyrant, all drunk with power- "Nobody can call me fat on this set!"

 * So I was drinking tequila, and I was drinking grappa, which is Italian for gasoline, and I was drinking Jägermeister, which I believe is the liquid equivalent of Wonder Woman's golden lasso, because it will make you tell anybody the truth for no reason whatsoever. "You have really bad skin. Thanks for the drink."

 * And I got so drunk, I got so drunk that I actually woke up thinking, "Should I get up and pee, or just pee in the bed?" Actually weighing the pros and the cons. "Well, it'll be warm for a minute...it's a big bed, I'll just roll over...I'll just blame it on that guy!"

 * This old fellow came up to me and asked, "Excuse me, are you Japanese?" No, I'm Korean. "Oh, really, that's very interesting, because I was looking at you and I knew you were not Filipino. I have many Filipino friends and you do not look like them because you're very HUSKY!!" Is that supposed to be some kind of a compliment? "Oh, no, it's not bad, you're very strong, very HUSKY!"

 * [An article about Cho] started out, "Funny, sexy, zaftig Margaret Cho..." What is "zaftig?" Isn't that German for "big fat pig?" I guess I was lucky- "zaftig" is kind of a nice word. It could have been, "Funny, sexy, OBESE Margaret Cho."

I'm The One That I Want Tour

 * I love Karl Lagerfeld, and they [PETA] hate him because he showed fur in his collection, and they protested his fashion show. People were chanting outside, "KARL LAGERFELD IS A MURDERER! KARL LAGERFELD IS A MURDERER!" And I thought, "Wouldn't it be fabulous if Karl Lagerfeld actually was a murderer?" Like, what if he just fuckin' lost it one day...backstage at a show in Milan...and bludgeoned Elsa Klensch to death with a platform shoe. "I HATE THAT BLOUSE!"

 * The best part of any fashion show is Karl Lagerfeld with his white hair, and the big glasses, and a fuckin' fan. Like he's some kind of Spanish lady or something. And I look at the fan and I'm like, "Bitch, it's not that hot, what'choo doin'?"

 * I love the word "faggot," because it describes my kind of guy! You see, I am a fag hag. Fag hags are the backbone of the gay community. Without us, you're nothing! We have been there all through history guiding your sorry ass through the underground railroad! We went to the prom with you!

 * I love my gay male friends, but when I was a little girl, I always used to wish that I would be constantly surrounded by gorgeous guys, and I am, and I should have been more specific.

 * Thank God for gay men. Thank God for gay men, because if it were not for gay men, I would not talk to men at all.

 * If I'm talking to a guy who's straight and cute and single, I'm like, "Are you a unicorn?"

 * One of my friends has these ideas about how we should meet men. "What we should do on Friday night is we will fucking go get fucked up and fuck yeah! We will fucking get fucked up and then we will fucking get tickets to go see the Chippendale's Dancers, fuck yeah! We will fucking get tickets to see the Chippendale's Dancers." I can get gay guys to dance in my house for free.

 * The Chippendale's dancers are gay. They're gay. Because there is no such thing as a straight man with visible abdominal muscles. You have to suck cock to get that kind of muscle definition. It doesn't work for women. You know, I tried, OK?

 * [Jo from The Facts of Life] was such a lesbian. Wasn't she the biggest lesbian? I used to watch that show, like, "Oh, she gonna fuck Blair!"

 * One of my first jobs was on a lesbian cruise. I was the ship comedian for the Lesbian Love Boat.

 * Lesbians love whale watching! They fuckin love it! THEY LOVE IT MORE THAN PUSSY! It's any sea mammal really. Whales, manatees, dolphins. They go crazy for the dolphins. I don't know what it is- I think it's the blowhole.

 * So I was on the ship, with 800 lesbians. We can't get off. So much drama. "Were you looking at her or her or her or her or her or her or her or her or her or her or her or her? WELL, WERE YOU?!" We all got on the same cycle.

 * There was this really prim and proper British woman who used to run horse races for the lesbians on the ship, and the lesbians would get to name the horses, and the really prim and proper British woman would have to read out the names. "Horse number one, Galloping...Clitoris. Horse number one, Galloping Clitoris. Very well, carry on. Horse number two...No Dick for Me. Horse number two, No Dick for Me. Rather a rude name, don't you think? No Dick for Me? Should be, No Dick for Me, Thank You."

 * I slept with a woman on the ship, and afterwards I was thinking, "Am I gaaaay? Am I straaaaight?" And then I realized: I'm just slutty. Where's my parade?

 * My mom used to give me messages like this: "Ummmmmmm...Scott called...IS HE THE GAY??!!" "Well, God, mom, I don't know if he's the gay...that's a lot of pressure on just one guy. He has to do the parade all by himself! 'I'm here! I'm queer!...I guess I'm the only one.'"

 * A Korean reporter once asked me, "Do you think your Korean parents are ashamed because you talk about what you talk about on stage?" I said, "I don't think they're ashamed because they're Korean. I think any parents would be ashamed."

 * The National Enquirer published this thing called the "Chow like Cho Diet," which was this fake diet that I never went on, with all these fake quotes from me, like "When I was a little girl, I was raised on rice and fish. So when I get heavy, I go back to that natural Asian way of eating." That is so Mulan. You can almost hear the mandolin in the background. "When I was a little girl, I grow up on the rice paddy... and although we have no food, I have a tendency to put on weight."

 * I was skiing in Deer Valley and there's no people of color up there, and I'm up there, skiing, trying to fit in like an asshole, and I have an instructor and he goes, "Hey, don't take this the wrong way, but you have a tendency to bow into your skis." Fuck you! And then I fell.

 * It was hard for me to do the show (All-American Girl) because a lot of people didn't even understand the concept of Asian-American. I was on a morning show and the host said, "Awright, Margaret, we're changing over to an ABC affiliate! So why don't you tell our viewers in your native language that we're making that transition?" So I looked at the camera and said, "Um, they're changing over to an ABC affiliate."

 * [quoting her producer] "The network is concerned. They're concerned about the fullness of your face. They think you're really overweight and you're going to have to do something about it." I didn't know what to say to that. I always thought I was decent looking; I had no idea that I was a giant face taking over America! HERE COMES THE FACE!!

 * We were taping the episodes of the show. I guess they had decided they could now fit my face onto a TV screen, and they wouldn't have to letterbox it.

 * I was on the floor in the emergency room, and the woman came up to me and said "Hi, my name is Gwen and I'm here to wash your vagina!"

 * The first thing that you lose on a diet is brain mass.

 * I knew I was crazy because I was watching Jesus Christ Superstar and the part where Jesus carries the cross up the mountain, I actually said to myself, "Wow! That must be a really good workout! Yeah, because you're doing arms and cardio!"

 * Because I wasn't Asian enough- they decided to hire an Asian Consultant. Because I was fucking it up as an Asian. She would follow me around: "Margaret! Use chopsticks! And when you're done eating, you can put them in your hair. Now you're wearing shoes, which is something we don't do in the house. Now I'm just going to leave this abacus right here..."

 * I stood in front of a hundred and one critics at a critic's convention and a critic asked me, "Miss Cho, isn't it true that your management asked you to lose weight to play the part of yourself in your own TV show?" Gail [the producer] grabbed the mike from me and said, "There is no truth in that whatsoever." I...was so...hungry.

 * So they cancelled our show, and gave the time slot to Drew Carey, because he's so skinny.

 * I gave a LOT of unnecessary head. And I know that guys are going to argue with me about this. "Oh, Margaret, there's no such thing as unnecessary head! All head is necessary! All head is wanted and needed in the world. I run a home for unnecessary head."

 * I am not gonna die because some network executive thought I was fat! It's so wrong! It's so wrong that women are asked to live up to this skinny ideal that is totally unattainable. For me to be ten pounds thinner is a full-time job, and I am handing in my notice and walking out the door!!

 * I am not gonna die because I failed as someone else. I am gonna succeed as myself. And I'm gonna stay here and rock the mike until the next Korean-American, fag hag, shit starter, girl comic, trash talker comes up and takes my place!

The Notorious C.H.O. Tour

 * No matter what these terrorists do, I refuse to be terrorized. All this requires is just a few alterations in our day to day lives. For example, my first instinct when I receive an envelope full of white powder...is to snort it! I just won't do that this time!

 * There's a bar in Edinburgh called "CC Bloom's." CC Bloom is the name of the character that Bette Midler played in Beaches. That is the gayest thing I have ever heard in my entire life. That place should just be called "Fuck-Me-In-The-Ass Bar and Grill."

 * If you've ever bought drugs before, you understand that for some bizarre reason you have to feign this relationship with your dealer. It's like you're not really going to him to buy drugs. You're going for a social visit. Drugs are the surprise that just happens when you get there. "Oh, hash? I didn't know!" And he's talkin' to you and you're tryin' to be interested, you know, "Oh yeah? No, really...I love Foghat. No, seriously." And inside you're like, "Just fuckin' give it! I hate you. Your house smells like cat pee!" Why do all drug dealers' houses smell like cat pee?

 * I had a colonic irrigation in this clinic in Santa Monica, because people in Los Angeles cannot do anything for themselves, much less take a shit.

 * I didn't know if I was going to mention my period on stage, but then I figured, if Richard Pryor had a period, he would talk about it.

 * "I do not need nobody tellin' me who I am! I know who I am!...I be walkin' down the hallway, they call me names. They call me faggot, they call me sissy, I say, 'Oh yeah? Well, you forgot, I'm also a model and a actress, so fuck you too!'"
 * Quoting her friends from high school, Alan and Jeremy

 * What I love most about gay men is the way that they are about sex. There is a kind of fun and frivolity that surrounds gay men and their sexuality that is not there for straight men and sex. I think if you're oppressed over who you want to sleep with, when you actually go and do it, you're gonna have a really good time. If you are hated for who you like to fuck, you're gonna kick up your heels and fuck...and it is such an inspiration to watch.

 * It's just that it's been my experience in having sex with some straight men that the sex is over when he gets off. And I don't accept that. I want to have an orgasm. Not right now! This is the Isaac Stern Auditorium! No, I want to have one. I'll put a chalk board over the bed. One...one.

 * There's no real way for women to really learn about sex in our culture. There are articles about sex in women's magazines, but that's not the kind of information I'm after. There was this article in Cosmopolitan about "How to look good in bed with your lover." It was these tips like, "If you put your arm under your breasts they're higher," or "If you're laying on your back, your stomach is flat," or "If you're having anal sex, he can't see your cellulite!" That's wrong, because I get so ugly when I fuck and I don't care! And if you care what I look like when you're fucking me, you shouldn't be fucking me in the first place!!

 * I can't even look at those "women's magazines" anyway. I love fashion, but I look at the pictures of the skinny models, and they're wearing clothes I can't even fit on my fingers. And I look at that and I think, if that is what a woman is supposed to look like, then I must not be one.

 * So from the age of 10, I became anorexic, and then bulimic, and then stayed that way for about 20 years, until one day I just said, "Hey, what if this is it? What if this is just what I look like and nothing I do changes that? So how much time would I save if I stopped taking that extra second every time I look in the mirror to call myself a big fat fuck? How much time would I save if I just let myself walk by a plate-glass window without sucking in my gut and throwing back my shoulders? How much time would I save?" And it turns out I save about 97 minutes a week. I can take a pottery class.

 * “And I have a lot of self-esteem, which is amazing, because I’m probably somebody who wouldn’t necessarily have a lot of self esteem as I am considered a minority and if you are a woman, if you are a person of color, if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, if you are a person of size, if you are person of intelligence, if you are a person of integrity, then you are considered a minority in this world. And it's going to be really hard to find messages of self-love and support anywhere. Especially women's and gay men's culture. It's all about how you have to look a certain way, or else you're worthless. You know, when you look in the mirror and think, ‘Ugh, I'm so ugly, I'm so fat, I'm so old.’ Don't you know that's not your authentic self? But that is billions upon billions of dollars of advertising. Magazines, movies, billboards, all geared to make you feel shitty about yourself, so that you will take your hard earned money and spend it at the mall on some turn-around crème that doesn't turn around shit. If you don't have self-esteem, you will hesitate before you do anything in your life. You will hesitate to go for the job you want to go for. You will hesitate to ask for a raise. You will hesitate to call yourself an American. You will hesitate to report a rape. You will hesitate to defend yourself when you are discriminated against because of your race, your sexuality, your size, your gender. You will hesitate to vote; you will hesitate to dream. For us to have self-esteem is truly an act of revolution, and our revolution is long overdue.

 * I urge you all today, especially today in these times of terrorism and chaos to love yourselves without reservation and to love each other without restraint. Unless you're into leather; then by all means, use restraints.

Revolution Tour

 * This is a very strange time we're living in, and I would feel a little bit better if George W. Bush could say the word "nuclear" correctly. You would have thought somebody would have said something by now. At the very least, Condi would have got up in his face, "Foo', it's NU-CLE-AR! Imma have'ta write it down fo'ya!...I'm makin' flash cards for the President. This is...[shaking her head] mm-mmmm."

 * Monogamy is so weird. Like when you know their name and stuff.

 * I helped deliver one of my best friend's children. I just was so amazed by my friend, because she was not just a woman, she was not just a mother. At that moment she was creation; she was life; she was God. And as I looked in her eyes, BOOM! Her pussy exploded.

 * I am secretly a costume drama queen. Oo, I love me some Merchant Ivory films! I do! If there is a petticoat and Helena Bonham Carter, already I can feel the tears well up in my eyes. I love me some period films! And I know that I will never be in them. I will never be in any of these movies, unless I am laying down on my side smoking some opium. And I get offered movie roles all the time, but I say, "No! No! I don't want to play a manicurist. I don't want to play a really pissed-off liquor store owner. I don't want to go nowhere with a chicken under my arm. I don't want to play an exceptionally good student, I do not want to get off a tour bus and take numerous photographs, I do not ever want to utter the phrase, 'Welcome to Japan, Mr. Bond'! I don't want to write down all my memoirs about being a geisha!" What it is, is that I cannot run up a wall!!

 * The only thing that was sort of Asian [as a role model] was Hello Kitty. I don't want to model myself after Hello Kitty. She has no mouth.

 * I get nervous when people say to me, "I just can't tell any of you Asians apart!" Um, why do you have to tell us apart? Are we gonna be separated for some reason? I can't tell us apart! I was not born with a chip in my neck that would automatically identify every Asiatic person that I would come across. "beebeebeebeebeep Filipino."

 * I was on a plane, and the steward was coming down the aisle. "Asian chicken salad...Asian chicken salad...Asian chicken salad..." And he gets to me and he's like, "...chicken salad!" What does he think I'm gonna do? "Dis is not de salad of my people! In my homeland, dey use mandarin orange slices...and crispy wonton crunches!"

 * Women and eating disorders have such a long history, but now I see it happening to gay men. And when it comes to anorexia, bulimia, body dysmorphia, gay men are far worse than women. They take it way more seriously. "Why diet when you can take crystal meth?"

 * I think everyone should go on my diet. It's called the Fuck It Diet. Basically what it is, is if I want to eat something but it has a lot of fat or carbs, I just take a moment, and I go within, and I say "Fuck it" and I eat it. You have to do it 6 times a day. It works really well with the Fuck That Shit Exercise Program.

 * I'm very inappropriate, which makes me a problem dinner guest, because at some point during the evening someone inevitably says, "OK, heh heh heh, OK, too much information! Heh heh heh. Don't go there!" I live there. I bought a house there.

 * [on reacting to racism] I don't wanna be the better person. I don't wanna rise above it. I do wanna sink down to their level. I am not gonna turn the other cheek. "I'mma gonna show you what cheek I'mma turn, OK!"

 * I got back from Toronto, where they had a severe outbreak of SARS- you know, Severe Asian Racism Syndrome.

 * I was in the airport and there were these big snowboarder guys and they had white masks around their necks, and as soon as they saw me, they put their masks on. So I just went, "*cough, cough, cough* You wanna egg rorr?"

 * I would rather have a gay child. If you have a gay son, you know he's not gonna be shooting up his high school. That would get in the way of yearbook.

 * [on having a gay child] And the Three Wise Drag Queens would come, bearing gifts of 1000-thread-count sheets, hair products by Frédéric Fekkai, and a copy of the Immaculate Collection.

 * I would be happy to have a gay child. He would be a Boy Scout, and he would teach all the other Boy Scouts how to build a fire with two sticks and a back-handed compliment.

 * [My gay child] would be a soldier, and he would change the slogan from "Don't ask, don't tell" to "Don't fuck with me, queen!!"

 * Silence equals nonexistence. If I don't give too much information, if I don't go there, it's like I was never there in the first place. I noticed this most right after September 11, when there were no gays or lesbians invited to give their opinion about what was going on. There were no women invited to give their opinion. There were hardly any people of color invited, and if they were, they were Muslim-Americans and Arab-Americans talking about the violence that they'd experienced because they shared the same skin color as the terrorists, which is heinous and dumb! That's like arresting Emmanuel Lewis because Gary Coleman punched that woman!

 * I am hurt because somebody just got called a fag, or a dyke, or a pansy, or a sissy, or a bulldyke, or a chink, or a nigger, or a kike, or a wetback, or an injun, or a jap, or a bitch, or a whore, or a cunt, and unless to you that's a term of endearment...in the right context, it is...that person is being attacked because of who they are, and I don't accept that.

 * If racial minorities, sexual minorities, feminists both male and female, hell, all liberals got together and had this big "too much information," "go there," voice...that would equal power. And that power would equal change. And that change would equal a revolution.

 * I think that gay people should have the right to get married by Elvis like everybody else.

Assassin CD

 * Why do Republicans hate gay marriage so much? They certainly don't hate gay prostitutes.

 * If you're against same sex marriage but you laugh your ass off to Will & Grace, FUCK YOU [holds up middle finger]. You are a hypocrite [pointing], and you're not allowed to pick and choose what you like from our culture, and leave behind the burden of inequality.

 * I have had enough of the Pope, the Pope who really held on, he really held on, he wasn't going anywhere, he was just fucking hanging on, and the press could not wait for him to die. They were just waiting outside that whole Saturday when he died, but he wouldn't die, all day they were just fucking waiting, like: "He's not dead yet! But he might be when we come back from this commercial!"

 * The Pope was so sick he couldn't even come to the window, he was so sick all he could manage is a "BLAAARGH (vomiting)". But even that "blargh" was anti-gay.

 * The Pope talks so much shit. The Pope was castigating the media for making gays look normal. YEAH, you're a real GOOD judge of normal, with your gold dress and your matching gold hat, living it up in the Vatican with 500 men surrounded by the finest antiques in the world! Queen, please! You live like Versace did!

 * The way some of these politicians talk about homosexuality is very insulting. They treat it like it's a disease, like being gay is contagious. Being gay is not contagious. And if you think that it is, YOU'RE GAY.

 * Talking to John Kerry is like talking to an Ent. You know, the tree people from Lord of the Rings...[imitating an Ent] I believe that all Americans should have affordable healthcare...

 * [About Christian Groups] They have no rights to call themselves "Christians", because they have no Christianity to them; they have no kindness, no compassion, no charity. I want Jesus to come back and say: "THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT!"

 * They need to read the Scriptures; where it says in Matthew, chapter 4, verse 17, it says: "Shut the fuck up." That's the King James version, by the way.

 * George Bush blocked the availability of morning-after pills over the counter, stating that it would "promote promiscuity". ...So? You know, I never had access to morning-after pills, but that did not stop me from fucking my way through the U.S.A. like I was Lewis and Clark. And if the issue is promiscuity, then why is Viagra everywhere? Doesn't it make more sense to leave the bullets out of the gun than to just avoid being shot?

 * I want morning-after pills more than over the counter; I want morning-after pills with my check at dinner. I want morning-after pills on my hotel pillow when I go to bed at night.

 * [on Arnold Schwarzenegger] That motherfucker be ORANGE. ...I am not against people of color, but that is a fucked-up color. I think that him and Donatella Versace, they gonna start a whole new race of Oompa-Loompa.

 * And especially, especially, don't fuck with vegans. Do not look vegans in the eye. If you get into an argument with a vegan, say "I'm wrong" and run away as fast as you can. Do not fuck with vegans because they will fuck you up...BECAUSE THEY'RE HUNGRY.

 * "Do not fuck with Björk! Björk will beat your ass! … I saw Björk beat this woman's ass one time in this videotape. She was in the Bangkok airport and she was pushing her luggage cart and this woman came up and just touched her and Björk went (roaring and hissing). And it was so scary, because you didn't expect it at all, because Björk is so cute. … And Björk called the woman she attacked afterwards to apologize. 'I'm very sorry I tried to pull your eyes up over your head. Somebody must have fed me after midnight.'

 * But Björk wore the best dress ever to the Oscars, ever. She wore a swan. And I'm not talking about a dress with white feathers on it. Oh, no. She rocked the whole bird. The beak was up here and shit. And she accessorized it with an egg -- what else you gon' wear with your bird?! And all of the fashion magazines said she was the worst dressed, but when they say you're the worst, that means you're the best.

 * I vowed to myself if I ever go to one of these award shows I'm gonna wear some kind of a bird. So I went to the Grammys last years I had a dress made out of peacock feathers. And I didn't win a Grammy, was named worst dressed. And that's impressive, because if you win a Grammy you had to just beat out what, three, four people? But if you're worst dressed you beat fifteen thousand people! I beat Mary J. Blige! I beat Lil' Kim!

 * I became involved with this organization called MoveOn.org, and I got into it right in the middle of some serious stuff. So when I made some anti-Bush comments, I got this flood of emails from right-wing supporters. I really wish I could say that they were productive emails, but basically it was, "Fuck you, you dirty Chink cunt bitch fag-hag. Go back to your country. Four more years! Dirty Chink dyke slut! Jesus saves!" So I posted them on my website, including the return addresses, and some of these people wrote me from their work emails. So I had their work information, their names, their addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, Blockbuster card numbers, favorite flavor of ice-cream. And the thing is, I guess I have this whole fanbase that's ready to go to bat for me. They're already pissed off, so they just need half a reason. And basically I discovered Al Gay-da. They're a sleeper cell you do not want to wake up. So suddenly these people are emailing me back: "Please take my info off of your site. I'm so sorry. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and I shouldn't have said what I said. And please make these gay people go away. Please, hurry! I think Cirque de Soleil is warming up on my front lawn!"

 * Why do they think "fat dyke" is an insult? To me that means, "I'm-a eat fried chicken and pussy."

Beautiful Tour

 * Do I look like a happy-ending to you?

 * I think it's very important to feel beautiful. I think it's very political to feel beautiful, especially if you're Queer, because if you're Queer you have to take on the world every single day of your life, so you have to feel beautiful to survive.

 * I hate Sarah Palin, I would never vote for her, I hate her politics, but I kinda wanna fuck her. I know, it's unholy, it's so wrong. I want to eat her pussy from behind. Eskimo-style. No, you know I wouldn't eat that thing. 'Cause you know it's frozen. My tongue would stick...

 * And I have to explain what a G-spot is for all the gay men. A G-spot is basically this button in your vagina, that if you push it, it turns it on. You push it and makes a sound like... (imitates Mac start-up sound). That's if you have a Mac vagina... I don't know what noise it makes if you have a PC. ... I have a Mac sexuality. Don't touch my anus, because that is like my Force Quit. ... You will lose any unsaved changes.

INVISIBILITY

 * Like when Jay Leno made jokes about Koreans eating dog, but the hidden messages, our invisibility, is more harmful to us than any of those fools on "board".
 * When we never see who we are, never hear what we think about things, what we are doing as a group or what we are doing individually, then it is as if we are never there in the first place. Silence = Nonexistence.
 * All I ask for is a chance to have the same kind of forum, the right to speak, the same credibility as thee wrong-ass ignant fools. But the producers of these types of shows think tht I will only talk about tai chi, where to get the best sushi on the West Side, how to feng-shui your office...the fact that the media at large look at my race before they hear my voice = fucked up shit.
 * The terrible thing about invisibility is the lengths we will go to be seen.
 * This land is your land, but this land isn't my land - that is what so many of us thought. This 2nd class citizenship has sunk in so deeply that we have barely an awareness of it.
 * Haven't we heard enough from these ancient white guys? There is this silent agreement that everyone everywhere has made regarding old white men. They are the bottom line, the last word, no matter what. The saying "It's not over 'til the fat lady sings is erroneous, because women who are fat are never listened to".
 * My parents have lived in the United States since 1964 and they have never voted. They don't feel they have a right to. They don't feel this is their country. Even though they are citizens, they pay taxes, they watch the news and keep up with current events, they still don't feel comfortable enough with their American life to fully participate in it...Any attempt to argue is thwarted by dismissal...I guess he doesn't want to explain, because how can you explain something as intangible as invisibility?
 * I want to scream and shout, "Stop! We are all human beings!"...but I don't think anybody will hear it.
 * I don't know how to find our voice. It catches in my throat when I try to use it. If I do manage to get something out, its met with very vocal opposition from all kinds of surprising sources.
 * Racism is one of the biggest taboos in our culture, yet most discrimination against Asian-Americans goes largely unnoticed...its blown off by the rest of the media as a joke, as in "Look at them. They get all up in arms over nothing".
 * The dismissal of our anger as a racial minority is worse than any slur or epithet because it undermines our ability to react to it.
 * I add to the culture of invisibility becoming complicit with it.

MENTAL COLONIZATION

 * I see evidence of my own racist brainwashing when exploring the landscape of current foreign policy. (about North Korea)
 * My association is so painfully close that avoidance is the only way I know to retain my identity. It's ridiculous and embarrassing. I hate feeling this way, because it forces me to see how deeply racism has affected me.
 * Prejudice and bigotry rot me from within, and the strains of these viruses are hearty and hard to kill.
 * I had always regarded the world of political humor as the exclusive domain of white men and immediately disqualified myself from participation. I know better now, its immensely pleasing when I'm referred to as a political comedian...
 * Self-hatred is a devastatingly difficult habit to break, especially when we are mostly unaware of it.

RACISM AND CIVIL RIGHTS

 * The amount of racism, sexism, homophobia, and hatred in general that lies beneath the surface of the American dream is astounding and serious.
 * People are surprised at the depth of resentment against Asian Americans, but it never shocks me. We are the object of hatred not only for the things we do but just being who we are, ching chong chinamen.
 * There are still lynchings. And while we don't use ropes anymore, there are more efficient ways of doing it.
 * The majority should not be allowed to rule simply because its the majority. The majority is responsible for slavery, segregation, lynching, denying women and minorities the vote, Japanese internment and a million other injustices and inhumanities.
 * Then there are the laws against homosexuality. Then there is the Asian exclusion act. Then there the internment of Japanese Americans. I'm not even going to talk about Guantanamo. And then there is the first American hate crime: taking this land from the Native Americans. We can keep it up forever. Hate Crime Trivial Pursuit. There are more than enough hate crimes to play a decent round.
 * No matter who you are or what you feel about homosexuality--if you are gay, lesbian, transgendered, bisexual, bicurious, metrosexual, heterosexual, celibate, hermaphrodite, a satyr, a succubus, a fucking human being-- and especially if you are a fucking human being and really want to live in a country where all people are equal--not separate, not "civil-unionized", not lied to about your rights--realize that same sex marriage will not harm you. It will not make gay people more gay, it will not make you gay unless you already are. It will not make your children gay unless they already are. It will not change your life in the least, unless you are gay and wanna marry your partner.
 * What is deeply distressing is the incredible number of people who are vehemently opposed to equality, and the need for them to deny gay rights simply because they cannot bear the thought of gays having rights.
 * Because even though there is all this talk about multiculturalism in television and the movie industries, I have yet to see any evidence of it.
 * I actually adore that kind of hate mail, because if all you have to fight me with is prejudice then I have already won the battle, and eventually I'm gonna win this war. I wrote about hate mail on my website, and posted all that I had received, along with the names and e-mail addresses of the guilty...(this) actually prompted an incredible number of the haters to recant and apologize.
 * Whenever you hear the words chink, nigger, beaner, paki, sissy, bull dyke, faggot, cunt, bitch, ho, jap...because through no fault of your own, you happen to be you, and apparently to the person saying it something is wrong with that.
 * We have allowed alarmist and racist attitudes to take us hostage, and if these impulses are not kept in check they will behead us all.
 * Having to remind others of your American status, fear of being connected to the enemy because of ancestral ties, the threat so prevalent that it makes you put not one but two giant flags outside is not right.
 * We are the scavenger minority, picking at the carcass of civil rights, trying to get our measly share, so very far from the idea of fair...but what do you expect? We are the bottom-feeders of a multicultural fishtank, we get pushed to the back of the bus by more vocal minorities that have been there and don't want to return.
 * Whenever I get hate mail, the verbal assault is always racial.
 * We don't have the luxury of our own privatized civil rights movements because the crimes - the ignorance, the rage, the hate against the who/what/why of some of us, is a much much larger foe. Together we are more than the sum of our parts. In union, in communion, in joining hands, we conquer all, because we have love on our side.
 * Racism is a cancer that is unstoppable if left unchecked.
 * Our nation bringing slaves from Africa was the biggest hate crime of all. Then, when the slaves were freed, there wasn't anywhere for them to go. Then came the reign of terror by the KKK that never really ended. Then there is the fact that none of this stuff is taught in American History, at least not in detail.

PIGEONHOLING PEOPLE

 * I have never had any desire to play a maid, a liquor store owner kicking a black person out of my store, a rude and harried waitress, a worldly-wise acupuncturist, an early-rising, loose black cotton pants wearing elderly woman practicing tai chi in the park, a manicurist, a prostitute, a student in an English as a Second Language course, a purveyor of exotic mushrooms and ginseng, an exchange student, a newscaster covering gang warfare in Chinatown, a woman drowning my newborn baby in a bowl, a daughter crying with my mom over our constant battle between East and West yet finally coming together over a particularly intense game of mahjong...a young girl being raped and killed by GIs in the Killing Fields, a woman balancing a basket of any kind on my head...committing suicide because my white lover did not come back to Japan after the war, or having him come back for me and fooling him successfully for years and years thinking I am a woman when really I'm a dude, as if my race castrates me so much this deception is completely feasible...
 * I stamp my feet and claim ignorance like a child, because its the color of my skin that says I'm supposed to know. I become the "one who refuses to see the self".

ACTIVISM

 * What is needed now is action, not hopelessness
 * We are a nation divided which is obvious. The problem is, the division is keeping this monarchy in place.
 * We are supposed to be ruled by ourselves, but I have yet to see any evidence of it in our lifetime.
 * Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think. It is vital to mourn the victims of this government, but not at the expense of losing our sense of humor. Our ability to laugh directly coincides with our ability to fight. If we make fun of it, we can transcend it.
 * Although it might be that we can't expect change overnight, there was really a rapid shift in the way we view politics.
 * These new ways of looking at ourselves politically redefine what it means to be American. It took our until now, very passive identity and turned us all into revolutionaries.
 * We are more aware and politicized than ever before. There is very little ambiguity as to which side you are on.
 * Yet the powers that be haven't quite considered the strength of our sheer numbers.
 * Ultimately a government cannot defeat its people, no matter how much power they assume or how corrupt they are. For us, there is only opportunity.
 * The people I choose to admire are not necessarily popular, not necessarily terribly well known, but they each have something to offer me, a lesson, a cautionary tale, an idea, an inspiration.
 * Might does not equal right...fortunately, the majority holds power by a very small margin. There are certain things the majority has no right to mess with, certain things that are definitely worth fighting for--worth defending and worth offending.
 * We have a date to rumble with stupidity, ignorance, prejudice, laziness, hatred, and greed.
 * I am fighting when I'm sleeping. In my dreams, I must slay the dragon of European heterosexual male society, then I wake up in the morning and be an activist.
 * I have to watch the news and movies about the people who I am not, then translate my struggle in order to make it palatable for those people who don't have to march but are sympathetic to my voice.
 * I try every day to challenge myself further, and I believe in doing this I slay the monster (within) bit by bit. That's why being political is an essential part of my life. In the end, its all I have.
 * We are no longer afraid to voice our opinions, to use our power, to pool our resources, to allow our differences to unite us instead of keeping us apart.

NATIONALISM

 * Just as we pull up to this place...I notice two very large American flags...It's as if there was a need to emphasize the Americanness of this place. "We are American" says the first flag. "No we really are!" says the second. It struck me as enormously sad, somehow awkward and tragic.
 * I love America. I'm not moving. It's cool. I just don't like seeing dead people.
 * We have no idea what our nation is doing in our name. I don't want to be anyone's captor, anyone's torturer.
 * I feel 100% responsible, even though there's nothing I could do to prevent it. What good is my guilt if it's not felt by those supposedly in charge?
 * Its unacceptable to me, both as an American and as a human being.
 * We justify those atrocities because, well, they're doing their best for their country, but then again, that exactly what the hooded executioners...

WAR

 * My attitude towards peace does not depend on which war we are discussing. I think that words should do the work of bombs
 * Stop the fantasy we need to be defending freedom, because we don't have freedom in our own country yet.
 * They (the government) are unfazed by any amount of travesty, loss, tragedy, death, and destruction.
 * Why is this all so hard? Why do these old men need it so hard?
 * It was not our right to have become the world's bully and start this war in the first place.
 * Of course, we're there because of weapons of mass destruction that do not exist.
 * Don't you think the soldiers look like they came straight from high school yearbooks, too young to be over in Iraq, fighting for no reason?
 * Bush is not Hitler. He would be if he applied himself.
 * Of course America is responsible for the total body count. We started it, we own it, we sow, we reap, but we are also disconnected from the responsibility of our won dirty acts of war.
 * The military posts vengeance on their websites, and seeks publicity for their displays of inhumanity.
 * How many Americans lives have been lost in this brutal and needless war? How many Iraqi? How many names do we know on either side?

DEATH

 * I am super glad about your four-hour erection, but I was wondering, where is the cure for AIDS? (regarding Viagra, Cialis, etc)
 * You will never make love, laugh, fight, eat, go to the movies, kiss, smile, dance, sing, run, skate, play the piano, buy candy for, argue jokingly, tell stories, look longingly at, jump on the bed with, pet the dogs with your faces, sing along with the song in the car and get the words wrong, share a secret, gossip, cop a feel, go hear a band that you both love, share a really good meal, carpool with people you don't like and make fun of them secretly later, cry, comfort, scratch backs, insist on pizza, catch them staring at you, put your arms around them, stay up too late, lean against warm bodies, feel safe with their feet sliding next to yours in bed, raise your children, go to boring dinner parties and get too drunk to drive home so you sleep in the car, spend alternate holidays with each others families, have uncontrollable lust with, followed by mind blowing fuck sessions lasting for hours and hours at a time, take a bath so hot one of you has to get out, all naked and wet and red and dizzy but not embarrassed because this is who you love and rarely are you shy with them, watch a TV show you both hate because the remote control is broken--merely happily, and maybe sometimes unhappily, share your life, and be with them, but you can't, because they're dead. Suddenly, unjustly,untimely, irretrievably--unconscionably dead.
 * As you read their names, imagine who they loved, who loved them, and those those left behind cope now without them. They're never coming home. Never.

SPEAKING UP

 * Why am I political? Because society's consistent and constant disregard and lack of respect for minorities, even the title minority, is too much to bear silently. Their insistence at our invisibility, whether subtle as noninclusion, or as loud and violent as hate crimes, is contagious, and can make me hide from myself.
 * If we don't talk about this epidemic we are going to die.
 * Playing it safe is not productive for anyone, because safety requires gays and lesbians to be invisible, and the inhumanity engendered by making people invisible is anything but safe, rather, it puts us all in danger. When we are banned from the places we should be welcomed, where we should not only be allowed but encouraged to speak, where should we go then?
 * Trying to fault gays and lesbians for standing up for their rights is backwards and unconscionable. We have no idea how powerful we actually are. We were never considered part of the general, respectable population.
 * I am not so much angry as trying to find my own voice in the world, to find enough courage to speak up in the first place, then to go forth and use it, which both are monumental tasks and require more confidence than you'd think.
 * The only way to push forward instead of wasting away in the purgatorial procrastination of worry is to just not care what the outcomes. I need to just start running downhill with my eyes shut. There are no guarantees that I will be able to survive this world, where the air is rare for minorities like myself. But that suits me just fine. I'm a risk taker that way.

FEMINISM

 * If you are not a feminist, you do not deserve to live. Do you think you grew out of the ground?
 * What people need to understand is pussy is the Front Door to Life. Do you get that? Nobody ever thinks about it like that in the dusty ancient cabinet of old white men that think they know everything.
 * Feminism is nonnegotiable.
 * With salons all over the West serving up specialties like "Barely Legal", removing all hair from the area to replicate the genitalia of an underage girl, as statutory rape seems all the rage.
 * All of them who need to tell ladies to stop talking about sports and stay on the sidelines, because we are baby-making machines.

HATING ONESELF

 * Body dysmorphia has got to go.Its similar to a disease called "crazy eyes" not the way others look at you, but the way you see yourself. The insanity which we use as our vision....
 * There was never a lack of reasons to hate myself, to hate my body.
 * Since the unfortunate victims pay for the pleasure themselves these are HIGH CRIMES that will go UNPUNISHED because they are self-inflicted.
 * The quiet messages that affect and alter the way we view ourselves are controlled by an elite group of ignant men.
 * I am admittedly insecure about my racial identity, an attitude that has much improved since my younger days when I absolutely abhorred it. Any attention paid to me being different was incredibly shameful...but the mirrors became too much...what a disappointing reality check!
 * I could care less where my breasts are as long as they are on my body, ... and I'm sorry I just don't care that much about gravity....My lawless, braless ways are rather outlaw.

FOLLOWING YOUR DREAMS

 * When your young and hungry and nobody's ever really accepted you because of your color and class, the hurt of your own family having cast you out in the first place still inside you somewhere, you dance hard because there is no other way to live, and when opportunity knocks its more of an abduction than a housecall.
 * Swept up in a grand illusion that I might be able to eat, have a roof over my head, own some pretty dresses and realize, in a vastly heady way, that I could make a living doing my art, which was the only dream I ever had, what could I say but "Yes, where do I sign?"

From Her Weblog

 * San Francisco fucking rules. I am so proud of my home town for legalizing gay marriage, sending gays and lesbians down to the city by the Bay that was built on rock and roll to tie the knot.

 * Ugly. Is irrelevant. It is an immeasurable insult to a woman, and then supposedly the worst crime you can commit as a woman. But ugly, as beautiful, is an illusion. A matter of taste, a whim, an eye, a beholder, an opinion, a spin, light crossing the frame, paint, projection. The moment. Context.

 * We have been threatened by a local conservative group who said they will picket the show unless I am fired and taken off the bill and replaced by someone else. Sorry. I am now more excited than ever to meet y'all. Personally, if you are going to picket a show, fine, but the fact that you are picketing my show, means you are stepping up to me, which means some very bad things could possibly happen to you.

 * Then there is Dick Cheney, who essentially said that if Kerry is voted in as president, terrorism will hit America again. How is that? Is Cheney going to make some calls? Apparently he has the hook up.

 * This presidential race is the biggest dick contest in history. "Your dick is indecisive!" "Your dick started an unnecessary war!" "Your dick didn't get injured enough in Vietnam!" "Your dick didn't even go to Vietnam!" "Your dick is soft on terrorism!" "Your dick started terrorism!" "Your dick blamed Vietnam vets for atrocities that made all vets unable to come home to a hero's welcome." "Your dick forged its way out of military service!" Has this kind of dick-waggling happened before outside of a pro-wrestling context?

 * So when some man says to me, "Don't you wish you were beautiful?" those are like killing words. That's my death, if I don't pummel it into his soft, not-yet-completely-formed radio disc-jockey skull that I am already beautiful, and I wish for nothing, other than for him to go away. I am so beautiful, sometimes people weep when they see me. And it has nothing to do with what I look like really, it is just that I gave myself the power to say that I am beautiful, and if I could do that, maybe there is hope for them too. You can't even get to me. I got special service, boundaries like the rings of Saturn. I am protected. I am four–five faggots deep all around me, who don't see your name on the list, who will not let you in here looking like that, who will hold you in a cold, hard, unflinching stare or back hand compliment you until you cry. If you even had the courage to ask me out you would have to do it by mail, sent months in advance, on a single 5×7 sheet of eggshell vellum, signed in blood and sealed in gold and scented with a light mist of the new fragrance by Alan Cumming, just so I could throw it away without becoming repulsed.

 * It is a good life, if I watch myself. Kind of like when I used to diet, but now instead of limiting calories, I will not allow negative self-talk. I cut out insults like I cut out carbs and it is hard as hell because I crave self-abuse like hot, fresh sourdough bread, but you know you have to be nice to you if you are going to live together.

title: Margaret Cho