“... it's good to have female or minority role models. But the important thing is to have mentors who care about you, and they come in all colors.”

“All the role models are being exposed and this is good because role models are shit. The quicker we exposed them the better. The whole concept of role models is frightful! You gotta make your own role.”

“But it is Bella, not the supernaturals she falls in with, who is the true horror show here, at least as a female role model.”

“To pay attention to the American political process, and what thecandidates for this nation’s highest office have to say and not say about the issues that are of importance to them and thus we are to presume importance to the Nation, you would get the impression that the issue of race, that the issue of racism, that the issue of discrimination, and certainly that the issue of white racial privilege were non existent issues; that they were of really no importance, or that of very little importance, because you will not hear and have not heard any of the candidates for the presidency of the United States, in either party, of whatever political ideology, make this an issue. Yes,they talk about poverty and occasionally they talk about schooling and education. They talk about healthcare. They talk about all of those things, but not once have any of those candidates tried to directly connect the role that racism, the role that racialdiscrimination, the role that institutional racial oppression and white privilege play in regard to health care, in regard to housing, in regard to schooling. It is as if those issues exist in a vacuum and have no relationship to color, have no relationship to race, haveno relationship to a history of racial subordination.”

“The principal feature of American liberalism is sanctimoniousness. By loudly denouncing all bad things — war and hunger and date rape — liberals testify to their own terrific goodness. More important, they promote themselves to membership in a self-selecting elite of those who care deeply about such things.... It's a kind of natural aristocracy, and the wonderful thing about this aristocracy is that you don't have to be brave, smart, strong or even lucky to join it, you just have to be liberal.”

“When you have no role models, you must become your own.”