“To go against the grain is the secret of bravery.”

“Here was the secret of this house, the thing it took bravery to face -- that to go on loving someone means to over and over again allow the necessary pain. ”

“One of the anarch’s emoluments is that he is distinguished for things that he has done on the side or that go against his grain.”

“Bravery isn't when you go looking for trouble; bravery is when trouble comes looking for you.”

“Write against patterns. Go against the devils. Write what you never write. Lie. Validate what you don’t validate. Indulge what you don’t like. Wallow in it. Write the opposite of what you always write, think, speak. Do everything against the grain!”

“A writer will write with or without a movement; but at the same time, for Chicano, lesbian, gay and feminist writers-anybody writing against the grain of Anglo misogynist culture-political movements are what have allowed our writing to surface from the secret places in our notebooks into the public sphere.”