“If you can give a nation hope you can ride them too.”

“A coaster gives you hope. You can pretty much ride a good one through the worst tragedy life throws at you. You can even ride it through somebody dying, I guess.”

“Riding the train gives him too much time to think, he has decided. Too much thinking can ruin you.”

“The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right. Without hope, not only gays, but the blacks, the seniors, the handicapped, the us'es, the us'es will give up. And if you help elect to the central committee and other offices, more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward. It means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone. So if there is a message I have to give, it is that if I've found one overriding thing about my personal election, it's the fact that if a gay person can be elected, it's a green light. And you and you and you, you have to give people hope....”

“Forgiveness is.... giving up the hope that you can change the past.”

“Published in this month's Harper's, from a conversation held in Beijing in February 1973:Chairman Mao Zedong: Do you want our Chinese women? We can give you ten million.U.S. National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger: The chairman is improving his offer.Mao: We can let them flood your country with disaster and therefore impair your interests. In our country we have too many women, and they have a way of doing things. They give birth to children, and our children are too many.”