Cleve Jones Quotes - Page 2

When I was saving pills to kill myself, I thought there was no hope. I thought my life was over because I was a homosexual.

I was bullied pretty badly especially in middle school. High school was not as bad as middle school, but I was not a macho kid at all. And the kids saw me as different from a very, very early age.

I do believe that non-violent civil disobedience is a very important and useful tactic.

We spend countless hours talking about people's feelings and issues that aren't going to change anything.

I am old school, I joined the gay liberation movement in 1972. If you had told me in 1972 that in the year 2009 I would be campaigning for the right to join the army or get married I think I would have started dating women at that time.

Any social movement that seeks to benefit only its own members I think is a shallow movement and probably doomed to failure.

The subset of our population that has not benefited from the advancement of medication is black and brown people.

Even in my town, even in San Francisco, thousands of gay men were arrested usually using entrapment techniques every single year for sexual behavior between consenting adults. That continued well into the 1970s until it was finally decriminalized in 1976, I believe.

Most of the young people I know are working so hard, 60 or 70 hours a week. They have no time for recreation or love affairs; it's just work and struggle. I want them to endure, and find that strength and be able to continue.

The joy with which we denigrate each others' efforts, I hate that.

Everybody will always find some way of diminishing your work, but it's all a lie!

Since the industrial revolution, cities, and especially the inner cities, were the places for the newly arrived. Voluntary immigrants seeking economic betterment, refugees, the bohemians, the artists - all of those people were crammed into densely populated neighborhoods and tenements. And as people climbed up the economic ladder they moved out, which really accelerated with the "white flight" phenomenon in the '60s and '70s.

I get to interact with a bunch of young people that are up against despair constantly.

Film really is a collaborative art.

What people haven't quite grasped yet is that the rich are transforming cities all across the world.

The penalties for homosexual conduct were - would vary from state to state, but they were - it was a felony in most states punishable with prison terms of varying lengths.

I have no personal desire to get married whatsoever and I certainly have no desire to be a soldier. I'm old school, I'm from gay liberation, we wanted to end war forever and smash the patriarchy and these are values I still hold dear but, I believe that any person who wants to get married should have that right and I know that Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual people serve with distinction in the armed forces, and that when they are killed, supposedly serving our country in these wars, that I personally do not support, their partners back home do not receive death benefits.

If you're gonna build units for the rich, you're gonna build units for the poor.

There are places in America that have not just protected middle-class neighborhoods but reduced homelessness. Even places like Houston have been able to reduce homelessness among veterans. It's a pretty shameful situation.

I don't have any hobbies! I don't golf, I can't imagine what I would do if I retired other than get fat.

I saw great hope in the Sanders campaign - a flawed candidate, not perfect, but pretty damn close. Millions of young people were inspired by him.

I recently heard young people talking about collective bargaining agreements - I hadn't heard young people use that phrase in forever!

Most people do not have access to medication.

The whole function of cities has been transformed.

The sense of urgency has almost completely vanished.