"What do you want to be, free or happy? How about if they really are mutually exclusive options? What is freedom anyway? How does humanity govern itself when each person can have anything they want? How does humanity govern itself when nothing is natural?"

"It's our goddamed city! It's our goddamed country. No terrorist can take it from us for so long as we're free. Once we're not free, the terrorists win! Take it back! You're young enough and stupid enough not to know that you can't possibly win, so you're the only ones who can lead us to victory! Take it back!"

"California is a bellwether state. California was the first state in the United States to overturn the laws against interracial marriage. It took 19 years for the rest of the country to come around to that point of view."

"That knowledge humbles me, melts my bones, closes my ears, and makes my teeth rock loosely in their gums. And it also liberates me. I am a big bird winging over high mountains, down into serene valleys. I am ripples of waves on silver seas. I'm a spring leaf trembling in anticipation."

"I don't want to oppress men or demand to be given rights beyond what's held by them, but neither do I want men to oppress women. As God's creations, we should be held in equal esteem."

"But nothing was a important as escaping Evernight or the ‘destiny’ my parents and teachers had decided for me. I had only one chance to be free and to be with the guy I loved. I intended to take it."

"I am at liberty to vote as my conscience and judgment dictates to be right, without the yoke of any party on me... Look at my arms, you will find no party hand-cuff on them."

"To me, it was shocking that a government of men could look with such extreme contempt on a movement that was asking nothing except such a simple little thing as the right to vote."