Melissa Harris-Perry

“The most important thing is to be whatever you are without shame.”

“We have never been a nation of haves and have-nots. We are a nation of haves and soon-to-haves, of people who have made it and people who will make it.”

“I am a feminist. I'm not a man-hater. I'm a feminist because I believe in the full equality of men and women.”

“Politics is the way that we live together.”

“Sisterhood is not a matter of shared gender, but a matter of shared ideology.”

“Productivity and efficiency are not the same thing.”

“Our democracy is not something we have, it's something we do.”

“Trayvon Martin could have been my son. That is not a liberal talking point; it is a reality.”

“Being a nerd is not about what you love, it's about how you love it.”

“Shame is a tool of oppression.”

“There is nothing more American than protest.”

“The goal is not to be perfect by the end, the goal is to be better tomorrow.”

“We don't have to be 'post-racial' to be good to each other. We have to be good to each other to be good to each other.”

“Black women are the glue of our communities.”

“Part of what it means to be a patriot is to have a profound and abiding love for your country, but also to have the courage to question it.”