“I would rather build my own castle than stand at the gate of someone else’s, begging them to let me inside.”
– Brandon Loran Maxwell
“My goal as a writer isn’t to sing with the choir, or sing to the choir. It’s to sing a song the choir refuses to hear, even if it gets me kicked out of the chapel.”
– Brandon Loran Maxwell
“Economic empowerment is the single most effective way to free a person. Economic dependence is the single fastest way to imprison them.”
– Brandon Loran Maxwell
“There will always be people from your past that trivialize change, sermonize poison and disparage dreams. But for those people from your past that encourage and support you, never forget them in your journey. Always include them in your triumphs. Never forget where you came from. Because at the end of the day, when all the cheap cocktails, plastic smiles and paper credentials are stripped away, your roots are all you have.”
– Brandon Loran Maxwell
“Fear of failure has never stopped me from trying new things. I have failed at a lot of things. But with each failure, I learn something new and valuable. If you aren’t failing, you aren’t trying new things. Nobody should aspire to be complacent or stagnant.”
– Brandon Loran Maxwell
“Taking away a microphone doesn’t take away bad ideas. It incentivizes people with bad ideas to whisper louder.”
– Brandon Loran Maxwell
“Over the years I have found that those who call for violence are generally those who have never experienced violence. Because those who have experienced violence tend not to throw around the prospect of violence lightly.”
– Brandon Loran Maxwell
“Heroes aren’t molded, they’re etched. Fashioned by endeavor. Born of resolution’s unholy dalliance with circumstance.”
– Brandon Loran Maxwell
“Speech should be the last thing anyone concedes, and the first thing that everyone defends—regardless of who it offends.”
– Brandon Loran Maxwell
“Violence cannot bring peace. Destruction cannot bring prosperity. Moral equivalency cannot bring justice.”
– Brandon Loran Maxwell
“The true danger to Americans is not the foreign-born or prospective citizen, but the current U.S. citizenship process, which continues to remain unnecessarily bureaucratic and convoluted.”
– Brandon Loran Maxwell
“No bigger lie has been peddled to Black and Brown communities than that the destruction of Black and Brown communities somehow benefits Black and Brown communities.”
– Brandon Loran Maxwell