Speaker 1

 Impromptu Round 1, Speaker 1

1. “When your rage is choking you, it is best to say nothing.” ― Octavia E. Butler

2. “Beauty and ingenuity beat perfection hands down, every time.” ― Nalo Hopkinson

3. “We can never be gods, after all--but we can become something less than human with frightening ease.” ― N.K. Jemisin

Speaker 2

Impromptu Round 1, Speaker 2

1. “In order to rise from its own ashes, a Phoenix first must burn.” ― Octavia Butler

2. “You folk are so finicky about time, living it in straight lines like that.” ― Nalo Hopkinson

3. “Home is what you take with you, not what you leave behind.” ― N.K. Jemisin

Speaker 3

Impromptu Round 1, Speaker 3

1. “People have the right to call themselves whatever they like. That doesn't bother me. It's other people doing the calling that bothers me.” ― Octavia E. Butler

2. “Suck all the juice this life will give!” ― Nalo Hopkinson

3. “But for a society built on exploitation, there is no greater threat than having no one left to oppress.” ― N.K. Jemisin

Speaker 4

Impromptu Round 1, Speaker 4

1. “There is no end To what a living world Will demand of you.” ― Octavia E. Butler

2. “Do not ask your future, or you will forget to live in your present.” ― Nalo Hopkinson,

3. “Being useful to others is not the same thing as being equal.” ― N.K. Jemisin

Speaker 5

Impromptu Round 1, Speaker 5

1. “All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth Is Change.” ― Octavia E. Butler

2. “When your elders are millennia-old demigods, you’d best take the injunction to respect your elders seriously.” ― Nalo Hopkinson

3. “Let's start with the end of the world, why don't we? Get it over with and move on to more interesting things.”  ― N.K. Jemisin

Speaker 6

Impromptu Round 1, Speaker 6

1. “There is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.” ― Octavia E. Butler

2. “The point of fiction is to cast a spell, a momentary illusion that you are living in the world of the story” ― Nalo Hopkinson

“After all, a person is herself, and others. Relationships chisel the final shape of one's being. I am me, and you.”― N.K. Jemisin

Speaker 1

Impromptu Round 2, Speaker 1

1. “A girl can wait for the right man to come along but in the meantime that doesn't mean she can't have a wonderful time with all the wrong ones” ― Cher

2. “I have so much hate that it has turned into love.” ― Margaret Cho

3. “It's a good thing I was born a girl, otherwise I'd be a drag queen.” ― Dolly Parton

Speaker 2

Impromptu Round 2, Speaker 2

1. “All of us invent ourselves. Some of us just have more imagination than others.” ― Cher

2. “Whenever anyone has called me a bitch, I have taken it as a compliment.” --Margaret Cho

3. “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap” ― Dolly Parton

Speaker 3

Impromptu Round 2, Speaker 3

1. “If grass can grow through cement, love can find you every time.” ― Cher

2. “Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think.” ― Margaret Cho

3. “If you want the rainbow, you have to put up with the rain.” ― Dolly Parton

Speaker 4

Impromptu Round 2, Speaker 4

1. “I love ghosts; I prefer ghosts to some people.” ― Cher

2. “I’m not going to die because I failed as someone else. I’m going to succeed as myself.” ― Margaret Cho

3. “I would never stoop so low as to be fashionable.” ― Dolly Parton

Speaker 5

Impromptu Round 2, Speaker 5

1. “My mom said to me, 'You know, sweetheart, one day you should settle down and marry a rich man,' and I said, 'Mom, I am a rich man.” ― Cher

2. “Everything is going to be fine in the end, and if it's not fine, it's not the end.” ― Margaret Cho

3. “Find out who you are and do it on purpose.” ― Dolly Parton

Speaker 6

Impromptu Round 2, Speaker 6

1. “Unless you're willing to look a little foolish, forget the possibility of becoming great.” --Cher

2. “I have learned to love that which is meant to harm me, so that I can stand in the way of those who are less strong. I can take the bullets for those who aren't able to.” ― Margaret Cho

3. “Its hard to be a diamond in a rhinestone world.”― Dolly Parton

Speaker 1

Impromptu Round 3, Speaker 1

1.“A scar isn't about the injury, it's about the healing.” ― Daniel José Older

2. “Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.”― Erma Bombeck

3. “How we treat those who can’t force us to be kind says everything about who we are as a people.”

― Connie Schultz,

Speaker 2

Impromptu Round 3, Speaker 2

1. “You can't tiptoe toward justice. You can't walk up to the door all polite and knock once or twice, hoping someone's home. Justice is a door that, when closed, must be kicked in.” ― Daniel José Older

2. “The odds of going to the store for a loaf of bread and coming out with only a loaf of bread are three billion to one.” ― Erma Bombeck
3. “Of all the nasty outcomes predicted for women's liberation...none was more alarming than the suggestion that women would eventually become just like men.” ― Barbara Ehrenreich

Speaker 3

Impromptu Round 3, Speaker 3

1. “Maybe we’re our own makers, no matter who put the parts together.” ― Daniel José Older,

2. “My father used to say that you live most of your life inside your own head, so make sure it's a good space.” ― Carl Hiaasen

3. “There is a vast difference between positive thinking and existential courage.” ― Barbara Ehrenreich

Speaker 4

Impromptu Round 3, Speaker 4

1. “Meetings are Satan’s way of balancing out all the beautiful things in the world, like music.” ― Daniel José Older,

2. “Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely.” ― Erma Bombeck

3. “When you watch television, you never see people watching television.” --Barbara Ehrenreich

Speaker 5

Impromptu Round 3, Speaker 5

1. “hipsters are basically yuppies with tighter pants and bigger glasses.” ― Daniel José Older

2. “The Edge... There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.” ― Hunter S. Thompson
2. “Much of my rebelliousness starts with indifference to what is urgently important to others.”

― Barbara Ehrenreich

Speaker 6

Impromptu Round 3, Speaker 6

1. “The same word anyone said when they didn’t understand something. Crazy was a way to shut people up, disregard them entirely.” ― Daniel José Older,

2. “When the going gets weird, the weird turn professional.” ― Hunter S. Thompson, 

3. “Purge everyone who “brings you down,” and you risk being very lonely or, what is worse, cut off from reality.” --Barbara Ehrenreich

Speaker 1

Impromptu Finals, Speaker 1

1. “Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” ― Neil Gaiman

2. “You're always you, and that don't change, and you're always changing, and there's nothing you can do about it.” ― Neil Gaiman

3. “Picking five favorite books is like picking the five body parts you'd most like not to lose.” ― Neil Gaiman

Speaker 2

Impromptu Finals, Speaker 2

1. “Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.” ― Neil Gaiman

2. “Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.” ― Neil Gaiman

3. “A book is a dream that you hold in your hands." ― Neil Gaiman

Speaker 3

Impromptu Finals, Speaker 3

1. “I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes...you're Doing Something.” ― Neil Gaiman

2. “Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft were written by men.” ― Neil Gaiman

3. “All your questions can be answered, if that is what you want. But once you learn your answers, you can never unlearn them.” ― Neil Gaiman

Speaker 4

Impromptu Finals, Speaker 4

1. “Life is a disease: sexually transmitted, and invariably fatal.” ― Neil Gaiman

2. “Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters.” ― Neil Gaiman

3. “I would like to see anyone, prophet, king or God, convince a thousand cats to do the same thing at the same time.” ― Neil Gaiman

Speaker 5

Impromptu Finals, Speaker 5

1. “What I say is, a town isn’t a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore, it knows it’s not foolin’ a soul.” ― Neil Gaiman

2. “There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily, and so do dreams and hearts.” ― Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders

3. “That which is dreamed can never be lost, can never be undreamed.” ― Neil Gaiman

Speaker 6

Impromptu Finals, Speaker 6

1. “I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.” ― Neil Gaiman

2. “Stories may well be lies, but they are good lies that say true things, and which can sometimes pay the rent.” ― Neil Gaiman

3. “Everybody is going to be dead one day, just give them time.” Neil Gaiman