B. Novice Impromptu Event Prompts
Round 1 - 10:30
Speaker 1
"It's hard to beat a person who never gives up." - Babe Ruth
"The only way to prove that you’re a good sport is to lose." - Ernie Banks
"You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them." - Michael Jordan
Speaker 2
"I’ve never lost a game. I just ran out of time." - Michael Jordan
"If you have everything under control, you're not moving fast enough." - Mario Andretti
"The road to Easy Street goes through the sewer." - John Madden
Speaker 3
"It's not the will to win that matters—everyone has that. It's the will to prepare to win that matters." - Paul "Bear" Bryant
"You can't get much done in life if you only work on the days when you feel good." - Jerry West
"Make each day your masterpiece." - John Wooden
Speaker 4
"To uncover your true potential you must first find your own limits and then you have to have the courage to blow past them." - Picabo Street
"The more difficult the victory, the greater the happiness in winning." - Pelé
"Never say never, because limits, like fears, are often just an illusion." - Michael Jordan
Speaker 5
"The principle is competing against yourself. It's about self-improvement, about being better than you were the day before." - Steve Young
"There are only two options regarding commitment. You're either in or out. There's no such thing as a life in-between." - Pat Riley
"If you don’t have confidence, you’ll always find a way not to win." - Carl Lewis
Speaker 6
"There may be people that have more talent than you, but there's no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do." - Derek Jeter
"I am building a fire, and everyday I train, I add more fuel. At just the right moment, I light the match." - Mia Hamm
"The only way to do great work is to love what you do." - Serena Williams
Round 2 - 1:15
Speaker 1
"Hope will never be silent." - Harvey Milk
"We should indeed keep calm in the face of difference, and live our lives in a state of inclusion and wonder at the diversity of humanity." - George Takei
"The beauty of standing up for your rights is others see you standing and stand up as well." - Cassandra Duffy
Speaker 2
"The only queer people are those who don't love anybody." - Rita Mae Brown
"Equality means more than passing laws. The struggle is really won in the hearts and minds of the community, where it really counts." - Barbara Gittings
"We are powerful because we have survived." - Audre Lorde
Speaker 3
"I don't want to be remembered for being gay. I want to be remembered for being a great boxer and a great humanitarian." - Orlando Cruz
"If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door." - Harvey Milk
"You can never be happy at the expense of the happiness of others." - Myles Horton
Speaker 4
"I am what I am, and what I am needs no excuses." - Gloria Gaynor
"If you can't love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else?" - RuPaul
"It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences." - Audre Lorde
Speaker 5
"There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives." - Audre Lorde
"If you're not willing to fight for it, then you don't really deserve it." - Gavin Newsom
"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself." - Harvey Fierstein
Speaker 6
"I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself." - Rita Mae Brown
"I am what I am, and I know what I know. I have no interest in being perfect, and I have no interest in being who you think I should be." - Peter Buttigieg
"I believe that telling our stories, first to ourselves and then to one another and the world, is a revolutionary act." - Janet Mock
Final Rd - 4:15
Speaker 1
"I'm tough, I'm ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay." - Madonna
"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." - Alice Walker
"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anais Nin
Speaker 2
"We should not have to choose between one person's freedoms and another person's safety." - Roxane Gay
"I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own." - Audre Lorde
"The question isn’t who’s going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me." - Ayn Rand
Speaker 3
"I don't believe in guilty pleasures. If you like something, like it." - Lizzo
"The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity." - Amelia Earhart
"The way to achieve your own success is to be willing to help somebody else get it first." - Iyanla Vanzant
Speaker 4
"Power's not given to you. You have to take it." - Beyoncé
"I can't think of any better representation of beauty than someone who is unafraid to be herself." - Emma Stone
"We need to reshape our own perception of how we view ourselves. We have to step up as women and take the lead." - Beyoncé
Speaker 5
"I raise up my voice—not so I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard...we cannot succeed when half of us are held back." - Malala Yousafzai
"If you don’t risk anything, you risk even more." - Erica Jong
"I can't be a singular expression of myself. There's too many parts, too many spaces... too many manifestations." - Solange Knowles
Speaker 6
"Take criticism seriously, but not personally. If there is truth or merit in the criticism, try to learn from it. Otherwise, let it roll right off you." - Hillary Clinton
"Success isn’t about how much money you make, it’s about the difference you make in people’s lives." - Michelle Obama
"Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person." - Mother Teresa
Speaker 7
“A woman with a voice is by definition a strong woman.” — Melinda French Gates.
“Don't follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you.” — Margaret Thatcher.
“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.” – Coco Chanel