“I embrace the label of bad feminist because I am human. I am messy. I’m not trying to be an example. I am not trying to be perfect. I am not trying to say I have all the answers. I am not trying to say I’m right. I am just trying—trying to support what I believe in, trying to do some good in this world, trying to make some noise with my writing while also being myself.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“It’s hard to be told to lighten up because if you lighten up any more, you’re going to float the fuck away.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“I believe feminism is grounded in supporting the choices of women even if we wouldn’t make certain choices for ourselves.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“When feminism falls short of our expectations, we decide the problem is with feminism rather than with the flawed people who act in the name of the movement.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“I would rather be a bad feminist than no feminist at all.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“To have privilege in one or more areas does not mean you are wholly privileged. Surrendering to the acceptance of privilege is difficult, but it is really all that is expected. What I remind myself, regularly, is this: the acknowledgment of my privilege is not a denial of the ways I have been and am marginalized, the ways I have suffered.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“Books are often far more than just books.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“I believe women not just in the United States but throughout the world deserve equality and freedom but know I am in no position to tell women of other cultures what that equality and freedom should look like.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“I learned a long time ago that life introduces young people to situations they are in no way prepared for, even good girls, lucky girls who want for nothing. Sometimes, when you least expect it, you become the girl in the woods. You lose your name because another one is forced on you. You think you are alone until you find books about girls like you. Salvation is certainly among the reasons I read. Reading and writing have always pulled me out of the darkest experiences in my life. Stories have given me a place in which to lose myself. They have allowed me to remember. They have allowed me to forget. They have allowed me to imagine different endings and better possible worlds.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“Somewhere along the line we started misinterpreting the First Amendment and this idea of the freedom of speech the amendment grants us. We are free to speak as we choose without fear of prosecution or persecution, but we are not free to speak as we choose without consequence.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“It's hard not to feel humorless, as a woman and a feminist, to recognize misogyny in so many forms, some great and some small, and know you're not imagining things. It's hard to be told to lighten up because if you lighten up any more, you're going to float the fuck away. The problem is not that one of these things is happening; it's that they are all happening, concurrently and constantly.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“You don't necessarily have to do anything once you acknowledge your privilege. You don't have to apologize for it. You need to understand the extent of your privilege, the consequences of your privilege, and remain aware that people who are different from you move through and experience the world in ways you might never know anything about.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“We need to stop playing Privilege or Oppression Olympics because we’ll never get anywhere until we find more effective ways of talking through difference. We should be able to say, “This is my truth,” and have that truth stand without a hundred clamoring voices shouting, giving the impression that multiple truths cannot coexist.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“Abandon the cultural myth that all female friendships must be bitchy, toxic, or competitive. This myth is like heels and purses--pretty but designed to SLOW women down.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“When women respond negatively to misogynistic or rape humor, they are "sensitive" and branded as "feminist," a word that has, as of late, become a catchall term for "woman who does not tolerate bullshit.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“Don’t flirt, have sex, or engage in emotional affairs with your friends’ significant others. This shouldn’t need to be said, but it needs to be said. That significant other is an asshole, and you don’t want to be involved with an asshole who’s used goods. If you want to be with an asshole, get a fresh asshole of your very own. They are abundant.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“Some women being empowered does not prove the patriarchy is dead. It proves that some of us are lucky.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“If people cannot be flawed in fiction there's no place left for us to be human.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“When you can’t find someone to follow, you have to find a way to lead by example.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“What goes unsaid is that women might be more ambitious and focused because we’ve never had a choice. We’ve had to fight to vote, to work outside the home, to work in environments free of sexual harassment, to attend the universities of our choice, and we’ve also had to prove ourselves over and over to receive any modicum of consideration.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“We don’t all have to believe in the same feminism. Feminism can be pluralistic so long as we respect the different feminisms we carry with us, so long as we give enough of a damn to try to minimize the fractures among us.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“In truth, feminism is flawed because it is a movement powered by people and people are inherently flawed.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“Feminism is a choice, and if a woman does not want to be a feminist, that is her right, but it is still my responsibility to fight for her rights. I believe feminism is grounded in supporting the choices of women even if we wouldn’t make certain choices for ourselves. I believe women not just in the United States but throughout the world deserve equality and freedom but know I am in no position to tell women of other cultures what that equality and freedom should look like.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“Just because you survive something does not mean you are strong.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“All too often, when we see injustices, both great and small, we think, That's terrible, but we do nothing. We say nothing. We let other people fight their own battles. We remain silent because silence is easier. Qui tacet consentire videtur is Latin for 'Silence gives consent.' When we say nothing, when we do nothing, we are consenting to these trespasses against us.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“If you’re reading to find friends, you’re in deep trouble. We read to find life, in all its possibilities.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“No matter what issues I have with feminism, I am a feminist. I cannot and will not deny the importance and absolute necessity of feminism. Like most people, I’m full of contradictions, but I also don’t want to be treated like shit for being a woman.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“I approach most things in life with a dangerous level of confidence to balance my generally low self-esteem.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“I give the victim the benefit of the doubt when it comes to allegations of rape and sexual abuse. I choose to err on that side of caution. This does not mean I am unsympathetic to the wrongly accused, but if there are sides to be chosen, I am on the side of the victim.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“That the question of likability even exists in literary conversations is odd. It implies that we are engaging in a courtship. When characters are unlikable, they don’t meet our mutable, varying standards. Certainly we can find kinship in fiction, but literary merit shouldn’t be dictated by whether we want to be friends or lovers with those about whom we read.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
Roxane Gay
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“Prison is quite literally a ghetto in the most classic sense of the world, a place where the U.S. government now puts not only the dangerous but also the inconvenient-people who are mentally ill, people who are addicts, people who are poor and uneducated and unskilled.”
― Piper Kerman, quote from Orange Is the New Black
“Bertie’s my name and flirting’s my game, I’ve an eye for every girl. Don’t give a fig! I have a little chat, then give ’em a pat,”
― Jacqueline Wilson, quote from Little Stars
“...small talk plunged to its death around him.”
― Michael Ondaatje, quote from Anil's Ghost
“I'm driving."
Roarke's hand paused as it reached for the car door, and his brow winged up. "It's my car."
"It's my deal."
They studied each other a minute, crowded together at the driver's side door. "Why are you driving?"
"Because." Vaguely embarrassed, she dug her hands in her pockets. "Don't smirk."
"I'll try to resist. Why?"
"Because," she said again, "I drive when I'm on a case, so if I drive, it'll feel like -- it'll feel official instead of criminal."
"I see. Well, that makes perfect sense. You drive."
She started to climb in while he circled around to the passenger side. "Are you smirking behind my back?"
"Yes, of course." He sat, stretched out his legs. "Now, to make it really official, I should have a uniform. I'll go that far, but I refuse to wear those amazingly ugly cop shoes."
"You're a real joker," she muttered and jerked the car into reverse, did a quick, squealing spin, and shot out of the garage.
"Too bad this vehicle doesn't have a siren. But we can pretend nothing works on it, so you'll feel official."
"Keep it up. Just keep it up."
"Maybe I'll call you sir. Could be sexy." He smiled blandly when she glared at him. "Okay, I'm done. How do you want to play this?”
― J.D. Robb, quote from Conspiracy in Death
“But in dying so suddenly her mother had become a riddle at the gate instead of the road you walked to get there.”
― Stephanie Kallos, quote from Broken for You
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The Seven Songs of M...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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