Quotes by Roxane Gay

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.

A man has never told me he likes me. Like is more interesting than love.

Life, apparently, requires a trigger warning.This is the uncomfortable truth: everything is a trigger for someone. There are things you cannot tell just by looking at someone.We all have history. You can think youre over your history. You can think the past is the past. And then something happens, often innocuous, that shows you how far you are from over it. The past is always with you. Some people want to be protected from this truth.

I knew I was in love with The Hunger Games when I did not want to get off the treadmill

Love your friends kids even if you dont want or like children. Just do it.

We hold all people to unspoken rules about who and how they should be, how they should think, and what the should say. We say we hate stereotypes but take issue when people deviate from those stereotypes.

We all have the capacity to do hurtful things, but we differ from one another in terms of scale-how much we can hurt others, how far we will go to make a statement about our beliefs, how remorseful we might feel in the aftermath of committing a terrible act.

Many comedians are very proud of themselves for saying the things others are supposedly afraid to say. They are at the forefront of this culture of entitlement where we get to do anything, think anything, and say anything.

I would rather be a bad feminist than no feminist at all.

I was too smart and that made people uncomfortable--most folks where weve lived our whole lives dont trust too much intelligence in a woman. There is also the problem of my eyes--they dont hide anything. If I dont care for a person, my eyes make it plain. I dont care for most. Folks are generally comfortable with the small lies they tell each other. They dont know what to do with someone like me, who mostly doesnt bother with small lies.

... just one more reminder that the rules are always different for girls, no matter who they are and no matter what they do.

This tension-the idea that there is a right way to be a woman, a right way to be the most essential woman- is ongoing and pervasive.

Despite what people think based on my opinion writing, I very much like men. Theyre interesting to me, and I mostly wish they would be better about how they treat women so I wouldnt have to call them out so often.

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 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.

Like many writers, I lived inside of books as a child.

Some experiences are universal. A girl is a girl whether she lives in West Omaha or Sweet Valley. Books are often far more than books.

I hate when people say something is not their job or that something isnt possible. We all say these things, sure, but some people actually believe they dont have to work beyond what is written in their job description or that they dont have to try to reach those who seemingly cannot be reached.

You are the joy in my life. I am a mess but I will be the joy in yours … When you touch me, you feel through me, through the ugliness beneath my skin, you make me feel, you hold me together, you push my skin back into its proper place. When you see me next, I will be wearing your ring on my left finger. I will say yes. You will hear me.

She didnt care if he was telling the truth. Milly felt nothing but she was very good at making men think otherwise. Sometimes, she nearly convinced herself.

More troubling than this oddly timed debate about birth control is the vehemence with which women need to justify or explain why they take birth control—health reasons, to regulate periods, you know, as if theres anything wrong with taking birth control simply because you want to have sex without that sex resulting in pregnancy.