Quote

People of color are not under any kind of obligation beyond working hard, doing their best, and learning from their mistakes.

Roxane Gay

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Roxane Gay
Age: 50
Born: 1974
Born: October 15
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
Scrabble Player
Writer
Omaha
Nebraska
People
Beyond
Color
Learning
Mistake
Working
Best
Hard
Obligation
Kind
Mistakes

More quotes by Roxane Gay

Image
When you look past the image, a celebrity is merely a person you know nothing about.
Roxane Gay
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Truth can hurt so very much.
Roxane Gay
Image
Most of my favorite tweets go completely ignored but most of my favorite tweets are probably really lame or inside jokes between me and my [redacted]. See what I did there?
Roxane Gay
Image
When I write on Twitter, I do other things: I'm working, grading, or reading, and I'm procrastinating, and I'll pop on Twitter and be like, Hey, what's up? Yogurt's delicious.
Roxane Gay
Image
I live in the middle of nowhere and I'm an insomniac. I just make the time and I read and write really fast so that makes a lot possible for me. I wish I had an explanation for it. I'm grateful for it.
Roxane Gay
Image
I read constantly because there is so much to learn from the writing in the world.
Roxane Gay
Image
Some women being empowered does not prove the patriarchy is dead. It proves that some of us are lucky.
Roxane Gay
Image
Readers need to stop assuming characters are white if race isn't explicitly defined.
Roxane Gay
Image
You have to be consistent. You have to be yourself. You have to be committed to what you're doing. You have to not be afraid to be ambitious.
Roxane Gay
Image
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
Image
I wrote myself back together. I wrote myself toward a stronger version of myself . . . Through writing and feminism, I also found that if I was a little bit brave, another woman might hear me and see me and recognize that none of us are the nothing the world tries to tell us we are.
Roxane Gay
Image
The actual act of writing brings me such pleasure - to tell stories, to engage in cultural criticism, to reflect, to question, all of it is invigorating.
Roxane Gay
Image
I am fine with my books being categorized as African-American literature but I hope they are also considered Haitian-American literature and American literature. All of these things are part of who I am and what I write.
Roxane Gay
Image
I would like to believe that most people, regardless of gender, are good and kind. The good men in my stories are the rule. It's the bad men that are the exception and because I tend toward the dark in my fiction, you see more of the exception than the rule.
Roxane Gay
Image
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. Feminism will better succeed with collective effort, but feminist success can also rise out of personal conduct.
Roxane Gay
Image
Just write and love what you're writing. And if you're not loving what you're writing, take a look at why and fix that.
Roxane Gay
Image
Twitter is my happy place. I am not there to overthink 140 characters.
Roxane Gay
Image
I love writing fiction because I can totally lose myself and I get to make up the rules of the world that I'm writing.
Roxane Gay