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
Best
Hard
Obligation
Kind
Mistakes
People
Beyond
Color
Learning
Mistake
Working

More quotes by 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
With my writing, I generally just pretend that no one's reading it. I allow myself that delusion so that I can write the things that I write.
Roxane Gay
Image
I don't want the success to go away. I don't want it to seem unearned.
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
I read constantly because there is so much to learn from the writing in the world.
Roxane Gay
Image
Books are often far more than just books.
Roxane Gay
Image
I see my tweets as a current joining a bunch of other currents in the world's craziest ocean.
Roxane Gay
Image
The other day, I saw a blog post where a woman wrote about why she was unfollowing me and that made me feel incredibly self-conscious and embarrassed about my tweets. I also feel more exposed now that I've become a more visible writer but then I try to get over all that and just use Twitter the way I want.
Roxane Gay
Image
Most of the time, writing is a lot of fun, and not a small amount of self-medication.
Roxane Gay
Image
I can't please everyone. I am trying not to let the pressure consume me.
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
Image
Nemeses aren't born. They are made.
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 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
It's gut instinct that helps me determine how to write a story. I love the surreal because I am faced with the challenge of making the unbelievable believable. That challenge is thrilling.
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
If I cannot rest and relax, all the work I do is for naught.
Roxane Gay
Image
I am interested in intense, unbreakable emotional connections and oftentimes, such connections can be found between siblings.
Roxane Gay
Image
Good fiction challenges us as much as it entertains and these days, we could do with both of these things.
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