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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

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Roxane Gay
Age: 50
Born: 1974
Born: October 15
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
Scrabble Player
Writer
Omaha
Nebraska
Writing
Cultural
Actual
Brings
Criticism
Question
Pleasure
Invigorating
Tell
Engage
Stories
Reflect

More quotes by Roxane Gay

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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
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Good fiction challenges us as much as it entertains and these days, we could do with both of these things.
Roxane Gay
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Violence is a common part of far too many women's lives.
Roxane Gay
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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
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Some women being empowered does not prove the patriarchy is dead. It proves that some of us are lucky.
Roxane Gay
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Truth can hurt so very much.
Roxane Gay
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Fiction offers escape but it also interrogates the world we live in, whether the past, present or future.
Roxane Gay
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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
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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
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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
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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
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My fiction is a very accurate reflection of the world we live in. Certainly, in some stories, that reflection is amplified but America elected a man who enjoys grabbing women by their pussies.
Roxane Gay
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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
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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
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I can't please everyone. I am trying not to let the pressure consume me.
Roxane Gay
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If I cannot rest and relax, all the work I do is for naught.
Roxane Gay
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Diversity in literature is, in part, about representation - who is telling the stories and who stories are told about.
Roxane Gay
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Violence is not the answer but neither is peace.
Roxane Gay
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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
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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