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I write for myself, first and foremost and I also write for people, mostly women, who just want to be seen and heard and all too often aren't.

Roxane Gay

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Roxane Gay
Age: 50
Born: 1974
Born: October 15
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
Scrabble Player
Writer
Omaha
Nebraska
Often
Write
Also
Women
Foremost
Firsts
Mostly
First
Aren
Writing
Seen
People
Heard

More quotes by Roxane Gay

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What is it like to be connected to someone you can never get away from, for better or worse? I love trying to answer that question.
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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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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I see my tweets as a current joining a bunch of other currents in the world's craziest ocean.
Roxane Gay
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My tweeting is cool and calm unless I am riled up about something and then I just surrender to the fury of my fingers.
Roxane Gay
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Nemeses aren't born. They are made.
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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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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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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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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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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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
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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
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I was called a feminist, and what I heard was, 'You are an angry, sex-hating, man-hating victim lady person.' This caricature is how feminists have been warped by the people who fear feminism most, the same people who have the most to lose when feminism succeeds.
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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I love Twitter. It doesn't keep me from writing and I think it's a really convenient scapegoat when the truth is that the real issue is self-control. I am totally fine admitting i have none. I'm not going to blame Twitter for affecting my writing. And also, Twitter doesn't affect my writing.
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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I approach most things in life with a dangerous level of confidence to balance my generally low self-esteem.
Roxane Gay
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Violence is not the answer but neither is peace.
Roxane Gay
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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