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" My parents have been married for 42 years. Their marriage has been - from what I can see - a happy one. "
Roxane Gay
Marriage
See
Happy
Related Quotes:
" I try to understand faith and religion. I was raised by wonderful Catholic parents who were deeply faithful and taught us that God is a God of love. "
Roxane Gay
Try
Religion
Parents
" I support anything that broadens the message of gender equality and tempers the stigma of the feminist label. We run into trouble, though, when we celebrate celebrity feminism while avoiding the actual work of feminism. "
Roxane Gay
Celebrate
Work
Support
" When I drive to work, I listen to thuggish rap at a very loud volume, even though the lyrics are degrading to women and offend me to my core. I am mortified by my music choices. "
Roxane Gay
Choices
Work
Women
" I think there are a lot of rules for women. We have a lot of expectations and a lot of rules for women. So we're expected to march in a straight line, and when we don't, all hell breaks loose. "
Roxane Gay
Women
Hell
Expectations
" Throughout any given season of 'The Bachelor,' the women exclaim that the experience is like a fairy tale. They suffer the machinations of reality television, pursuing - along with several other women, often inebriated - the promise of happily ever after. "
Roxane Gay
Television
Reality
Women
" I was in love with the idea of love, so I created elaborate fictions for my relationships - fictions that allowed me to believe that what any given paramour and I shared looked a lot like love. "
Roxane Gay
Like
Love
Relationships
" Want nothing but the best for your friends because when your friends are happy and successful, it's probably going to be easier for you to be happy. "
Roxane Gay
Happy
Best
Be Happy
" I keep trying to imagine a universe in which too many public figures declaring themselves feminists would be a bad thing. "
Roxane Gay
Trying
Keep
Bad
" What worries me is that 'post-racial' America is not that different from the Americas that have preceded us, and it might not ever be. "
Roxane Gay
Ever
Me
Might
" I don't want the whole of my writing or my intellectual energy given over to race because I have diverse interests. "
Roxane Gay
Energy
Intellectual
Writing
" It's so hard to write about countries like Haiti because there's truths behind the misperceptions people have. But there's so much more. There are multiple truths. "
Roxane Gay
Hard
Like
People
" You cannot reason with people who don't recognize the humanity in all of us. "
Roxane Gay
You
Reason
Who
" You can't control the fact that you are born a white man or born into wealth. When people say, 'Check your privilege,' they're saying, 'Acknowledge how these factors helped you move through life.' They're not saying apologize for it. "
Roxane Gay
Life
Control
Man
" This is the real problem feminism faces. Too many people are willfully ignorant about what the word means and what the movement aims to achieve. "
Roxane Gay
Ignorant
People
Achieve
" Day after day with them, I see more and more of my parents in me. I see where all my quirks come from. I see my future. "
Roxane Gay
Future
Day
Me
" Placing Margaret Sanger on the $20 bill will remind us of what she has done for women and our reproductive health and how the fight for reproductive freedom is an ongoing one. "
Roxane Gay
Women
She
Health
" I live in Indiana and teach at Purdue University, a wonderful school with some of the brightest students I have ever had the privilege of working with. My colleagues are powerful and intelligent and kind. The cost of living is low, the prairie is wide, and on clear nights, I can see all the stars in the sky above. "
Roxane Gay
Stars
School
Powerful
" We all have our vanities. The retouching magazines like 'Vogue' do is the professional version of the retouching we do when we, for example, apply Instagram filters to the pictures we take and share on our social networks. "
Roxane Gay
Example
Professional
Pictures
" I am 39. I am single. I am a black woman. I have too many advanced degrees. Many a news story tells me finding true love is likely a hopeless proposition. Now is the time when I need to believe in fairy tales. "
Roxane Gay
Love Is
Woman
True Love
" I cut an imposing figure. I am large, and I'm tall, and I have tattoos. I am actually really quiet and shy, but maybe people see me, and they don't want to step out of line, or equate disagreement with stepping out of line with a writer they like. "
Roxane Gay
I Am
Quiet
Shy
" People don't want to think... I mean, they don't! They just want to say, 'Oh, okay, feminists are humorless man-haters,' and that's simply not the case. There are radical people and radical ideas in absolutely every movement, but that doesn't mean they define the ideals. "
Roxane Gay
People
Ideas
Okay
" I have a job I'm pretty good at. I am in charge of things. I am on committees. People respect me and take my counsel. I want to be strong and professional, but I resent how hard I have to work to be taken seriously, to receive a fraction of the consideration I might otherwise receive. "
Roxane Gay
Job
Me
Work
" Everyone else thinks I'm a nonfiction writer. I think it's because my nonfiction is easier to find. But I write both in equal measure. 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
Myself
Love
Think
" Something outrageous, in the truest sense of the word, is always happening. On social networks, we're always voicing our reactions to these outrageous events. We read essays and 'think pieces' about these outrageous events. We comment on the commentary. We do this because we can. "
Roxane Gay
Sense
Comment
Always
" The open letter has always been an interesting rhetorical strategy - a way of delivering a pointed message to a specific individual or group while also reaching a wide audience. "
Roxane Gay
Audience
Interesting
Strategy
" I have never dreamed of being a princess. I have not longed for Prince Charming. I have and do long for something resembling a happily ever after. I am supposed to be above such flights of fantasy, but I am not. I am enamored of fairy tales. "
Roxane Gay
Fantasy
I Am
Princess
" For celebrities, privacy is utterly nonexistent. You are asked intrusive questions about your personal life. You can be photographed at any moment. "
Roxane Gay
Life
You
Questions
" Love your friends' kids, even if you don't want or like children. Just do it. "
Roxane Gay
Children
Want
You
" Most of the serious disagreement I get comes through email or social media, where people are more comfortable. "
Roxane Gay
People
Social Media
Serious
" In Haiti, beach bodies are simply bodies, and beach reads are simply books, because the beach is all around you. "
Roxane Gay
Reads
Haiti
Books