Roxane Gay Quotes

This myth is like heels and purses—pretty but designed to SLOW women down.

This required negotiating a fine balance, and I am a clumsy person.

To read narrowly and shallowly is to read from a place of ignorance, and women writers can’t fix that ignorance no matter what kind of books we write or how those books are marketed.

Until visiting Haiti, I had no idea what poverty really was or the difference between relative and absolute poverty. To see poverty so plainly and pervasively left a profound mark on me.

We are having an ongoing and critical conversation about race in America. The question on many minds, the question that is certainly on my mind, is how do we prevent racial injustices from happening?...

We must look to how we can best support the least among us, not spend all our time blindly revering and trying to mimic the greatest without demanding systemic change. In

We read to find life, in all its possibilities. The relevant question isn’t Is this a potential friend for me? but Is this character alive? Perhaps,

What I remind myself, regularly, is this: the acknowledgement of my privilege is not a denial of the ways I have been marginalized, the ways I have suffered.

When I read the books, though, I could pretend that a better life was possible for me, one where I fit in somewhere, anywhere, and I had friends and a handsome boyfriend and a loving family who knew e...

When I read, I could forget. I could be anywhere in the world except in the eighth grade, lonely and holding tightly to my secret. I often say that reading and writing saved my life. I mean that quite...

When you succeed early at an endeavor, you convince yourself you will easily replicate that success.

But women are the only ones who can get pregnant

Subsequently passed a bill requiring a regular ultrasound, in a bit of bait-and-switch

Even from a young age I understood that when a girl is unlikable, a girl is a problem.

I am learning to care less what other people think. I am learning that the measure of my happiness is not weight loss but, rather, feeling more comfortable in my body.

I believe feminism is grounded in supporting the choices of women even if we wouldn’t make certain choices for ourselves. I believe women not just in the United States but throughout the world deserve...

I didn’t say anything on social media, though relatives tried to tag me in supportive status updates, which I did my best to untag myself from. I didn’t want to be a part of their mourning. I didn’t w...

I do not understand the unspoken rules of trigger warnings. I cannot write the way I want to write and consider using trigger warnings. I would second-guess myself, temper the intensity of what I have...

I don’t believe in safety. I wish I did. I am not brave. I simply know what to be scared of; I know to be scared of everything. There is freedom in that fear. That freedom makes it easier to appear fe...

I don’t understand women like you, he said, winding down. You could have made things easier for yourself. Would it be so hard to play nice with me? I don’t understand men like you. You could have made...