Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 244

“We don’t very well speak English yet.”

“We don’t very well speak English yet.”

“I need to start speaking up when people talk down to me....

“I need to start speaking up when people talk down to me. Every time I keep quiet, I lose a little more confidence.”

“I’m tired of driving a cab. So I decided to start dressing...

“I’m tired of driving a cab. So I decided to start dressing funky and see what happens.”

“It’s hard to talk to girls. I try not to look at them as...

“It’s hard to talk to girls. I try not to look at them as girls, and just look at them as people, but it’s hard. Because they look like girls.”

“I want to be a fairy when I grow...

“I want to be a fairy when I grow up.”
“What’s the best part about being a fairy?”
“Flying around with your friends.”

“It was hard growing in the South as a biracial kid without...

“It was hard growing in the South as a biracial kid without a father. But I had some great male role models. My neighbor was an old school Italian guy named Bernard Monti. He let me be part of his family. I could walk right into his house after school without even knocking. One day when I was in 6th grade, I came into his house crying because an 8th grader across the street had called my mom a nigger lover. Mr. Monti told me that I was teaching the kid to disrespect me. He told me to go back across the street and do what I had to do. So I did. And I got my ass beat. But the kid never picked on me again.”

“My father was pretty much non-existent after the age of...

“My father was pretty much non-existent after the age of seven. He’d call occasionally, and say things like ‘I’m going to visit more,’ or ‘I’m going to help you with this,’ but he’d never follow through. He started a new family, and I think he convinced himself that he wasn’t needed because my mother would take good care of us. The last time I talked with him was the age of 18. I called him from my freshman dorm room at college, and I said: ‘Either be a father, or leave me alone, and stop holding me back.’ He said: ‘I can’t be that person for you.’ So I never spoke with him after that. I never reached out because I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing I’d turned out OK despite his decisions. When he died, I realized that we’d both been too proud to start a relationship. I should have swallowed my pride and been the bigger man.”

“I told the older one that he could take karate lessons, but...

“I told the older one that he could take karate lessons, but when I did research, I found out that it was $150 week. That was more than we could afford. But I paid it anyway because I made a commitment. And if I break a promise, I’m teaching them that they can break a promise too. I want them to know that my ‘yes’ means ‘yes,’ and my ‘no’ means ‘no.’”

“I’ve been working on my doctorate for ten years now. I’m...

“I’ve been working on my doctorate for ten years now. I’m learning the hard lesson that the work I do is small. And the further I get down the road, the more I doubt that I have something new to add to the discussion. I try to keep encouraging myself. The other day I wrote in the margin of my notebook: ‘You have something to say!’”

“I grew up in South Africa. My parents were immigrants from...

“I grew up in South Africa. My parents were immigrants from China, and all they do is work. It cost them a lot to send me here to study. After paying for my school, they don’t have much left to spend on themselves or my younger siblings. I feel like I took all the opportunities. And now I’m not sure that I enjoy what I majored in.”