Char > Char's Quotes

“I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves or figments of their imagination, indeed, everything and anything except me.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“Please, a definition: A hibernation is a covert preparation for a more overt action.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“These white folk have newspapers, magazines, radios, spokesmen to get their ideas across. If they want to tell the world a lie, they can tell it so well that it becomes the truth; and if I tell them that you’re lying, they’ll tell the world even if you prove you’re telling the truth. Because it’s the kind of lie they want to hear …”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“They were blind, bat blind, moving only by the echoed sounds of their own voices. And because they were blind they would destroy themselves and I'd help them. I laughed. Here I had thought they accepted me because they felt that color made no difference, when in reality it made no difference because they didn't see either color or men . . . For all they were concerned, we were so many names scribbled on fake ballots, to be used at their convenience and when not needed to be filed away. It was a joke, an absurd joke.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“I can hear you say, "What a horrible, irresponsible bastard!" And you're right. I leap to agree with you. I am one of the most irresponsible beings that ever lived. Irresponsibility is part of my invisibility; any way you face it, it is a denial. But to whom can I be responsible, and why should I be, when you refuse to see me? And wait until I reveal how truly irresponsible I am. Responsibility rests upon recognition, and recognition is a form of agreement.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do? What a waste, what a senseless waste! But what of those things which you actually didn't like, not because you were not supposed to like them, not because to dislike them was considered a mark of refinement and education -- but because you actually found them distasteful? The very idea annoyed me. How could you know? It involved a problem of choice. I would have to weigh many things carefully before deciding and there would be some things that would cause quite a bit of trouble, simply because I had never formed a personal attitude toward so much. I had accepted the accepted attitudes and it had made life seem simple . . .”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“I had absolutely no interest in being somebody else’s muse. I am not a muse. I am the somebody. End of fucking story.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, Daisy Jones & The Six

“If you’re narcissistic enough to believe that the universe conspires for and against you—which we all are, deep down—then you can convince yourself you’re getting signs about anything and everything.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, Daisy Jones & The Six

“Oh, the tangled messes I've created in my life”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, Daisy Jones & The Six

“Some people just don’t threaten each other. And other people threaten everything about each other. Just the way it is.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, Daisy Jones & The Six

“I run hot and I always have. I am not going to sit around sweating my ass off just so men can feel more comfortable. It’s not my responsibility to not turn them on. It’s their responsibility to not be an asshole.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, Daisy Jones & The Six

“Art doesn't owe anything to anyone.”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, Daisy Jones & The Six

“Well, I was and yet I was invisible, that was the fundamental contradiction. I was and yet I was unseen. It was frightening and as I sat there I sensed another frightening world of possibilities. For now I saw that I could agree with Jack without agreeing. And I could tell Harlem to have hope when there was no hope. Perhaps I could tell them to hope until I found the basis of something real, some firm ground for action that would lead them onto the plane of history. But until then I would have to move them without myself being moved.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“And that lie that success was a rising upward. What crummy lie they kept us dominated by. Not only could you travel upward toward success but you could travel downward as well; up and down, in retreat as well as in advance, crabways and crossways and around in a circle, meeting your old selves coming and going and perhaps all at the same time. How could I have missed it for so long? Hadn't I grown up around gambler-politicians, bootleggerjudges and sheriffs who were burglars; yes, and Klansmen who were preachers and members of
humanitarian societies. Hell, and hadn't Bledsoe tried to tell me what it was all about?”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“Now you're free of illusions,' Jack said, pointing to my seed wasting upon the air. 'How does it feel to be free of one's illusions?'

And now I answered, 'Painful and empty... But look... there's your universe, and that drip-drop upon the water you hear is all the history you've made, all you're going to make”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“...the younger crowd for whom I now felt a contempt such as only a disillusioned dreamer feels for those still unaware that they dream...”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“It's no wonder I was so fascinated. The kind of home I imagine--one that offers stability and encouragement and the space to learn and grow as an individual--is a luxury I never had growing up.”
― Samra Habib, We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir

“I had accepted the accepted attitudes and it had made life seem simple. But not anymore.”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“Our separate--and very different--evenings reminded me how far we'd drifted from each other. Our relationship, which at the best of times had felt platonic, now felt like an obstacle to our happiness. I was living with a roommate I had nothing in common with. And I had changed: I barely resembled my former self, the version of me who sought acceptance and security--or was it invisibility?--in a heterosexual marriage.”
― Samra Habib, We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir

“Being an American boy is a setup. We train boys to believe that the way to become a man is to objectify and conquer women, value wealth and power above all, and suppress any emotions other than competitiveness and rage. Then we are stunned when our boys become exactly what we have trained them to be. Our boys cannot follow our directions, but they are cheating and dying and killing as they try to. Everything that makes a boy human is a “real man’s” dirty secret.

Our men are caged, too. The parts of themselves they must hide to fit into those cages are the slices of their humanity that our culture has labeled ‘feminine’—traits like mercy, tenderness, softness, quietness, kindness, humility, uncertainty, empathy, connection. We tell them, ‘Don’t be these things, because these are feminine things to be. Be anything but feminine.’

The problem is that the parts of themselves that our boys have been banished from are not feminine traits; they are human traits.
There is no such thing as a feminine quality, because there is no such thing as masculinity or femininity. ‘Femininity’ is just a set of human characteristics a culture pours into a bucket and slaps with the label ‘feminine.’
Gender is not wild, it’s prescribed.”
― Glennon Doyle, Untamed

“There is no such thing as a feminine quality, because there is no such thing as masculinity or femininity. ‘Femininity’ is just a set of human characteristics a culture pours into a bucket and slaps with the label ‘feminine.’
Gender is not wild, it’s prescribed.”
― Glennon Doyle, Untamed

“What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do?”
― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

“Throughout my travels, I thought about what I wanted love to look like for me. Was it possible to be loved without losing myself? Was the absence of a partner I was spiritually and intellectually in sync with the price I had to pay for being uncompromising about needing the space to grow?”
― Samra Habib, We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir

“I felt a sudden longing, but I didn't know for whom or for what. It wasn't for Peter or for my parents. I let myself dwell in the feeling instead of shoving it away.

And then I realized that it was fear--fear that no one would ever truly understand me and love every part of me. The only relationships I'd ever known felt like bargaining and settling: bargaining for space to be free, settling for a partner who didn't wonder what I was up to. I wanted someone to see all of me, the good and the bad.”
― Samra Habib, We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir

“...'I'm your mom. I know best.'

As I stared at her, waiting for an explanation, it became clear I wasn't going to get one. And that she in fact did not know best--for herself or for me. Grown-ups, who are supposed to protect their children, are limited by what "best" has felt like to them, based on the circumstances they grew up in and the privilege they did or did not have.”
― Samra Habib, We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir

“My mother had failed to give me a better life than hers because she didn't have the blueprint to show me what my best could look like.”
― Samra Habib, We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir

“As a sociologist, I am quite comfortable generalizing; social life is patterned and predictable in measurable ways. But I understand that my generalizations may cause some defensiveness for the white people about whom I am generalizing, given how cherished the ideology of individualism is in our culture. There are, of course, exceptions, but patterns are recognized as such precisely because they are recurring and predictable. We cannot understand modern forms of racism if we cannot or will not explore patterns of group behavior and their effects on individuals.”
― Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

“We need to hold those people in charge who were negligent, irresponsible, or simply failed to act accountable for the harm they caused. These cases need to be rigorously pursued, and none of those parties responsible should be allowed to weasel their way out of this.”
― Fang Fang, Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City

“the true test of a country’s level of civility has nothing to do with building the tallest skyscraper or driving the fastest car, nor does it matter how advanced your weapons system is or how powerful your military might be; it is also not about how advanced your technology is or even your artistic achievements, and it is especially not related to how lavish your official government meetings are or how splendid your firework displays are, or even how many rich Chinese tourists you have buying up different parts of the world. There is only one true test, and that is how you treat the weakest and most vulnerable members of your society.”
― Fang Fang, Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City