Devin > Devin's Quotes

“What more can the poem do? O Love, did you know that Czeslaw Milosz was right when he argued ‘What is poetry that cannot save nations or people?’ You are my nation. I only wanted to write poems to save you.”
― Sean Thomas Dougherty, Death Prefers the Minor Keys

“The guitar tones and the thumpy thumpy drums soaking into me so hard. People always talk about good time rock and roll, Chuck Berry or whatever, like this liberating force for feeling good. But what I need is to be liberated into feeling bad. Not sad, I have plenty of sad. What I need is a place where I can spray anger in sparks like a gnarled piece of electrical cable. Just be mad at stuff and soak in the helplessness.”
― John Darnielle, Master of Reality

“I do not get to savor the masculine cut of my clothes, or the illusion of short hair, or the feeting joy of my skin feeling like mine. Instead, I have to worry if my boyhood is convincing enough to keep me safe.

There is no joy in that. Only fear.”
― Andrew Joseph White, The Spirit Bares Its Teeth

“People say friends don't destroy one another - what do they know about friends?”
― John Darnielle

“In the bedroom there is a queen-sized bed, a raft in the middle of a great stone ocean. On the dresser rolls a light bulb that, if held close to the ear and agitated, would reveal the broken filament rattling in the glass. Necklaces rope old wine bottles like nooses, frosted stoppers silence glass decanters. A nightstand that, wen opened, reveals- shut that, please. In the bathroom, a mirror flecked with mascara from when Bad leans in close, the amoeba of her breath growing and shrinking.
You never live *with* a woman, you live inside of her, I overheard my father say to my brother once, and it was, indeed, as if, when peering into the mirror, you were blinking out through her thickly fringed eyes.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, Her Body and Other Parties: Stories

“Someone will break your heart but you will break one, too.”
― Elliot Page

“We do not realize the extent of the energy we are losing until we find where it is seeping from.”
― Elliot Page, Pageboy

“I am evolved as I freed myself from the expectations of others. These memories shape a nonlinear narrative, because queerness is intrinsically nonlinear, journeys that bend and wind. Two steps forward, one step back.”
― Elliot Page, Pageboy: A Memoir

“...Women should not feel pressured or obligated to share their story in a public forum unless they are ready. At times, the American anti-rape movement has suggested that survivors must "break the silence" or that they otherwise have political obligations to pursue justice for rape victims. Given that many Native women have chosen silence as a true means to survival, the choice not to speak out must be honored as much as the choice to speak out.”
― Sarah Deer

“Ignoring sexual violence may sidestep painful realities, but silence is also one of the most insidious weapons invoked by rapists. Survivors experience tremendous shame and guilt, which is compounded by the secrets they must keep to survive. Where”
― Sarah Deer, The Beginning and End of Rape: Confronting Sexual Violence in Native America

“In this antiquated framework, prosecutors (and victims) had to demonstrate extreme physical force, which usually required proof of extreme physical resistance. For example, the 1980 Texas rape law required that the victim “resist to the utmost” or with “such earnest resistance as might reasonably be expected under the circumstances.” It was common for juries to acquit alleged rapists because the victim was not sufficiently injured, determining that she could not truly have been forced if she did not fight back. Physical force is, of course, uncommon in cases of sexual assault. Perpetrators generally use other kinds of nonphysical force, such as coercion and threats.”
― Sarah Deer, The Beginning and End of Rape: Confronting Sexual Violence in Native America

“Rape is the manifestation of removing choice and should not be perpetuated in the quest for justice. Stories are the intellectual property of the survivors.”
― Sarah Deer, The Beginning and End of Rape: Confronting Sexual Violence in Native America

“It is not the maleness of males per SE that explains the proliferation of masculine assholes. It is not that men are assholes, as though non-asshole men have somehow overcome their inherently asshole tendencies. Rather, the influence of gender culture is just very deep. Deep gender culture, not maleness, is primarily to blame for the fact that assholes are mainly men.”
― Aaron James, Assholes: A Theory

“Marriage made people old and familiar, while still young.”
― Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles

“When I was a kid my folks took me to visit Mexico city. I’ll always remember the way my father acted- loud and big. And my mother didn’t like the people because they were dark and didn’t wash enough. And my sister wouldn’t talk to most of them. I was the only one really liked it. And I can see my mother and father coming to Mars and acting the same way here. Anything that’s strange is no good to the average American. If it doesn’t have Chicago plumbing, it’s nonsense. The thought of that! Oh God, the thought of that!”
― Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles

“My language is so impercise. I am thrashing in what I can't tell you.”
― Roxane Gay, Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture

“Not everyone gets sex when they want it. Not everyone gets love when they want it. This is true for men and women. A relationship is not your reward for being a nice guy, no matter what the movies tell you.”
― Roxane Gay, Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture

“Anger is the privilege of the truly broken, and yet, I've never met a woman who was broken enough that she allowed herself to be angry.”
― Lyz Lenz, Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture

“They say, “We’re here to help.” You don’t know what help is. Try walking a mile in my shoes. Fuck walking a mile— why not wear my shoes, throw on my hair,
wear this tight-ass dress, tuck my dick and balls into a gaff, child, and then run in front of police, jump over cars, and then snatch off your hair, put on different clothes, change your shoes and then walk down that same street past the motherfucker that was looking for you in the first place. Then you can give me some shit about who the fuck I am.”
― Eric A. Stanley, Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex

“Cookie Concepcion, one activist leader we worked with at Central California Women’s Facility (CCWF), speaks to the fraud of “gender responsiveness” in a Feministing.com blog post dated May 13, 2008. Explaining how the prison doesn’t allow female-assigned prisoners to wear boxers, Cookie writes, “Lately a lot of time and money has been spent on mandatory ‘Gender Responsive’ training for all officers and staff. The objective of this training is to define differences between female and male inmates. The basic ideology is that females commit crimes because they are victims, whereas males are just bad and mean. This must be where they learned how dangerous it is for females to wear boxers.”
― Eric A. Stanley

“In an equally abusive placement, gender variant women are being V-coded close to the end of their sentences. This location works to keep women incarcerated because if they defend themselves against rape or other violence that occurs with their "husband" or cellmate, it is common for them to be charged with assault then placed in the "hole". The assault charge then shreds the previous parole possibility and release date”
― Eric A. Stanley, Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex

“There's a whole spectrum of reactions to coming out. Getting kicked out is one extreme–being accepted wholeheartedly is the other. But in the middle, there's this. The awkwardness, the refusals to acknowledge, the uncomfortable weirdness of turning away.”
― Andrew Joseph White, Compound Fracture

“I'm not autistic. I'm weird and socially inept and a picky eater and had to be taught how to smile and made to stop chewing my hair and can't spend more than a few minutes around people before I want to crawl out of my skin and can't take shower without losing my shit over it and I don't understand people at all.”
― Andrew Joseph White, Compound Fracture

“I ain't honest. ... Everyone else lies all the time.”
― Andrew Joseph White, Compound Fracture