Owen Blacker > Owen's Quotes

“The only reason you say that race was not an issue is because you wish it was not. We all wish it was not. But it’s a lie. I came from a country where race was not an issue; I did not think of myself as black and I only became black when I came to America. When you are black in America and you fall in love with a white person, race doesn’t matter when you’re alone together because it’s just you and your love. But the minute you step outside, race matters. But we don’t talk about it. We don’t even tell our white partners the small things that piss us off and the things we wish they understood better, because we’re worried they will say we’re overreacting, or we’re being too sensitive. And we don’t want them to say, Look how far we’ve come, just forty years ago it would have been illegal for us to even be a couple blah blah blah, because you know what we’re thinking when they say that? We’re thinking why the fuck should it ever have been illegal anyway? But we don’t say any of this stuff. We let it pile up inside our heads and when we come to nice liberal dinners like this, we say that race doesn’t matter because that’s what we’re supposed to say, to keep our nice liberal friends comfortable. It’s true. I speak from experience.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah

“Steve sighed, wishing for a cigarette. “The Buddha teaches respect for all life.” “Oh.” She considered this. “Are you a Buddhist?” “No. I’m an asshole. But I keep trying.”
― Scott Hawkins, The Library at Mount Char

“Nice mouthfeel. Creamy. Not at all like the eggs that one might buy at the store. I assume this chicken ate worms in the garden.’

Shirley tasted again.

‘Yes. These eggs. Definitely worms,’ she said before passing the fork back to Katrina.”
― Ryka Aoki, Light from Uncommon Stars

“The world is changing, you know. A pity you aren’t ready to live in it.”
― Ryka Aoki, Light from Uncommon Stars

“Doctor Piper dealt with corpses and for the most part, he preferred them to the living. He didn’t mind living people, he was perfectly happy to meet them and talk to them and even work with them, but corpses never, ever asked stupid questions.”
― T. Kingfisher, Paladin's Hope

“Granted, Piper’s dating history was not particularly extensive and he had always been terrible at pursuing other men, but he was still pretty sure that the morgue wasn’t the place where you were supposed to start.”
― T. Kingfisher, Paladin's Hope

“You think it’s a uterus that makes a woman? Bullshit. You feel like you’re a girl, you live it, it’s part of you? Then you’re a girl. That’s the end of it, no quibbling. You’re as real a girl as anyone.”
― April Daniels, Dreadnought

“Gay is the opium of the people.”
― Jeremy Atherton Lin, Gay Bar: Why We Went Out

“Make it work”
― Tim Gunn

“There are a few years when you make almost all of your important memories. And then you spend the next few decades reliving them.”
― Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown

“Imagine this:
You’re driving.
The sky’s bright. You look great.
In a word, in a phrase, it’s a movie,
you’re the star.
so smile for the camera, it’s your big scene,
you know your lines.
I’m the director. I’m in a helicopter.
I have a megaphone and you play along,
because you want to die for love,
you always have.
Imagine this:
You’re pulling the car over. Somebody’s waiting.
You’re going to die
in your best friend’s arms.
And you play along because it’s funny, because it’s written down,
you’ve memorized it,
it’s all you know.
I say the phrases that keep it all going,
and everybody plays along.
Imagine:
Someone’s pulling a gun, and you’re jumping into the middle of it.
You didn’t think you’d feel this way.
There’s a gun in your hand.
It feels hot. It feels oily.

I’m the director
and i’m screaming at you,
I’m waving my arms in the sky,
and everyone’s watching, everyone’s
curious, everyone’s
holding their breath.

'Planet of Love”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“Hell hath no fury, they say, like a man treated the same way as he treats women.”
― Oliver Darkshire, Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller

“Clementine stopped herself from rushing forward to stop him from toppling off the fence rail. Boys seemed to have their own magical powers when it came to posing about in precarious positions.”
― Sarah Jean Horwitz, The Dark Lord Clementine

“... the police holding back protesters chanting angry slogans of love and acceptance.
--Ch. 12, last page”
― Dan Stout, Titan's Day

“I belong to a culture that includes Proust, Henry James, Tchaikovsky, Cole Porter, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Alexander the Great, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Christopher Marlowe, Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Tennessee Williams, Byron, E.M. Forster, Lorca, Auden, Francis Bacon, James Baldwin, Harry Stack Sullivan, John Maynard Keynes, Dag Hammarskjold… These are not invisible men. Poor Bruce. Poor frightened Bruce. Once upon a time you wanted to be a soldier.
Bruce, did you know that an openly gay Englishman was as responsible as any man for winning the Second World War? His name was Alan Turing and he cracked the Germans' Enigma code so the Allies knew in advance what the Nazis were going to do — and when the war was over he committed suicide he was so hounded for being gay. Why don't they teach any of this in the schools? If they did, maybe he wouldn't have killed himself and maybe you wouldn't be so terrified of who you are. The only way we'll have real pride is when we demand recognition of a culture that isn't just sexual. It's all there—all through history we've been there; but we have to claim it, and identify who was in it, and articulate what's in our minds and hearts and all our creative contributions to this earth. And until we do that, and until we organize ourselves block by neighborhood by city by state into a united visible community that fights back, we're doomed. That's how I want to be defined: as one of the men who fought the war.”
― Larry Kramer, The Normal Heart