Ali > Ali's Quotes

“Embarrassed and almost quickly because sometimes I feel that my mourning is merely a susceptibility to emotion.
But all my life haven’t I been just that: moved?”
― Roland Barthes, Mourning Diary: October 26, 1977–September 15, 1979

“They defined gay and lesbian identities not only as forms of desire but also as political affiliations that could create the conditions of possibility to set desire free.”
― Emily K. Hobson, Lavender and Red: Liberation and Solidarity in the Gay and Lesbian Left

“For many years, we didn't realize our parents had accents, that their voices sounded different to unkind American ears. All we heard was home.”
― Roxane Gay

“Their presumed, reliable fraudulence is what makes their presence, to the mourners, necessary. Because grief, at its worst, is unreal. And it calls for a surreal response.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“Did you know people get rich off of sadness? I want to meet the millionaire of American sadness. I want to look him in the eye, shake his hand, and say, 'it's been an honor to serve my country.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“All of us have had the experience of a sudden joy that came when nothing in the world had forewarned us of its coming-- a joy so thrilling that if it was born of misery we remembered even the misery with tenderness.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, A Guide for Grown-Ups: Essential Wisdom from the Collected Works of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

“This must be the hardest bit about being a spy, she thought. The emotion people store in you, like a bad investment. You feel like you are robbing people of something.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library