Fairest Quotes

“Ang hindi lumingon sa pinanggalingan, hindi makakarating sa paroroonan. One who does not look back at their origin will never arrive at their destination.”
― Meredith Talusan, Fairest: A Memoir

“so that maybe no one would ever find out so that I could maintain the illusion that I was worthy of love even if what I ended up being loved for wasn't who I actually was”
― Meredith Talusan, Fairest: A Memoir

“And if she ever hid who she actually was, it was only so that she could be granted entrance into worlds she couldn’t otherwise reach, worlds that should rightfully belong to everyone, not just those who happen to uphold the prevailing standards of whiteness and womanhood.”
― Meredith Talusan, Fairest: A Memoir

“it confused me to know that I would someday belong with strangers just because we had the same skin.”
― Meredith Talusan, Fairest: A Memoir

“When people looked at me and only saw a white person, I understood that being white wasn’t actually better, that I only coveted whiteness because of what I associated it with — wealth, education, and beauty. But for someone like me, whose whiteness was literally skin deep, who did not have any meaningful European ancestry, to be perceived as white could only mean that whiteness is nothing more than illusion. In an ideal world, I wouldn’t need to go through so much effort, make so many sacrifices to gain the privileges of whiteness, and other brown people who are not albino would have just as much access to those privileges if they wanted it.”
― Meredith Talusan, Fairest: A Memoir

“even if i didn't fully belong anywhere, part of me belonged to so many places, because I'd grown accustomed to always being in between.”
― Meredith Talusan, Fairest: A Memoir

“There was another part of me that was so curious about elsewhere, and I would always have to pick between my riverbank or the other, home or away from home, the Philippines or America.”
― Meredith Talusan, Fairest: A Memoir

“Kit generously gave my inner self a witness,”
― Meredith Talusan, Fairest: A Memoir

“he wanted to be wanted, but he wouldn’t compromise himself for the sake of another’s desire.”
― Meredith Talusan, Fairest: A Memoir

“What he invited was empathy, agreement with the injustice of how looks so determined our place in the gay pecking order and how our lack of attractiveness had so much to do with our race and femininity.”
― Meredith Talusan, Fairest: A Memoir