Radical Friendship Quotes

“CONTEMPLATIONS ON WISE SPEECH Is it true? Is it kind? Is it unifying? Is it meaningful?”
― Kate Johnson, Radical Friendship: Seven Ways to Love Yourself and Find Your People in an Unjust World

“Taboos and etiquette around speech—whether at home, at school, or at work—often serve to reinforce the status quo.”
― Kate Johnson, Radical Friendship: Seven Ways to Love Yourself and Find Your People in an Unjust World

“When confronted with the realities of racism, white people usually manifest fragility in the form of outrage at the suggestion that they benefit from privilege, or in demonstrations of woundedness that make it impossible to address the harms they have caused. This pattern of outrage or wounded denial is prominent in displays of whiteness, but it can also emerge with other forms of privilege. We can experience fragility around being straight, being male, being thin, being cisgender, or around any other identity that is automatically rewarded by society. Fragility rears its tender head when we become so defensive about the privilege we hold that we are unable to show up in radical friendship and mediate that privilege with wise action.”
― Kate Johnson, Radical Friendship: Seven Ways to Love Yourself and Find Your People in an Unjust World

“Breathe deep, baby girl, we won. Now life, though not exactly easier, is life all the time. Not chopped down into billable minutes, not narrowed into excuses to hurt and forget each other. I am writing you from the future to remind you to act on your belief, to live your life as a tribute to our victory and not as a stifling reaction to the past. I am here with so many people you love and their children and we are eating together and we are tired from full days of working and loving but never too tired to remember where we come from. Never exhausted past passion and writing. So, I am writing you now… Everybody eats. Everybody knows how to grow agriculturally, spiritually, physically, and intellectually…. We are more patient than we have ever been. And now”
― Kate Johnson, Radical Friendship: Seven Ways to Love Yourself and Find Your People in an Unjust World

“Familiarity, comfort, feeling as if we know someone – these are some of the precious gems of long-term relationships. The only problem is this: the moment we think we already know everything about our friend is the very moment we stop really paying attention to them. And attention is one of the most basic forms of love.”
― Kate Johnson, Radical Friendship: Seven Ways to Love Yourself and Find Your People in an Unjust World

“Know that with friends, it is common to feel a subtle sense of demand under our love. We wish our friends health – and we really wish they would take our advice about diet and exercise. Or, we wish our friends could live with ease – so they would stop complaining already about being so stressed out. It's love with a hook, and while it's certainly not the same as wishing someone harm, our mixed intentions are not as free as they could be.”
― Kate Johnson, Radical Friendship: Seven Ways to Love Yourself and Find Your People in an Unjust World