Year of the Tiger Quotes

“When something can't be fixed then the question is what can we build instead?”
― Alice Wong, Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life

“The many identities you hold and your lived experiences are not in conflict with each other; they make you sharp, whole, and extraordinary”
― Alice Wong, Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life

“One of the biggest things that's so toxic about ableism and capitalism is this idea that our worth is based on our productivity. We are interdependent. We know there's more to our worth than just whether we're taxpayers or whether we can work fort or more hours a week”
― Alice Wong, Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life

“Good shit takes time. Extend time, bend time, crip time.”
― Alice Wong, Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life

“Life is one never-ending edit... In writing about my life, editing is time travel, collapsing, folding, expanding time. Gathering disparate wispy threads into neat chapters and sections. Memories rearranged, pulled apart, de-emphasized. Secrets and fears erased in between drafts only to emerge again as tangents to be deleted or set aside. Invisible track changes that reframe a narrative only to be solidified, trashed, and reborn. Filtering truths until the most essential elements remain. Em dashes that link; ellipses that prolong. A constant telling and retelling until the act itself threatens to weaken the blood and guts of a piece. Editing is a dialogue with demons, ancestors, and the future; a witchy dark art that summons the forces of the universe into legibility.”
― Alice Wong, Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life

“I think of storytelling as a chance to know ourselves better, to really question wh oare are, where we've been, and who are want to be. Each person has an entire universe of stories inside of us. So my question to you all is, what is your story and how do you want to share it with the world? If you aren't ready to share tell your stories to yourself and let it nourish and guide you. Most importantly, your stories should please you and you alone. And when you are ready to share it, it'll be out there with other disabled narratives pushing back at that status quo.”
― Alice Wong, Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life

“Stuttering is only a problem -- in fact is only abnomral -- because our culture places so much value on efficiency and self-mastery. Stuttering breaks communication only because ableist notions have already decided how fast and smooth a person must speak to be heard and be taken seriously. An arbitrary line has been drawn around "normal" speech”
― Alice Wong, Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life

“All responses to the world take place within our bodies. - Gloria Anzaldua”
― Alice Wong, Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life

“Sometimes a peach is just a peach. Sometimes a peach is a cosmic portal to relationships that sustain and tie us to one another.”
― Alice Wong, Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life

“Privilege is being able to keep a prescribed timetable without fear of paying the rent, being in pain or becoming sick, losing health care, and taking care of your family and yourself.”
― Alice Wong, Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life

“We are a symphony with one instrument playing all the parts. To make the symphony as dynamic as can be instruments must be given to other players.”
― Alice Wong, Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life

“Physical therapists would also emphasize walking and the need to stay bipedal for as long as possible. Not wanting to try harder meant I was giving up.”
― Alice Wong, Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life

“The future is one in which we need to really think about power: how power is shared, how power is obtained, how we create power. And I think about Star Trek, because I love the phrase “infinite diversity in infinite combinations.” Because this Vulcan idea is really about how our differences make us better.”
― Alice Wong, Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life

“Adaptation is care work. Adaptation is survival. Adaptation is a negotiation between the past and the present. Adaptation is a science and art. Adaptation pushes boundaries and creates new futures..”
― Alice Wong, Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life

“The real gift any person can give is a web of connective tissue. If we love fiercely, our ancestors live among and speak to us through these incandescent filaments glowing from the warmth of memories. Loving fiercely is real-time legacy building. Maybe that's the best way to honor people”
― Alice Wong, Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life

“Things didn’t just magically become better overnight, especially in 1990, when it passed. I think it took a lot of years after it passed for all of us to see the changes, right? Like curb cuts, elevators, just some of the very basic things that we take for granted. All of the things have to still be fought for even today. But I will say that what the A.D.A. did was [give] us a law that we could call our own. It was the law that was for us, and it was the law that’s enshrined in our legal protections. There were other laws before that, but the A.D.A. really was the one we could use as a tool.”
― Alice Wong, Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life