Scabby Queen Quotes

“Honey, I was born to this stuff I was singing "The Red Flag" while you were still stumbling over “Baa Baa Black Sheep”
― Kirstin Innes, Scabby Queen

“It doesn’t seem to matter what you say your politics are - in here you’re quite happy to have women skivvy for you.”
― Kirstin Innes, Scabby Queen

“People always found it funny when principled men betrayed themselves”
― Kirstin Innes, Scabby Queen

“When did protest become a hobby for rich people?”
― Kirstin Innes, Scabby Queen

“He's my godfather. But why would people need reassurance, Jim? Surely we're not that precious about the work of a man who died two hundred years ago that we can't let a woman and some non-white men sing his songs?”
― Kirstin Innes, Scabby Queen

“At what point did the policeman stop? When he put his cock in? Whose was the sperm that had fathered her child? Was that erection, that constant need to get her knickers off all part of the performance?”
― Kirstin Innes, Scabby Queen

“Don’t fuck them. That’s all it is. Don’t fuck any of them. Any of the men sitting at this table tonight, any of the men like them. Don’t do it unless you want to, and you really fancy them, and you’re in control of the situation. Right now, this evening, even though they’re trying to make you think you are, you’re not in control. You only have power here while you keep your legs closed. It sounds fucking sexist, but that’s because this is a fucking sexist shark pool we’re swimming in. They’ll put your beautiful face on their magazines, but the second they’ve had you they’ll chuck you aside.”
― Kirstin Innes, Scabby Queen

“David Bowie was a fucking genius.’ Neil’s face got redder.
‘Of course you would think that. Old white men love other old white men.’ The girl was so fabulously blunt Siobhan thought she might kiss her. Instead, she grabbed each of their hands in turn for a quick squeeze.”
― Kirstin Innes, Scabby Queen

“He would usually start a story knowing exactly where he needed the words to take him to get to the end; telling Clio’s story, suddenly, he had no idea where it could possibly go. There was so much of her, spilling out in all directions, even after she’d drawn her own full stop. How did you do it? How did you use words, black on white with a finite limit, slotting into a predesigned space on a page, to describe what a person’s life had been?”
― Kirstin Innes , Scabby Queen

“Yeah. When thirty still feels like a big scary monster on the horizon, forty seems like death. But you take all that biology out of the equation and it’s pretty fucking great, actually. I’m not in a race to procreate before my body trips me up; I’ve been around long enough to know what sort of clothes, drink and pals do and don’t suit me; I don’t feel the need to apologize for who I am any more. So, you have to say your farewells to the people who got you through the first bit of growing up, and that’s the toughest hurdle to face. But if you have a”
― Kirstin Innes, Scabby Queen

“She needed to get better at this, at suppressing these urges for solitude, for chocolate biscuits and a telly that worked, a sofa that hadn’t come out of a skip, and a proper bed, a mum to cook her breakfast.”
― Kirstin Innes, Scabby Queen