Collected Quotes For The Month: June 2017
Best Of One’s happiness is one’s own to define and decide.Looking down on someone’s decision or making it for them is nothing but heavy-handed. “Chtholly.” SukaSuka Remaining silent when one must speak is the slow death of freedom. “What Do I Care For Morning.” Queen Sugar My mother always said when someone invites you to…
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Best Of
One’s happiness is one’s own to define and decide.Looking down on someone’s decision or making it for them is nothing but heavy-handed.
“Chtholly.” SukaSuka
Remaining silent when one must speak is the slow death of freedom.
“What Do I Care For Morning.” Queen Sugar
My mother always said when someone invites you to a new room, make sure you show up. Don’t go as someone else.
“What Do I Care For Morning.” Queen Sugar
People ask me if you get nervous when you go on stage? It’s like asking a pilot if he gets nervous before a flight. I might hit some weather, but I feel like we normally land the plane.
— Dave Chappelle – 6.30.2017 (The Breakfast Club)
It’s not necessarily you feel like you have something to prove, I’m sure you guys feel the same way, it’s like quality control. You want to make sure whatever you offer, you put your best foot forward. It doesn’t mean you don’t want to prove anything, it just means you respect the people that respect you and you wanna reciprocate their respect with a good product.
— Dave Chappelle – 6.30.2017 (The Breakfast Club)
Passing the buck is how you get passed over.
“Blind Items.” Daytime Divas
We don’t have to [reinvent the wheel] for people have already done this work, all we have to do is build upon the work.
— “Episode 3: Maxine Waters.” Never Before with Janet Mock
| — | “Intro.” Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me – Location 12 (Originated by Audre Lorde) |
The truth is a whip when wielded by a malicious mouth, lashing you into obedience and confinement, a stinging reminder that despite your best efforts, you are still captive to others.
| — | “Intro.” Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me – Location 37 |
Forced disclosure always shook me, leaving me in a frightening space where my body served as proof of my realness. The need to prove myself valid was never-ending in its plea to affirm, connect, deny, and erase. I aspired daily to be like Toni Morrison’s Sula, a woman who shuns the demands placed on her by her watchful community, a woman who lacks ego, a woman OK in her otherness. She feels no pressure to verify herself. Her only aim is to be consistent, not with the world or those around her, but with herself.
| — | “Intro.” Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me – Location 83 to 97 |
There are only so many vigils, so many murals, so many pleas for justice before we must succumb to the fact that our culture is intent on us not existing.
| — | “Intro.” Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me – Location 111 |
So do you love God or are you in love with God?
— “A Prayer for Mad Sweeney.” American Gods
I don’t need to understand every last thing about you. We could be together for as long as you have lived thus far, and I still wouldn’t know everything. All I need to understand is my place in your life and in return let you understand your place in mine.
— Amari Sali
Coincidence changes your day and fate changes your life.
— Pretend We’re Kissing
I do not pray to ask God for things. I pray to thank God for bringing me where I am. To this time, to this place, where I finally know what I must do in this life.
— “Murder of Gods.” American Gods
Many people in general, not just celebrities, write about their own lives to find purpose for pain. […] Writing this book has […] allowed me to see people who have hurt me as just that. People. The hurt is no longer part of the equation. People. Just like me. I’m a person who has been hurt, but I’m also a person who has hurt.
— “Next.” This Is Just My Face, Try Not To Stare (Page 234)
My body is not a character description.
— “Will I Still Be Beautiful When I’m Not Fat.” This Is Just My Face, Try Not To Stare (Page 226) | Noted to be said by Amber Riley
I prayed that whatever my life was supposed to be, whatever my path was, I would finally be on it. I was only twenty-four years old, but I was tired of fear. I was tired of running away from something I could see into something I couldn’t.
— “Another Psychic Told Me so.” This Is Just My Face, Try Not To Stare (Page 190)
[…] my least favorite game ever: the “Is This a Date?” game! Fun for no one! Here’s how it goes. Flirty dude will text me some flirty/ friendly shit a few times, and then say, “We should link up.” Now the word link is some tricky Clinton administration number-one shit. It’s language that makes it hard to tell what’s actually happening. You can link up with your mom to celebrate her birthday but you can also link up with the dweeb you cheat off of in science class to let him cop a feel under the bleachers. What exactly does link up even mean? Nobody knows! And you can’t know until after the linkup!
— “Is This a Date?” This Is Just My Face, Try Not To Stare (Page 170)
Dating seems to conclude with something being wrong with me. I’m not sure the mental gymnastics are worth it. […] In fact, I’m not done with dating just because I’m tired of it. It’s not even really my decision to stop. I’m being forced into retirement.
— “Is This a Date?” This Is Just My Face, Try Not To Stare (Page 166-167)
You keep your horrible boyfriend around because you feel like shit, and he’s the only one around who agrees with you. He validates the part of you that thinks you deserve bad things instead of good things. When you start believing that you deserve good things, you’ll dump him because he won’t fit anymore. But for now, he treats you like shit because that’s what you want.
— “Is This a Date?” This Is Just My Face, Try Not To Stare (Page 166)
I’m comfortable talking about pain. I’m comfortable taking about self-love. But the concept of romantic love feels weird and kind of foreign in my brain.
— “Is This a Date?” This Is Just My Face, Try Not To Stare (Page 158)
The Rest
I just need someone to disagree with to clarify my own instincts.
— “Maybe It’s All The Disco.” GLOW
[…] there’s a lot more inside of a woman than what you can see on the outside.
— “Pilot.” The Bold Type
“For years, I got mine by remaining silent and blending in. Now I’ve finally reached a place where silence is no longer an option for me. My survival depends on my ability to speak truth to power, not just for myself, but for us. I’m committed to getting ours. It requires me to relay how I struggled with living, dreaming, loving, fucking, being seen, and simply being in my body, in this world. This is a universal experience.”
— Intro (Location 123) – “Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me” by Janet Mock
I’m not frustrated, but I am determined.
— “Episode 3: Maxine Waters.” Never Before with Janet Mock
Instead of mourning for the past, it’s better to create. Create the things that only you can create.
— “We cannot decide where we go but you can.” Re:Creators
[On being a mom in the industry compared to father] They go in and come back, they’re a hero. We go in and come back, we’ve abandoned them.
— Reese Witherspoon – Close Up with The Hollywood Reporter
Memes can mobilize.
— “Episode 3: Maxine Waters.” Never Before with Janet Mock
Have you heard of choice theory […]? There’s a bunch of accidents, but only two you really need to concern yourself with. One: The only person’s behavior we can control is our own. And Two: the only thing we can truly give another person is information.
— The Fate of the Furious
[Speaking about use of the N word and why he doesn’t] There is no other word in the English language that says, “Hey, I used to own you like property.” What other word has that connotation?
— Hasan Minhaj (The Breakfast Club – 6/8/2017)
Bravery isn’t the absence of fear. It means you know you’re afraid, and you’re scared and you’re fucking nervous and terrified, but you go ahead and do it anyway.
— Pretend We’re Kissing
Your judgment of where you really are with (or in) success are with the people who came up with you, where they stand.
— Kevin Hart (The Breakfast Club – 6/6/2017)
Everything’s a lot tougher when it’s for real. That’s when you choke. When it’s for real.
—Chapter 3: Six Phone Calls (1985) – IT (Page 52 [eBook])
The longer I live, the more I’m convinced chance doesn’t exist.
— Our Lovers (Nuestros Amantes)
[What’s the best thing about him?] He’s a man who hasn’t forgotten to be a child. [And the worst?] At times the child forgets he’s a man.
— Our Lovers (Nuestros Amantes)
I’m tired of hearing my upstairs neighbors have sex. It feels like a super-inconvenient threesome.
— “Is This a Date?” This Is Just My Face, Try Not To Stare (Page 167)
I wanted to say no. No made the most sense. But writing this book had reminded me that my life has been filled with nos from other people. The only time something got interesting in my life was when someone said yes.
— “Next.”This Is Just My Face, Try Not To Stare (Page 236)
She did exactly what she wanted to do instead of what she felt she had to do.
— “Next.”This Is Just My Face, Try Not To Stare (Page 236)
| — | “Intro.” Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me – Location 23 |
| — | “Intro.” Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me – Location 23 – 37 |
He made me feel chosen—the reason I had traded the comfort of my couch for the club. Sure, I wanted to be social, but ultimately, I wanted someone to say, ‘Yes you. I want you.’
| — | “Intro.” Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me – Location 37 |
I dangled myself like a charm, luring people close enough to push them away when things got deep. I vacillated between revealing and concealing myself. I preferred to be seen and admired yet unknown. Keeping just enough distance was the sweet spot, an intimacy disorder that allowed me to be present but far away. I let them in, my flesh being the means of exchange, but I never let them stay.
I trusted no one. I disappeared into myself. This left me alone with untruths that kept me company: ‘It’s too dangerous for them to see you. Keep it close. Seal it tight. No one would want you if they truly knew you.’
| — | “Intro.” Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me – Location 97 |
