Roxane Gay quote: "I am 39. I am single. I am a black woman. I have too many advanced degrees. Many a news story tells me finding true love is likely a hopeless proposition. Now is the time when I need to believe in fairy tales."

Margaret Sanger didn't just introduce the idea of birth control into our culture at large, she f...
ROXANE GAY

We were the only black family in my neighborhood for many years. Wherever we lived, we were often th...
ROXANE GAY

I would rather be a bad feminist than no feminist at all.
ROXANE GAY

One of the many things I have always loved about writing, not to be confused with publishing, is tha...
ROXANE GAY

Most open letters undoubtedly come from a good place, rising out of genuine outrage or concern or ca...
ROXANE GAY

What worries me is that 'post-racial' America is not that different from the Americas that h...
ROXANE GAY

I'm sick of hearing, thinking and talking about Woody Allen. Nonetheless, the allegations agains...
ROXANE GAY

I think the world is ambivalent about feminism. So I can't blame college students. I think they&...
ROXANE GAY

I love, but I am not entirely sure how to be loved: how to be seen and known for the utterly flawed ...
ROXANE GAY

Pink is my favourite colour. I used to say my favourite colour was black to be cool, but it is pink ...
ROXANE GAY

Social media is something of a double-edged sword. At its best, social media offers unprecedented op...
ROXANE GAY

Long walks on the beach are the supposed holy grail of a romantic evening. The beach becomes a kind ...
ROXANE GAY

I have never dreamed of being a princess. I have not longed for Prince Charming. I have and do long ...
ROXANE GAY

It's an amusing idea to some, this feminism thing - this audacious notion that women should be a...
ROXANE GAY

We bear witness to the worst of human brutality, retweet what we have witnessed, and then we move on...
ROXANE GAY

I am failing as a woman. I am failing as a feminist. To freely accept the feminist label would not b...
ROXANE GAY

It would be easy to assume that the open letter is a symptom of the Internet age. Such is not the ca...
ROXANE GAY

All too often, when we see injustices, both great and small, we think, That's terrible, but we do no...
ROXANE GAY

I cut an imposing figure. I am large, and I'm tall, and I have tattoos. I am actually really qui...
ROXANE GAY

I am totally down with disagreement. I don't like Haterade, but disagreement is wonderful. When ...
ROXANE GAY

It's disheartening that people think that Donald Sterling is the outlier and that he's the e...
ROXANE GAY

When I drive to work, I listen to thuggish rap at a very loud volume, even though the lyrics are deg...
ROXANE GAY

I want to take the time to think through how I feel and why I feel. I don't want to feign expert...
ROXANE GAY

I think one of the most important things we can do as feminists is acknowledge that, even though we ...
ROXANE GAY

You can't control the fact that you are born a white man or born into wealth. When people say, &...
ROXANE GAY

We all have our vanities. The retouching magazines like 'Vogue' do is the professional versi...
ROXANE GAY

I was in love with the idea of love, so I created elaborate fictions for my relationships - fictions...
ROXANE GAY

Everyone else thinks I'm a nonfiction writer. I think it's because my nonfiction is easier t...
ROXANE GAY

I recognize that I'm human, and the older I get, the more I realize how fallible I am, how falli...
ROXANE GAY

I have known beaches, but I have no particular fondness for them. I don't like sand in my crevic...
ROXANE GAY

A lot of ink is given over to mythologizing female friendships as curious, fragile relationships tha...
ROXANE GAY

The expansive anarchy of the Internet continues to lull us into believing that, because we can see s...
ROXANE GAY

For celebrities, privacy is utterly nonexistent. You are asked intrusive questions about your person...
ROXANE GAY

We have to believe that we can hold different points of view without labeling each other bad feminis...
ROXANE GAY

We have cellphones and smartphones and iDevices and laptops and the ability to be perpetually connec...
ROXANE GAY

Feminism is just an idea. It's a philosophy. It's about the equality of women in all realms....
ROXANE GAY

It's so hard to write about countries like Haiti because there's truths behind the mispercep...
ROXANE GAY

I was a shy girl, but when I read, I was adventurous. Books made me bolder.
ROXANE GAY

Internet outrage can seem mindless, but it rarely is. To make that assumption is dismissive. There&#...
ROXANE GAY

It's hard not to feel humorless, as a woman and a feminist, to recognize misogyny in so many forms, ...
ROXANE GAY

Disagreement, however, is not anger.
ROXANE GAY

I keep trying to imagine a universe in which too many public figures declaring themselves feminists ...
ROXANE GAY

The open letter has always been an interesting rhetorical strategy - a way of delivering a pointed m...
ROXANE GAY

Demands for solidarity can quickly turn into demands for groupthink, making it difficult to express ...
ROXANE GAY

The problem with movements is that, all too often, they are associated only with the most visible fi...
ROXANE GAY

I give the victim the benefit of the doubt when it comes to allegations of rape and sexual abuse. I ...
ROXANE GAY

Throughout any given season of 'The Bachelor,' the women exclaim that the experience is like...
ROXANE GAY

This is the real problem feminism faces. Too many people are willfully ignorant about what the word ...
ROXANE GAY

When I was a child, my parents took my brothers and me to Port-au-Prince during the summer so we cou...
ROXANE GAY

I think there are a lot of rules for women. We have a lot of expectations and a lot of rules for wom...
ROXANE GAY

We cannot sway extremists with rational thought or with our ideas of right and wrong.
ROXANE GAY

When people wield accusations of privilege, more often than not, they want to be heard and seen. The...
ROXANE GAY

2014 was a year of intense social upheaval. In truth, the same could be said for most every year. Th...
ROXANE GAY

Social networks are more than just repositories for trivial, snap judgments; they are more than mere...
ROXANE GAY

I believe women not just in the United States but throughout the world deserve equality and freedom ...
ROXANE GAY

It’s hard to be told to lighten up because if you lighten up any more, you’re going to float the...
ROXANE GAY

Books are often far more than just books.
ROXANE GAY

I believe feminism is grounded in supporting the choices of women even if we wouldn’t make certain...
ROXANE GAY

I embrace the label of bad feminist because I am human. I am messy. I’m not trying to be an exampl...
ROXANE GAY

I will keep writing about these intersections as a writer and a teacher, as a black woman, as a bad ...
ROXANE GAY

Like many writers, I lived inside of books as a child.
ROXANE GAY

Rape Culture is a culture where we are inundated, in different ways, by the idea that male aggressio...
ROXANE GAY

The boy I thought was my boyfriend pushed me to the ground. He took my clothes off, and I lay there ...
ROXANE GAY

We don’t necessarily know how to hear stories about any kind of violence, because it is hard to ac...
ROXANE GAY

The ladies in her classes loved to speak to Caridad in broken Spanish, to show her they were comfort...
ROXANE GAY

You don't necessarily have to do anything once you acknowledge your privilege. You don't have to apo...
ROXANE GAY

You don't necessarily have to do anything once you acknowledge your privilege. You don't have...
ROXANE GAY

The mentoring program is about long-term outcomes and solutions to homelessness. Mentoring helps bre...
ROXANE WHITE

Nor love, not honour, wealth nor pow'r, Can give the heart a cheerful hour When health is lost...
JOHN GAY

The madness of spring is so enticing. I love it when things are opening up and emerging from the gro...
ROSS GAY

Thirteen years I took on this last book.
GAY TALESE

Yes there is a little group of soccer aficionados, but I am not one of them.
GAY TALESE

Restaurants are a wonderful escape for me. And are for a lot of people.
GAY TALESE

I could come up with 50 stories that I am thinking about.
GAY TALESE

The reporter wrote with the hope that he would get a by-line in the Times, a testimony to his being ...
GAY TALESE

For example, many colleges in their writing programs teach some of my work.
GAY TALESE

Even after they had stopped modeling for Playboy and had settled down with other men to raise famili...
GAY TALESE

News, if unreported, has no impact. It might as well have not happened at all.
GAY TALESE

I write and rewrite and rewrite and write and like to turn in what I think is finished work.
GAY TALESE

Better that you should take the chance of trying something that is close to your heart, you think is...
GAY TALESE

But money, wife, is the true Fuller's Earth for reputations, there is not a spot or a stain but what...
JOHN GAY

To have a liberal temperament is a kind of psychological boon, To be able to understand that someone...
PETER GAY

Can you support the expense of a husband, hussy, in gaming, drinking and whoring? Have you money eno...
JOHN GAY

Do you think your mother and I should have lived comfortably so long together, if ever we had been m...
JOHN GAY

How many saucy airs we meet, From Temple Bar to Aldgate street!
JOHN GAY

Who hath not heard the rich complain Of surfeits, and corporeal pain? He barr'd from every use...
JOHN GAY

What then in love can woman do? If we grow fond they shun us. And when we fly them, they pursue: But...
JOHN GAY

Learning by study must be won; 'Twas ne'er entail'd from son to son.
JOHN GAY

A man should be religious, not superstitious.
JOHN GAY

Who friendship with a knave hath made, Is judg'd a partner in the trade.
JOHN GAY

In every age and clime we see, Two of a trade can ne'er agree.
JOHN GAY

The real problem is what to do with the problem-solvers after the problems are solved.
GAY TALESE

O Polly, you might have toyed and kissed, by keeping men off, you keep them on.
JOHN GAY

Sure men were born to lie, and women to believe them!
JOHN GAY

I must have women -- there is nothing unbends the mind like them.
JOHN GAY

The beauty of the human mind is that any decision that is made can be unmade.
GAY HENDRICKS

A fox may steal your hens, Sir, a whore your health and pence, Sir, your daughter rob your chest, Si...
JOHN GAY

Fill it up. I take as large draughts of liquor as I did of love. I hate a flincher in either.
JOHN GAY

Lions, wolves, and vultures don't live together in herds, droves or flocks. Of all animals of prey, ...
JOHN GAY

Gamesters and highwaymen are generally very good to their whores, but they are very devils to their ...
JOHN GAY

As we free our breath (through diaphragmatic breathing) we relax our emotions and let go our body te...
GAY HENDRICKS

Fools may our scorn, not envy, raise. For envy is a kind of praise.
JOHN GAY

How the mother is to be pitied who hath handsome daughters! Locks, bolts, bars, and lectures of mora...
JOHN GAY

Through all the employments of life each neighbor abuses his brother; whore and rogue they call husb...
JOHN GAY

The comfortable estate of widowhood is the only hope that keeps up a wife's spirits.
JOHN GAY

There is no dependence that can be sure but a dependence upon one's self.
JOHN GAY

Shadow owes its birth to light.
JOHN GAY

Of all mechanics, of all servile handycrafts-men, a gamester is the vilest. But yet, as many of the ...
JOHN GAY

We only part to meet again.
JOHN GAY

Those who in quarrels interpose, must often wipe a bloody nose.
JOHN GAY

But his kiss was so sweet, and so closely he pressed, that I languished and pined till I granted the...
JOHN GAY

Cowards are cruel, but the brave Love mercy, and delight to save.
JOHN GAY

A rich rogue nowadays is fit company for any gentleman; and the world, my dear, hath not such a cont...
JOHN GAY

Cowards are cruel, but the brave Love mercy, and delight to save.
JOHN GAY

With thee conversing I forget the way.
JOHN GAY

I never, with important air, In conversation overbear. . . . . My tongue within my lips ...
JOHN GAY

What happiness the rural maid attends, In cheerful labour while each day she spends! She grate...
JOHN GAY

How bless'd, how envied, were our life, Could we but scape the poulterer's knife! But man, cur...
JOHN GAY

There is no dependence that can be sure but a dependence upon one's self
JOHN GAY

Fair is the kingcup that in meadow blows, Fair is the daisy that beside her grows.
JOHN GAY

The brave Love mercy, and delight to save.
JOHN GAY

The rising blushes, which her cheek o'er-spread, Are opening roses in the lily's bed.
JOHN GAY

The careful insect 'midst his works I view, Now from the flowers exhaust the fragrant dew, Wit...
JOHN GAY

Reproachful speech from either side The want of argument supplied; They rail, reviled; as ofte...
JOHN GAY

Excuse me, then! you know my heart; But dearest friends, alas! must part.
JOHN GAY

A justice with grave justices shall sit; He praise their wisdom, they admire his wit.
JOHN GAY

A lost good name is ne'er retriev'd.
JOHN GAY

What boots it on the lineal tree to trace Through many a branch the founders of our race.
JOHN GAY

If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the tree...
JOHN GAY

So comes a reck'ning when the banquet's o'er, The dreadful reckn'ning, and men smile no more.
JOHN GAY

For he as studious--of his ease.
JOHN GAY

Studious of elegance and ease.
JOHN GAY

Brother, brother; we are both in the wrong.
JOHN GAY

When rogues like these (a sparrow cries) To honours and employments rise, I court no favor, as...
JOHN GAY

In other men we faults may spy, And blame the mote that dims their eye; Each little speck and ...
JOHN GAY

Life is a jest; and all things show it. I thought so once; but now I know it.
JOHN GAY

Impartially their talents scan, Just education forms the man. - John Gay,
JOHN GAY

Cowards are cruel, but the brave
Love mercy, and delight to save.
JOHN GAY

Fools may our scorn, not envy, raise. For envy is a kind of praise.
JOHN GAY

Envy's a sharper spur than pay: No author ever spar'd a brother; Wits are gamecocks to one ano...
JOHN GAY

People go to restaurants for so many different reasons. To court a girl, to make some deal. Maybe to...
GAY TALESE

The comfortable estate of widowhood is the only hope that keeps up a wife's spirits.
JOHN GAY

Follow love and it will flee, flee love and it will follow thee.
JOHN GAY

There's something about beautiful moments in sports that alters our experience of time. And I...
ROSS GAY

I eat 230 grams of protein daily, 308 grams of carbohydrates, maybe 70 grams of fat. I can have one ...
TYSON GAY

I hate the man who builds his name On ruins of another's fame.
JOHN GAY

That Raven on yon left-hand oak (Curse on his ill-betiding croak) Bodes me no good.
JOHN GAY

I want to find that defining moment that you're satisfied and you've done what you want to d...
TYSON GAY

The Park Avenue of poodles and polished brass; it is cab country, tip-town, glassville, a window-wa...
GAY TALESE

A little girl and her father were walking along in the evening. She was fascinated by the stars, and...
FRANCIS GAY

Now Cynthia, named fair regent of the night.
JOHN GAY

Benjamin Hardlysee decided to point it out to me.
DAVID GAY

All in the Downs are fleet was moor'd.
JOHN GAY

Lash'd into Latin by the tingling rod.
JOHN GAY

My new straw hat that's trimly lin'd with green, Let Peggy wear.
JOHN GAY

Over the hills and far away.
JOHN GAY

To frame the little animal, provide All the gay hues that wait on female pride: Let Nature gui...
JOHN GAY

The coquets of both sexes are self-lovers, and that is a love no other whatever can dispossess.
JOHN GAY

The fly that sips treacle is lost in the sweets.
JOHN GAY

"I cannot raise my worth too high; Of what vast consequence am I!" "Not of the importance you ...
JOHN GAY

Of all the fools that pride can boast, A Coxcomb claims distinction most.
JOHN GAY

No retreat. No retreat. They must conquer or die who've no retreat.
JOHN GAY

An open foe may prove a curse, but a pretended friend is worse.
JOHN GAY

Let firm, well hammer'd soles protect thy feet Through freezing snows, and rains, and soaking slee...
JOHN GAY

Thus shadow owes its birth to light.
JOHN GAY

To have a liberal temperament is a kind of psychological boon, To be able to understand that someone...
PETER GAY

My tongue within my lips I rein: For who talks much must talk in vain.
JOHN GAY

Variety's the source of joy below, From whence still fresh-revolving pleasures flow, In books ...
JOHN GAY

From wine what sudden friendship springs?
JOHN GAY

Why is the hearse with scutcheons blazon'd round, And with the nodding plume of ostrich crown'd? ...
JOHN GAY

Good housewives all the winter's rage despise, Defended by the riding-hood's disguise; Or, und...
JOHN GAY

Adieu! she cries; and waved her lily hand.
JOHN GAY

Lions, wolves, and vultures don't live together in herds, droves or flocks. Of all animals of pr...
JOHN GAY

[When rescue teams arrived on the scene, they could not determine Patrick’s location. The truck ha...
DOUG GAY

Give me, kind Heaven, a private station, A mind serene for contemplation: Title and profit I r...
JOHN GAY

Basically, I no longer work for anything but the sensation I have while working.
JOHN GAY

In every rank, or great or small, 'Tis industry supports us all.
JOHN GAY

I hate the man who builds his name on the ruins of another's fame.
JOHN GAY

Life is a jest; and all things show it. I thought so once; but now I know it.
JOHN GAY

"Is there no hope?" the sick man said, The silent doctor shook his head, And took his leave wi...
JOHN GAY

Every historian has informally an anthropology, without ever using the word.
PETER GAY

A few words of gratitude and encouragement do bring out the best in other people.
FRANCIS GAY

My assumption is that fundamentally the picture of the human animal, as developed by Freud, is large...
PETER GAY

I played football in high school, I played baseball when I was younger, things like that, but I thin...
TYSON GAY

We are looking into it. There was something that did transpire out there.
DOUG GAY

We came in and wanted to pound the ball at em. They (Colt players) talked a lot all week. I just let...
FRANK GAY

You'd have an instant decade-long waiting line.
JOHN GAY

What interests me, and has always interested me, has been modernism.
PETER GAY

My definition of modernism took a while to develop.
PETER GAY

Do like other widows - buy yourself weeds, and be cheerful.
JOHN GAY

Fools may our scorn, not envy raise, for envy is a kind of praise
JOHN GAY

The charge is prepared; the lawyers are met, / The judges all ranged (a terrible show!).
JOHN GAY

By ignorance is pride increased; Those most assume who know the least
JOHN GAY

(The bill) doesn't fix the system, it just focuses on enforcement.
JOHN GAY

Praising all alike, is praising none
JOHN GAY

I felt good if they ran the 1-3-1 against the offense we're using. Then we went out there and didn't...
JOHN GAY

No one likes employer sanctions,
JOHN GAY

What will not luxury taste? Earth, sea, and air, Are daily ransack'd for the bill of fare. Bl...
JOHN GAY

When if or chance or hunger's powerful sway Directs the roving trout this fatal way, He greedi...
JOHN GAY

I am 39. I am single. I am a black woman. I have too many advanced degrees. Many a news story tells me finding true love is likely a hopeless proposition. Now is the time when I need to believe in fairy tales.

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Roxane Gay

I am 39. I am single. I am a black woman. I have too many advanced degrees. Many a news story tells me finding true love is likely a hopeless proposition. Now is the time when I need to believe in fairy tales.

Roxane Gay

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