Roxane Gay - Bilingual quotes that celebrate the beauty of language, showcasing meaningful expressions in two unique perspectives.

There is, however, an anxiety about being yourself. There is the question that haunts, a "and if?" that is always in the air. What if what am I never enough? What if I'm never right enough for someone?

Most of us have versions of ourselves that leaves us terrified. We have this imperfect body and we don't know exactly how to deal with it. We have these shame we keep to us, because showing us how we really are, no more and no less, it would be too much.

I am always meeting the hope of tomorrow.

This is the memoir of my body. My body was broken. I was broken. I did not know how to put myself back together. I was splintered. A part of me was dead. A part of me was mute and would stay that way for many years.

Two years ago, Hanna said she was going on vacation with Laura downstate and instead drove to Marquette and had her tubes tied. She wasn't going to end up like her mother, with too many children in a too-small house with too little to eat. Despite her best efforts, however, she has found herself living in a too-small house with too many people and too little to eat. It is a bitter pill to swallow.

It seems that, if something makes you feel better, it is a healthy option. Want to sleep all day? That's okay. Drink too much? That can be a valid coping choice. Isolating yourself via a fear of the outside world? Self-preservation is important.

I believe feminism is grounded in supporting the choices of women even if we wouldn't make certain choices for ourselves. I believe women not just in the United States but throughout the world deserve equality and freedom but know I am in no position to tell women of other cultures what that equality and freedom should look like.

My true loves were and still are books and writing stories and daydreaming. Sports were merely a distraction keeping me from what I really wanted to do.

It took me a long time, but I prefer victim to survivor now. I don't want to diminish the gravity of what happened. I don't want to pretend I'm on some triumphant, uplifting journey. I don't want to pretend that everything is okay. I'm living with what happened, moving forward without forgetting, moving forward without pretending I am unscarred.

though I didn't believe everything I learned, it was important to know such ideas, such truths, were out there.

Pathologizing the unlikable in fictional characters is an almost Pavlovian response.

I knew too much about hurt, but I didn't know how much more a girl could suffer until I did.

likability is a very elaborate lie, a performance, a code of conduct dictating the proper way to be.

When people wield accusations of privilege, more often than not, they want to be heard and seen. Their need is acute, if not desperate, and that need rises out of the many historical and ongoing attempts to silence and render invisible marginalized groups.

I'm not sure what's more of a pain in my ass-being black or being a woman. I'm happy to be both of these things, but the world keeps intervening.

Privilege is a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor. There is racial privilege, gender {and identity} privilege, heterosexual privilege, economic privilege, able-bodied privilege, educational privilege, religious privilege, and the list goes on and on. At some point, you have to surrender to the kinds of privilege you hold.

Specific body parts, "problem areas," also get labels-fupa, gunt, cankles, thunder thighs, Hi Susans, wings, cottage cheese thighs, hail damage, muffin tops, side boob, back fat, love handles, saddlebags, spare tires, double chins, gocks, man boobs, beer bellies.

Until visiting Haiti, I had no idea what poverty really was or the difference between relative and absolute poverty. To see poverty so plainly and pervasively left a profound mark on me.