Stacey Abrams > Quotes

“Because I learned long ago that winning doesn’t always mean you get the prize. Sometimes you get progress, and that counts.”
― Stacey Abrams, Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

“Logic is a seductive excuse for setting low expectations.”
― Stacey Abrams, Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change

“Never tell yourself no. Let someone else do it.”
― Stacey Abrams, Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change

“Voting is a constitutional right in the United States, a right that has been reiterated three separate times via constitutional amendment.”
― Stacey Abrams, Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

“From the moment I enter a room, I am clear about how I intend to be treated and how I intend to engage. I do not tell self-deprecating jokes about my race or gender, though I will do so about my personal idiosyncrasies. I can be charmingly humble or playfully self-effacing without pandering to stereotypes in order to make others comfortable. For example, my attire, my hairstyle, even my presentation style, reflect me rather than aping the behavior of others. I know that when I offer criticism of men in the workplace, I may be seen as a man-hater. I know because I am not married, I may be seen as a lesbian. I know because I will never be less than curvaceous and wear my hair natural”
― Stacey Abrams, Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change

“Single-strand identities do not exist in a household, let alone in a nation. When America is at its best, we acknowledge the complexity of our societies and the complicating reality of how we experience this country—and its obstacles. Yet we never lose sight of the fact that we all want the same thing. We want education. We want economic security. We want health care. Identity politics pushes leaders to understand that because of race, class, gender, sexual orientation/gender identity, and national origin, people confront obstacles that stem from these identities. Successful leaders who wish to engage the broadest coalition of voters have to demonstrate that they understand that the barriers are not uniform and, moreover, that they have plans to tackle these impediments. The greatest politicians display both of these capacities, and they never forget that the destination—regardless of identity—is the same: safety, security, and opportunity.”
― Stacey Abrams, Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

“Full citizenship rights are the bare minimum one should expect from the government. Yet, for two-thirds of our history, full citizenship was denied to those who built this country from theory to life. African slaves and Chinese workers and Native American environmentalists and Latino gauchos and Irish farmers—and half the population: women. Over the course of our history, these men and women, these patriots and defenders of liberty, have been denied the most profound currency of citizenship: power. Because, let’s be honest, that is the core of this fight. The right to be seen, the right to be heard, the right to direct the course of history are markers of power. In the United States, democracy makes politics one of the key levers to exercising power. So, it should shock none of us that the struggle for dominion over our nation’s future and who will participate is simply a battle for American power.”
― Stacey Abrams, Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

“It’s frustrating to realize we’re taught to be humble in a way that men are not.”
― Stacey Abrams, Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change

“We are strongest when we see the most vulnerable in our society, bear witness to their struggles, and then work to create systems to make it better”
― Stacey Abrams, Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

“Yet, from limiting original voting rights to white men, to the elitist and racist origins of the Electoral College, American democracy has always left people out of participation, by design.”
― Stacey Abrams, Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

“Because I suddenly saw opportunity where I had never been brave enough to look before, and I found that failure wasn’t fatal, that otherness held an extraordinary power for clarity and invention.”
― Stacey Abrams, Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change

“Why American history? Other nations have achieved greatness with less hubris and narcissism."

"Agreed. But America is a contradictory and precocious country, sir. We have, in a very short period of time, managed to commit venal sins against our own people and offer the world repeat examples of exceptionalism. Americans are greedy, brilliant, ambitious, and compassionate. We like to remind everyone about our genius, and yet our leaders make fun of smart people. In less than two centuries, we took over more than half a continent, placed a man on the moon, and invented the Clapper. I enjoyed the contrasts."

Wynn continued to watch her, with what Avery perceived as an ounce of amusement on his face. "A nation of favor and folly, one might say. Where justice is known but rarely seen.”
― Stacey Abrams, While Justice Sleeps

“The best allies own their privilege not as a badge of honor but as a reminder to be constantly listening and learning to become better at offering support to others.”
― Stacey Abrams, Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change

“Arguments continue over what constitutes true “identity politics” as a philosophical construct, a public policy imperative, or a flawed means of picking candidates based solely on external characteristics rather than the candidate’s own merit. Rather than engaging in a false choice, I opt to short-circuit the debate with a more simplistic view: identity is real and necessary and intertwined in our politics in such a way that there is no going back.”
― Stacey Abrams, Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

“Voter suppression works its might by first tripping and causing to stumble the unwanted voter, then by convincing those who see the obstacle course to forfeit the race without even starting to run.”
― Stacey Abrams, Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

“Logic is a seductive excuse for setting low expectations. Its cool, rational precision urges you to believe that it makes sense to limit yourself. And when your goal means you’ll be the first, or one of the few, as I desired, logic tells you that if it were possible, someone else would have done it by now.”
― Stacey Abrams, Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change

“Being a token is real, and sometimes the urge to take a backseat so we don’t have to be “the one” is tempting. But denying fear of disappointing everyone to avoid responsibility for everyone doesn’t do anyone any good either.”
― Stacey Abrams, Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change

“At its most complex, ambition should be an animation of soul. Not simply a job, but a disquiet that requires you to take action.”
― Stacey Abrams, Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change

“What’s not right is giving credence to bad actions, and thereby becoming complicit.”
― Stacey Abrams, Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change

“Our priorities should ideally engage heart and head.”
― Stacey Abrams, Minority Leader: How to Lead from the Outside and Make Real Change

“The voting system is not just political; it is economic and social and educational. It is omnipresent and omniscient. And it is fallible. Yet, when a structure is broken, we are fools if we simply ignore the defect in favor of pretending that our democracy isn’t cracking at the seams. Our obligation is to understand where the problem is, find a solution, and make the broken whole again.”
― Stacey Abrams, Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

“I confronted the expected stereotypes by knowing what they were and building an alternate narrative about myself.”
― Stacey Abrams, Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change

“Defeating fear of otherness means knowing who you are and what you’re trying to accomplish and leveraging that otherness to our benefit. Knowing I’d never be invited into smoke-filled rooms or to the golf course, I instead requested individual meetings with political colleagues where I asked questions and learned about their interests, creating a similar sense of camaraderie. In business, I take full advantage of opportunities afforded to minorities but then always offer to share my learning with other groups that have similar needs—expanding the circle rather than closing myself off. Like most who are underestimated, I have learned to over-perform and find soft but key ways to take credit. Because, ultimately, leadership and power require the confidence to effectively wield both.”
― Stacey Abrams, Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change

“Identity politics forces those who ask for our support to do their jobs: To understand that the self-made man got zoned into a good school district and received a high-quality education, one that wouldn’t have existed if his zip code changed by a digit. To recognize that the woman on welfare with three kids is the product of divorce in a state where she risks losing food stamps if her low-wage job pays her too much. Or that the homeless junkie is an Iraq War veteran who was in the National Guard but lost his job due to multiple deployments and didn’t qualify for full VA care. And that the laborer is a migrant farmworker who overstayed his visa to care for his American-born children. Single-strand identities do not exist in a household, let alone in a nation.”
― Stacey Abrams, Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

“Voter suppression no longer announces itself with a document clearly labeled LITERACY TEST or POLL TAX. Instead, the attacks on voting rights feel like user error—and that’s intentional. When the system fails us, we can rail and try to force change. But if the problem is individual, we are trained to hide our mistakes and ignore the concerns. The fight to defend the right to vote begins with understanding where we’ve been and knowing where we are now.”
― Stacey Abrams, Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

“Howard Wynn did not suffer boredom or mediocrity well. He felt equally dismissive of willful ignorance—his description of the modern press—and smug stupidity, his bon mot for politicians. To his mind, they were a gang of vapid and arrogant thugs all, who greedily snatched their information from one another like disappearing crumbs as society spiraled merrily toward hell. With the current crop of pundits, bureaucrats, and hired guns in charge, America was destined to repeat the cycles of intellectual torpor that toppled Rome and Greece and Mali and the Incas and every empire that stumbled into short-lived, debauched existence. Show man ignoble work and easy sex, and there went civilization.”
― Stacey Abrams, While Justice Sleeps

“Reputation was all you had when you’d been born without the relationships.”
― Stacey Abrams, While Justice Sleeps

“The right to be seen, the right to be heard, the right to direct the course of history are markers of power.”
― Stacey Abrams, Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

“Money and power make people irrational.”
― Stacey Abrams, While Justice Sleeps

“Voting rights are the most basic tenet of our democracy, and the bare minimum one should expect from the government.”
― Stacey Abrams, Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America