Brittney > Brittney's Quotes

“That is the real story of my lift, and that is why I wrote this book. I want people to know what it feels like to nearly give up on yourself and why you might do it. I want people to understand what happens in the lives of the poor and the psychological impact that spiritual and material poverty has on their children. I want people to understand the American Dream as my family and I encountered it. I want people to understand how upward mobility really feels. And I want people to understand something I learned only recently: that for those of us lucky enough to live the American Dream, the demons of the life we left behind continue to chase us.”
― J.D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

“The statistics tell you that kids like me face a grim future—that if they’re lucky, they’ll manage to avoid welfare; and if they’re unlucky, they’ll die of a heroin overdose, as happened to dozens in my small hometown just last year. I”
― J.D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

“There is an ethnic component lurking in the background of my story. In our race-conscious society, our vocabulary often extends no further than the color of someone's skin - black people, Asians, white privilege. Sometimes these broad categories are useful. But to understand my story, you have to delve into the details.I may be white, but I do not identify with the WASPs of the Northeast. Instead, I identify with the millions of working-class white Americans of Scots-Irish descent who have no college degree. To these folks, poverty's the family tradition. Their ancestors were day laborers in the southern slave economy, sharecroppers after that, coal miners after that, and machinists and mill workers during more recent times. Americans call them hillbillies, rednecks or white trash. I call them neighbors, friends and family.”
― J.D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis

“People go on and on about boobs and butts and teeny waists, but the clavicle is the true benchmark of female desirability. It is a fetish item. Without visible clavicles you might as well be a meatloaf in the sexual marketplace. And I don't mean Meatloaf the person, who has probably gotten laid lotsa times despite the fact that his clavicle is buried so deep as to be mere urban legend, because our culture does not have a creepy sexual fascination on the bones of meaty men.

Only women. Show us your bones, they say. If only you were nothing but bones.”
― Lindy West, Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

“I spent a lot of time alone as a kid. I’ve never been an easy hugger. The social conventions that keep human beings separate and discrete—boundaries, etiquette, privacy, personal space—have always been a great well of safety to me. I am a rule follower. I like choosing whom I let in close. The emotional state of emergency following a death necessarily breaks those conventions down, and, unfortunately, I am bad at being human without them. I”
― Lindy West, Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

“So, what do you do when you're too big, in a world where bigness is cast not only as aesthetically objectionable, but also as a moral failing? You fold yourself up like origami, you make yourself smaller in other ways, you take up less space with your personality, since you can't with your body. You diet. You starve, you run till you taste blood in your throat, you count out your almonds, you try to buy back your humanity with pounds of flesh.”
― Lindy West, Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

“The human spirit, you know what they say about the human spirit? Is is harder than a rock and more delicate than a flower petal.”
― Nadia Hashimi, The Pearl That Broke Its Shell

“Seawater begs the pearl
to break its shell”
― Nadia Hashimi, The Pearl That Broke Its Shell

“A woman’s past need not predict her future. She can dance to new music if she chooses. Her own music. To hear the tune, she must only stop talking. To herself, I mean. We’re always trying to persuade ourselves of things.”
― Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours

“Seeing ourselves clearly is the project of a lifetime.”
― Nathan Hill, The Nix

“The flip side of being a person who never fails at anything is that you never do anything you could fail at. You never do anything risky. There’s a certain essential lack of courage among people who seem to be good at everything.”
― Nathan Hill, The Nix

“The things you love the most will one day hurt you the worst.”
― Nathan Hill, The Nix

“Fleurs du mal,” Eve heard herself saying, and shivered. “What?” “Baudelaire. We are not flowers to be plucked and shielded, Captain. We are flowers who flourish in evil.”
― Kate Quinn, The Alice Network

“Grief was not a line, carrying you infinitely further from loss. You never knew when you would be sling-shot backward into its grip. —”
― Brit Bennett, The Mothers

“But we were girls once, which is to say, we have all loved an ain’t-shit man. No Christian way of putting it. There are two types of men in the world: men who are and men who ain’t about shit.”
― Brit Bennett, The Mothers

“Suffering pain is what made you a woman. Most of the milestones in a woman’s life were accompanied by pain, like her first time having sex or birthing a child. For men, it was all orgasms and champagne.”
― Brit Bennett, The Mothers

“No shame in loving an ain’t-shit man, long as you get it out your system good and early. A tragic woman hooks into an ain’t-shit man, or worse, lets him hook into her. He will drag her until he tires. He will climb atop her shoulders and her body will sag from the weight of loving him. Yes,”
― Brit Bennett, The Mothers

“In a way, subtle racism was worse because it made you feel crazy. You were always left wondering, was that actually racist? Had you just imagined it?”
― Brit Bennett, The Mothers

“Poorness never left you, she told him. It was a hunger that embedded itself into your bones. It starved you, even when you were full.”
― Brit Bennett, The Mothers

“What would you do if you weren't afraid?”
― Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

“When looking for a life partner, my advice to women is date all of them: the bad boys, the cool boys, the commitment-phobic boys, the crazy boys. But do not marry them. The things that make the bad boys sexy do not make them good husbands. When it comes time to settle down, find someone who wants an equal partner. Someone who thinks women should be smart, opinionated and ambitious. Someone who values fairness and expects or, even better, wants to do his share in the home. These men exist and, trust me, over time, nothing is sexier.”
― Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

“Aggressive and hard-charging women violate unwritten rules about acceptable social conduct. Men are continually applauded for being ambitious and powerful and successful, but women who display these same traits often pay a social penalty. Female accomplishments come at a cost.”
― Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

“As women must be more empowered at work, men must be more empowered at home. I have seen so many women inadvertently discourage their husbands from doing their share by being too controlling or critical. Social scientists call this "maternal gatekeeping" which is a fancy term for "Ohmigod, that's not the way you do it! Just move aside and let me!"...Anyone who wants her mate to be a true partner must treat him as an equal--and equally capable partner. And if that's note reason enough, bear in mind that a study found that wives who engage in gatekeeping behaviors do five more hours of family work per week than wives who take a more collaborative approach.

Another common and counterproductive dynamic occurs when women assign or suggest taks to their partners. She is delegating, and that's a step in the right direction. But sharing responsibility should mean sharing responsibility. Each partner needs to be in charge of specific activities or it becomes too easy for one to feel like he's doing a favor instead of doing his part.”
― Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

“She explained that many people, but especially women, feel fraudulent when they are praised for their accomplishments. Instead of feeling worthy of recognition, they feel undeserving and guilty, as if a mistake has been made. Despite being high achievers, even experts in their fields, women can't seem to shake the sense that it is only a matter of time until they are found out for who they really are- impostors with limited skills or abilities.”
― Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

“there were the things she wished were true, and there was what was actually true. She was learning that there was usually a great distance between the two.”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, The Things We Wish Were True

“The thing about adventure was, it usually required at least a modicum of danger. They”
― Marybeth Mayhew Whalen, The Things We Wish Were True

“Here’s to books, the cheapest vacation you can buy.”
― Charlaine Harris

“Tell me what you can't forget, and I'll tell you who you are. I switch off my apartment light and she comes with the dark.”
― Julie Buntin, Marlena

“Why do they say ghosts are cold? Mine are warm, a breath dampening your cheek, a voice when you thought you were alone.”
― Julie Buntin, Marlena

“It took her years to come around, to see what I saw- that Liam was a man who would only leave if your forced his hand.”
― Julie Buntin, Marlena