The Greatest Quotes

“I am asked to speak as if I were not there. To doubt myself in public. To perform neutrality about my own pain. I am expected to describe bruises without naming the hands that caused them, to describe fear without naming what produced it. This is not objectivity. This is erasure pretending to be civil. When my anger sounds too real, I am told I am exaggerating. When my wounds are too raw, I am told I am unstable. So I am expected to package trauma like a press release, to choose my words carefully, to avoid anything that might make the system feel accused.”
― Samuel Martínez Roque

“I'm instructed to water down lived experience into courtroom language, to turn certainty into caution, to translate memory into something legally unthreatening. I'm told that naming harm too directly is “inflammatory,” that clarity is “dangerous,” that speaking plainly is “irresponsible.” So I'm trained to speak like lawyer on behalf of the very structures that wounded me, inserting doubt into my own story before anyone else has to. I'm expected to pre-discredit myself so the system does not have to work as hard. This is not about accuracy. This is about power. When I'm forced to say “alleged,” it is not because the truth is unclear, but because the truth is inconvenient.”
― Samuel Martínez Roque

“There is a form of modern cruelty that does not argue with your testimony; it simply translates it into words that neutralize it. The State does not have to say “we don’t believe you.” It only has to say “this does not meet the definition,” as if violence becomes unreal when it fails to fit a statutory shape. The State performs innocence without changing behavior. It records your pain without treating it as urgent. It accepts your report without giving you protection. It receives your evidence without granting you remedy. The paperwork becomes a grave where the truth is buried alive, not because it is disproven, but because it is processed until it no longer threatens anyone.”
― Samuel Martínez Roque

“Once I wanted to be the greatest / No wind or waterfall could stall me / And then came the rush of the flood / Stars at night turned deep to rust / Melt me down / Into big black armour / Leave no trace of grace .... Once I wanted to be the greatest / Two fists of solid rock / With brains that could explain / Any feeling / Lower me down / Pin me in / Secure the grounds ...”
― Cat Power