We have this cultural obsession with work and productivity as if we're better people if we don't stop and take some time for ourselves.
Roxane GayI love how I can see [on Twitter] some of the thoughts and ideas of my favorite cultural figures and still also chatter with my friends and family. It's a cocktail party with a fraction of the awkwardness of an actual cocktail party.
Roxane GayIt's gut instinct that helps me determine how to write a story. I love the surreal because I am faced with the challenge of making the unbelievable believable. That challenge is thrilling.
Roxane GayTo have privilege in one or more areas does not mean you are wholly privileged. Surrendering to the acceptance of privilege is difficult, but it is really all that is expected. What I remind myself, regularly, is this: the acknowledgment of my privilege is not a denial of the ways I have been and am marginalized, the ways I have suffered.
Roxane GayWhen I'm editing my work, I'm looking for everything to fit, to feel seamless, for every detail or line of dialogue or scene to feel necessary and organic. I approach the writing of others in much the same way while always working to preserve the writer's voice. To allow myself to be vulnerable on the page, I tell myself no one is going to read my work. There's no way I could put myself out there otherwise.
Roxane Gay