185 Quotes by Lindy West

When faced with a choice between an incriminating truth or a flattering lie, America’s ruling class has been choosing the lie for four hundred years.

We gobble up cable news’ insistence that both sides of an argument are equally valid and South Park’s insistence that both sides are equally stupid, because taking a firm stand on anything opens us up to criticism.

Being on Twitter felt like being in a nonconsensual BDSM relationship with the apocolypse.

It seems that a lot of men are confusing being asked not to violate other people’s sexual boundaries with being forbidden to participate in basic human activities such as dancing, dating, chatting, walking around, going to work. and telling jokes.

I sometimes think of people’s personalities as the negative space around their insecurities.

Passively attempting to earn my humanity by being smart, nice, friendly, and good at my job had gotten me nowhere; my private confrontation with Dan had gotten me nowhere; literally telling him ‘this harms me’ had gotten me nowhere; taking a quick, vague swipe at him on the blog had gotten me nowhere.

People target advertisers because they’re tired of their hard-won consumer dollars going to pay sexists and racists and homophobes who got those jobs, at least partially, by coasting on the privileges and benefit of the doubt conferred by sexism and racism and homophobia.

For me, the process of embodying confidence was less about convincing myself of my own worth and more about rejecting and unlearning what society had hammered into me.

Our propensity for always, always, always choosing what is comfortable over what is right helped pave the road to this low and surreal moment in US history.