185 Quotes by Lindy West

I believe unconditionally in the right of people with uteruses to decide what grows inside of their body and feeds on their blood and endangers their life and reroutes their future. There are no ‘good’ abortions and ‘bad’ abortions, there are only pregnant people who want them and pregnant people who don’t, pregnant people who have access and support and pregnant people who face institutional roadblocks and lies.

It costs you nothing to err on the side of “care”.

And all those times that I tried so hard to get you to hang out with me, and I just wanted to be around you so much, I’ve never been more right about anything in my life. The only way I can think to say it is that you are better than I thought people could be.

The idea is that people in positions of power should avoid making jokes at the expense of the powerless. That’s.

America loves to lie about itself, and Americans love to eat those lies up – anything that obliterates our sins, that tells us everything will be okay, that makes us the infallible, gallant protagonist in the story of Earth. We must root out the assumptions we swallow as fact and the facts we deny.

The reality is that there’s no such thing as political correctness; it’s a rhetorical device to depersonalize oppression. Being cognizant of and careful with historic trauma of others is what “political correctness” means. It means that the powerful should never attack the disempowered – not because it “offends” them or hurts their “feelings” but because it perpetuates toxic, oppressive systems.

Being cognizant of and careful with the historic trauma of others is what “political correctness” means. It means that the powerful should never attack the disempowered – not because it “offends” them or hurts their “feelings” but because it perpetuates toxic, oppressive systems. Or, in plainer language, because it makes people’s lives worse. In tangible ways. For generations.

I know that trolls are fundamentally sad people; I know that I’ve already defeated them in every substantive arena – by being smart, by being happy, by being successful, by being listened to, by being loved.

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.