Lindy West Quotes

#1. I fervently believe that people shouldn't stay in bad relationships just because of some artificial rom-com notion of true love being "forever." In fact, I think that the pressure of conforming to that framework ruins-literally RUINS-a lot of people's lives.

Lindy West

#2. I don't know any woman who hasn't experienced some level of sexual predation, from catcalls, to unwanted advances at bars, to emotional manipulation, to violent rape. I certainly have - even "unrapeable" me. All women do need to worry about rape.

Lindy West

#3. It's so pathetic, the tough-guy posturing, but so sinister, because, to put it plainly, that's how black men die. Insecure, pee-pants white men assume that any disagreement is a life-threatening situation.

Lindy West

#4. The active ingredient in period stigma is misogyny.

Lindy West

#5. You only have to look back five years to see a different world, and, by extension, tangible proof that culture is ours to shape, if we try. Obviously

Lindy West

#6. The real scam is that being bones isn't enough either. The game is rigged. There is no perfection.

Lindy West

#7. Loving yourself is not antithetical to health, it is intrinsic to health. You can't take good care of a thing you hate.

Lindy West

#8. A lazy writer (it's easy to hate things) or a versatile one? I don't believe in an afterlife. We live and then we stop living. We exist and then we stop existing. That means I only get one chance to do a good job. I want to do a good job.

Lindy West

#9. Don't trust anyone who promises you a new life. Pick-up artists, lifestyle gurus, pyramid-scheme face cream evangelists, Weight Watchers coaches: These people make their living off of your failures.

Lindy West

#10. I had waited so long for someone to pick me. And then he changed his mind. I

Lindy West

#11. Dave brought a knife and a gun to a comedy show. Because of a disagreement about whether or not comedy clubs are safe for women. Because the way people talk onstage has no bearing on how they behave in real life. It's

Lindy West

#12. 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.

Lindy West

#13. It's hard to feel hurt or frightened when you're flooded with pity.

Lindy West

#14. We were just so bad at being together. He felt as guilty as I felt pathetic, and it made us closer, for a while.

Lindy West

#15. Just live! Live now! Don't wait, and don't let anyone tell you that you're a work in progress.

Lindy West

#16. We're all building our world, right now, in real time. Let's build it better.

Lindy West

#17. [He] made me feel lonely, and being alone with another person is much worse than being alone all by yourself.

Lindy West

#18. Privilege means that it's easy for white women to do each other favors. Privilege means that those of us who need it the least often get the most help. I

Lindy West

#19. Thanks for nothing, regular human mom. Footnote: nothing except for the unconditional love and support and meticulous care to make sure I faced the world fully informed about my body and reproductive health.

Lindy West

#20. In a certain light, feminism is just the long, slow realization that the stuff you love hates you

Lindy West

#21. Aham and I weren't getting back together-we swore we weren't, we couldn't-but when I wasn't looking, he had become my family anyway.

Lindy West

#22. 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.

Lindy West

#23. Like most fat people who've been lectured about diet and exercise since childhood, I actually know an inordinate amount about nutrition and fitness.

Lindy West

#24. Vashon is an island, accessible by ferry from Seattle, mainly populated by NIMBY-ish hippies, NIMBY-ish yuppies, boutique farmers, and wizards riding recumbent bicycles. A full quarter of the children in Vashon schools are unvaccinated.

Lindy West

#25. Misogyny is explicitly, visibly incentivized and rewarded. You can watch it self-perpetuate in front of your eyes. I

Lindy West

#26. I sometimes think of people's personalities as the negative space around their insecurities.

Lindy West

#27. The wind picked up. The power went out. The windows rattled. I took an Ambien and curled into a ball and tried to hide from the dark and the wind in the bed that had been ours, the first bed I'd ever shared with someone who loved me and picked me and then changed his mind.

Lindy West

#28. The fact that abortion is still a taboo subject means that opponents of abortion get to define it however suits them best.

Lindy West

#29. I don't have to justify its awesomeness/activeness/healthiness/usefulness to anyone, because it is MINE. Not yours.

Lindy West

#30. I desperately want to help, but the truth is, I don't know. I used to hate myself; eventually, I didn't anymore. I used to be shy; eventually, I made my living by talking too much.

Lindy West

#31. You have to swallow, every day, that you are a secondary being whose worth is measured by an arbitrary, impossible standard, administered

Lindy West

#32. Real change is slow, hard, and imperceptible.

Lindy West

#33. We only get one life. Wasting someone's time is the subtlest form of murder.

Lindy West

#34. it is easier to mock and deride individual fat people than to fix food deserts, school lunches, corn subsidies, inadequate or nonexistent public transportation, unsafe sidewalks and parks, healthcare, mental healthcare, the minimum wage, and your own insecurities.

Lindy West

#35. Art isn't indiscriminate shit-flinging. It's pure communication, crafted with intention and care. Every comedian on every stage is saying what he's saying on purpose. So shouldn't we be welcome to examine that purpose, contextualize it within our culture at large, and critique what we find? The

Lindy West

#36. Fat people are not here as a foil to boost your own self-esteem. Fat people are not your inspiration poem. Fat people can be competent, beautiful, talented, and proud without your approval.

Lindy West

#37. In the omnidirectional orgy gardens of Vlaxnoid 7, no one cares about your arm flab.

Lindy West

#38. Maybe women would finally be considered fully formed human beings, instead of off-brand men with defective genitals. Maybe

Lindy West

#39. my body, my work, my voice, my confidence, my power, my determination to demand a life as potent, vibrant, public, and complex as any man's.

Lindy West

#40. Willpower is real, but it needs the right conditions to thrive.

Lindy West

#41. If you're a man who works in comedy full-time and you aren't aware of what your female colleagues go through (if you have female colleagues at all), stop assuming that their experience is the same as yours, and start wondering why they aren't talking to you. The

Lindy West

#42. If you're the very luckiest kind of astronaut ever, your big payoff is that you get to visit a barren airless wasteland for five minutes, do some more math, and then go home - ice cream not guaranteed.

Lindy West

#43. but they tell you that if you hate yourself hard enough, you can grab just a tail feather or two of perfection.

Lindy West