Angie Thomas Quotes

I loved reading when I grew up but did feel totally invisible because I couldn't see myself and my life reflected in the books I was reading.

I feel bad for my little cousins who don't see themselves being represented, or the little girls in my community who won't have a chance to see a Disney princess... who resembles them.

A lot of people are not interested in stories in which they don't see themselves.

I like representing different kinds of black people - showing they exist.

It was the desire to see black girls and our experiences in the books that I was given to read at school that forced me to speak my truth. I launched #1000BlackGirlBooks, a book drive to collect the stories of women of color.

The first black girl book I fell in love with was most likely 'Please, Puppy, Please' by Spike Lee and Tonya Lee.

I just didn't see any toys that looked like me when I was a kid.

I wasn't seeing black girls in the books I was assigned to read at my school. I was tired of only reading about white boys and dogs and wanted to collect books featuring black girls.

People want to know that there's someone else out there that looks like them.

I think reading about black girls if you are a black girl is important. And for those who don't like to read, seeing yourself in a book can help them learn to love it.

I didn't grow up seeing faces of patriots, emotional and raw and gritty, who looked like me.

I want children to look at me and see my face and I want them to see their faces reflected in mine.

I like Marvel because characters look like me and women don't have roles that make them look too sexual.

I believe that a lot of minority writers stress about whether they get pigeonholed in writing about identity stuff, like you can't write about other things.

I had a niche. And my niche was that I was brown. So it's like, 'Great, I get to go up for all these 'brown parts.'' I call them 'brown parts' because that's what they are. That's not to be resentful, because I loved playing those parts - I got to meet so many cool actors.

It's people who look like me, just seeing representation of everyone. I didn't get that when I was young. I only saw one black girl that was on a Disney show, that was known for being the sassy, coocoo, that type of girl.

I didn't have a hero playing in sports that looked like me.

It's hard to be what you can't see.

There were very few British black women on TV or in music when I was a teenager; when you're growing up, you need someone you can identify with. I remember at Christmas being bought a doll that didn't look anything like me, so I threw it away.

For me, personally, I didn't see many people like me on TV growing up.

The majority of the DC and Marvel comic lines are white male characters, and the minute you make Thor a woman or Captain America a black guy, the Internet is filled with hateful comments and people saying, 'That's not what Captain America is supposed to look like.'

Growing up in Iowa, there weren't many people who looked like me. And then when I moved out to L.A., every guy in comedy looked like me.

I want a little black girl to pick up my book one day and see herself as the star. I want her to know that she's beautiful, and she matters, and she can have a crazy, magical adventure even if an ignorant part of the world tells her she can never be Hermione Granger.

I want to be able to let people who aren't used to seeing a Santa of color say, 'Wow, there he is.' It's time for America to diversify.

In sci-fi, the Black guys always die. So, it's extremely important to bring African-American characters to the genre and not have them killed.