Roxane Gay Quotes

People have been so busy relating to how I look, it's a miracle I didn't become a self-conscious blob of protoplasm.

I don't think what I look like is relevant.

Pretty That's what I am, I guess. I mean, people have been telling me that's what I am since I was two. Maybe younger. Pretty as a picture. (Who wants to be a cliché?) Pretty as an angel. (Can you see them?) Pretty as a butterfly. (But isn't that really just a glam bug?) Cliché, invisible, or insectlike, I grew up knowing I was pretty and believing everything good about me had to do with how I looked. The mirror was my best friend. Until it started telling me I wasn't really pretty enough.

Some day I will show all the [people] who say I was a success just because of my pretty face. Sometimes I wish I had a really bad car accident so my face would get smashed up and I'd look like Eddie Constantine.

Sometimes I worry more about losing weight than gaining weight, because this is how people know and accept me. I do feel like if I wanted to get in better shape, there might be a backlash of, Why isn't she comfortable with herself anymore? So I try to figure out what my own goals are.

Being called gorgeous is not a bad thing! But at the same time, I don’t want to thrive on people’s opinions of me.

Similarly, I think I'm lucky that I've never had a crisis about whether the only reason I'm successful is because I'm crazy hot. It's not something that crosses my mind.

I got very self-conscious about the way I look. So I, especially with young people coming into the industry and young actors, I feel it's really terrible to start with their looks. Right? Because especially for women, it just puts you in your head at a time when you should really be focused on your work and what you're saying and doing and not how you look.

I’ve never felt like I’ve exactly traded on my looks. When I was a teenager, I was an ultra-late bloomer, and my mom would say it was a blessing, because it means you never have to wonder if guys are only interested in you because you’ve got boobs. I would have been thrilled if guys were interested in me because of my boobs! Similarly, I think I’m lucky that I’ve never had a crisis about whether the only reason I’m successful is because I’m crazy hot. It’s not something that crosses my mind.

But what we're really trapped by is perceptions. You think you need to lose weight for someone to love you. I think if I gain weight, no one will love me. What we really need is to just stop thinking of ourselves as bodies and start thinking of ourselves as people.

I'm not a centerfold.

My success is not who I am.

It kind of cracks me up when people say I'm hot because I just think that that's a term that I don't have to deal with anymore.

I know a lot of athletes and models are written off as just bodies. I never felt used for my body.

I just think that the Victoria's Secret girl values herself by the way she looks. And that might be linked with being healthy, but that's all it is, and it sets a negative example to other people.

I couldn't work my way into being a good-looking guy.

You should take some responsibility for the way you present yourself. But you should not be hung up on your looks, whether you are ugly or handsome, because it isn't an achievement.

People are obviously going to mention what I look like, but it's a shame it has to be a key part. I can't just be Miranda.

If other people think I'm okay looking, that's great, but I don't see it myself. When I look in the mirror, all I see is a bunch of fake teeth and football scars.

I was over-confident while growing up. I think when you look a certain way, you try and compensate by something else. I was always a strong child, was always confident, but looks never mattered to me.

My face has always been my fortune anyway, not my body.

I don't want to be about the way I look - my body, my hair, my makeup, all those boring things.

I'm not obsessed by looks. I think you can become a prisoner of your own image.

I don't want to become known as just a body.