Home / Books / Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

Book by Lindy West · 13 quotes · Change, Choice, Confidence

Browse quotes from Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman.

Book detail: Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman is presented as a focused source page for quotations connected with this book, collection, transcript, or source record.

Browse quotes from Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman.

The quotes below use the same card format as the rest of the site, including topics, source notes, copy actions, image creation, and sharing controls.

Filter quotes by topic

All Change Choice Confidence Kindness Women Activism Biases Compassion Death Dragons Dying Fantasy Fat Shaming Fatness Girls Guilt Trip Guilt Trips Hate Humor Injustice

Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman Quotes

“Real change is slow, hard, and imperceptible.”

Life Philosophy Change

Book:Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

Source: Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

“But they tell you that if you hate yourself hard enough, you can grab just a tail feather or two of perfection. Chasing perfection was your duty and your birthright, as a woman, and I would never know what it was like—this thing, this most important thing for girls.”

Women Perfection Girls Self Hatred Social Norms

Book:Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

Source: Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

“He was, and then he wasn't. One moment his body was the locus of his personhood, the next moment our memories had to pick up the slack.”

Love Death Dying Memory

Book:Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

Source: Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

“Why, when men hate themselves, it’s women who take the beatings.”

Book:Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

Source: Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

“Choose to be kind. That notion of choice - of choosing what kind of person you want to be - is more important now than ever. If our country isn't going to take care of everyone, we must take care of the people left behind.”

Kindness Choice

Book:Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

Source: Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

“They were so nice and so earnest. What was the point of hurting them? Sincerity is an easy target. But I don't want to excise sincerity from my life. That's a lonely way to live.”

Humor Kindness Sincerity Mockery

Book:Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

Source: Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

“Sometimes people on the defensive rebound into compassion. Sometimes smart, good people are just a little behind.”

Understanding Change Compassion

Book:Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

Source: Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

“I get to choose what kind of person to be: open or closed, generous or cruel, spiritual jaguar or clinging ghost, a lazy writer⁠—it's easy to hate things⁠—or a versatile one?”

Self Choice Self Determination Personal Responsibility

Book:Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

Source: Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

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

Book:Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

Source: Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

“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.”

Book:Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

Source: Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

“My mom, by contrast, never liked fantasy. When I was little, this made as much sense to me as not liking gravity or Gordon from Sesame Street. "I just like things that are true," she'd say. "Strong people fighting against the elements." I grill her so often on why she wasn't obsessed with dragons LIKE A NORMAL PERSON that it became the catchphrase in our house - strong people fighting against the elements.”

Fantasy Dragons Strong People

Book:Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

Source: Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

“People like Jim [a defender of punch-down rape jokes] desperately want to believe that the engines of injustice run on outsized hate—stranger rapes in dark alleys, burning crosses and white hoods—but the reality is that indifference, bureaucracy, and closed-door snickers are far more plentiful fuels.”

Hate Jokes Injustice Sexism Rape Systemic Oppression Rape Jokes Subtle Biases

Book:Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

Source: Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

“If you really want change to happen, if you really want to "help" fat people, you need to understand that shaming an already-shamed population is, well, shameful.”

Shame Activism Biases Fatness Guilt Trip Guilt Trips Fat Shaming Skinny Privilege

Book:Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman

Source: Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman