Home / Quotes / Quote by Maggie Nelson

Quote by Maggie Nelson

“labels can be fun! Some people are like, "As a card-carrying bear, where I also have a little bit of fairy in me..." People have fun collaging these; there's a fun people have with their identifications. The irony of them can be lost if you're just wholeheartedly anti-identitarian.”

Quote by Maggie Nelson

Author

Maggie Nelson (b. 1973) is an American poet, essayist, and critic known for her genre-defying works that blend poetry, memoir, theory, and criticism. Her writing explores themes of gender, violence, family, and art. Her acclaimed book 'The Argonauts' won the 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award and became a landmark in queer theory and autobiographical writing. Nelson's unique style combines first-person narrative with philosophical inquiry, challenging traditional literary categories. She has taught at the California Institute of the Arts and the University of Southern California, and currently lives in Los Angeles. more

You May Also Like

“Is it exciting to have a codified identity, which then gets a codified set of rights and recognitions and visibility? Are we supposed to take it from there, within the same system? Or are we trying to upset the table before we want a place at it?”

Trying Identity Exciting Recognition Upset

Author:Maggie Nelson

“Whenever you get involved with talking about rights, you're talking about being a citizen. You're talking about being a citizen in capitalism; you're talking about what rights are granted to what identities, under what laws, and all that is a big mix. Marriage is, among many other things, a formality to channel capital through a family. And that's why the big DOMA lawsuit was about paying too many taxes! "I wouldn't have had to pay all these taxes if Theodora had been Theo" - that was the big tagline. It's all about protecting assets.”

Identity Taxes Capitalism Granted Get Involved

Author:Maggie Nelson

“We're all human beings with bodily needs living within a system. We don't need to prove that we're not a part of the fabric of the culture in order to want to change it.”

Author:Maggie Nelson

“I think writing kind of burns out the flaming question. Sometimes it might feel like when you're living with certain paradoxes and they're unarticulated, you feel pressure to choose. I feel more comfortable living in the paradoxes that I've named and laid out, whereas when I started they might have felt like real agitations. At least I see them more clearly after having sketched them for myself and made a place to stand in relationship to them that felt okay enough to last through the course of a book.”

Thinking Writing Kind Book Real Sometimes Enough Okay Paradox Burn Out

Author:Maggie Nelson

“I love language. It doesn't bother me that its effects are partial. To me that is very sanity-producing. It would be weird if the effects of language were more than partial, if your whole life existed within your texts. That would be much scarier to me than language being an inadequate tool to represent.”

Language Whole Life Bother Inadequate

Author:Maggie Nelson

“For pragmatic reasons, for lessening of violence and for allowing people to live better lives, I think that the march forward for GLBTQ+ rights is a worthwhile one. But for me, hopefully the frontier is alliance-making across all the social issues, whereby people can get over whatever prejudices they're holding in order to keep their eyes on making livable lives for people in all states of vulnerability, no matter what their gender, sexuality, race, class, origin, whatever.”

People Thinking Reason Eye Violence Prejudice Gender Sexuality Hopefully Vulnerability March Better Life Social Issues Pragmatic

Author:Maggie Nelson

“If I had the chance to spend a day with Werner Herzog, I would want there to be a canoe involved. I want to be down in Patagonia or something, and kill some kind of wild beast and skin it and gut it and cook it. And then turn its fur into some kind of layer of warmth. And then trek through the hills.”

Kind Chance Skins Hills Beast Guts Warmth

Author:Jai Courtney

“Humor can alter any situation and help us cope at the very instant we are laughing.”

Helping Humor Situation Laughing Instant

Author:Allen Klein

“There are roles out there I want to play that I don't know if I'll ever get the chance to. But I'm not going to waste time waiting for those phone calls, passing up the chance to do these sorts of things. I'm more likely to go see a smaller, darker indie film, like Felony for instance, than I am to see an Avengers or perhaps even a Terminator.”

Film Waiting Chance Wasting Time

Author:Jai Courtney

“I've heard that Oasis or Coldplay will sell tickets, but they can't sell records. They sold out Madison Square Garden in three hours. And they can't sell albums. I don't know what's going on.”

Author:Jez Williams