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Pronouns Quotes

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Pronouns Quotes

“Wow... you, you really don't get it, do you? Have you even considered that something that's trivial to you could mean... so much more to someone else? You don't get to take the easy road out and just respect the parts of people that you recognize. And, pro tip: If you find yourself in a similar situation in the future where you're surrounded by people you don't understand— Try listening. It'll work a lot better for you than talking.”

UnderstandingListeningRespectQueerPronounsNonbinary
Book:On a Sunbeam
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“That's an alien. I just saw an alien. Not just an alien ship. An alien being. I mean- just his claw- er... hand. But yeah. Well, I say "his hand", but maybe it's her hand. Or some other pronoun I don't have a word for. They might have seventeen biological sexes, for all I know. Or none. No one ever talks about the really hard parts of first contact with intelligent alien life: pronouns. I'm going to go with "he" for now, because it just seems rude to call a thinking being "it." Also, until I hear otherwise, his name is Rocky.”

FunnyAliensAlienPronounsAndy WeirProject Hail MaryRockyRyland Grace
Book:Project Hail Mary
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“People also tend to refer to nonhuman animals as “it” or sometimes “he,” regardless of the individual’s sex. This one-sex-fits-all approach objectifies and denies individuality. In fact, nonhuman animals who are exploited for food industries are usually females. Such unfortunate nonhumans are not only exploited for their flesh, but also for their nursing milk, reproductive eggs, and ability to produce young. When guessing the gender of a nonhuman animal forced through slaughterhouse gates, we would greatly increase odds of being correct if we referred to such unfortunate individuals as 'she'.”

LanguageGenderAnimalsVeganismDairyFactory FarmingPronounsHuman Animal RelationshipsWord ChoiceHuman Animal Studies
Book:Sister Species: Women, Animals and Social Justice
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“She knelt on the walkway, and the plants bunched around her, each of them calling out their name: the philodendron was Dendy (he), the ivy was Risa (they), the orchid Amina (she), the calla lily Viria (she), the thistle Tirna (they), the fireweed Nif (he), the wax myrtle Ree (he), the prickly pear Hosha (they), the flytrap Sut (he), the morning glory Zyndia (she), the fern Mirr (they)... She committed as many names as possible to memory.”

PlantsSentient BeingsTheyPronounsHe She
Book:The Enchanted Greenhouse
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“Whenever I get a free period, I set off to the college library and work systematically through the Dewey system, taking each book off the shelf one by one and adding, in black biro, ‘/she’ and ‘/woman’ to every ‘he’ and ‘man’. I do this for the whole three years but I never finish (and luckily I never get caught). I do it with righteous indignation; there is hardly one book in the whole library that doesn’t use only the generic male pronoun. As if only men think and feel and discover and read. We’ve been taught on this course that every single mark and sound on film or the page is important and laden with meaning, and yet every book in this library talks only to men. Language is important: it shapes minds, it can include, exclude, incite, hurt and destroy. If language isn’t powerful, why not call your teacher a cunt?”

FeminismFemale EmpowermentLanguages And CulturePronounsMen S WorldPunk Feminism
Book:Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys
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“Giants in Jeans Sonnet 52 Humanhood isn't him, her or them, Humanhood requires realization beyond sex. Pronouns may be a step in the right direction, But they are not passport for arrogance and disrespect. The purpose is to erase hate from society, And we ain't gonna do that by passing judgment. If we want there to be equity and acceptance, We must learn to trample first our own arrogance. Rebelling for the sake of rebelling achieves nothing, Arrogance only produces just another bitter creature. In trying to fight against prejudice and oppression, Be cautious that you don't end up as the new oppressor. Revolution is the foundation of civilization's evolution, But it must be rooted in gentleness, not cancellation.”

HatePrejudiceHumanismHumanitarianSonnetJudgmentalWokeCancel CultureBook Of PoemsPronouns
Book:Giants in Jeans: 100 Sonnets of United Earth
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“When I was trained as a journalist, as a race-relations reporter in Nashville covering the end of the civil-rights movement, we were strictly forbidden to use the first-person pronoun. There was kind of an electric charge around it. To come out from hiding and use the word 'I' carried a lot of fright for me.”

FirstsKindPersonsEndsUseRaceRightsMovementRelationCivil RightsJournalistHidingElectricReportersForbiddenRace RelationsCoveringCivil Rights MovementFirst PersonFrightNashvillePronouns
Author:Lawrence Wright
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“The reason the mass of men fear God, and at bottom dislike Him, is because they rather distrust His heart, and fancy Him all brain like a watch. (You perceive I employ a capital initial in the pronoun referring to the Deity; don't you think there is a slight dash of flunkeyism in that usage?).”

ThinkingMenHeartReasonBrainWatchesAtheismMassBottomPerceiveFancyDislikeDistrustInitialsDeitiesReferringUsageFear GodPronouns
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville (Illustrated)
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“It is urged that the use of the masculine pronouns he, his, and him in all the constitutions and laws, is proof that only men were meant to be included in their provisions. If you insist on this version of the letter of the law, we shall insist that you be consistent and accept the other horn of the dilemma, which would compel you to exempt women from taxation for the support of the government and from penalties for the violation of laws. There is no she or her or hers in the tax laws, and this is equally true of all the criminal laws.”

IfsMenUseGovernmentLawAcceptingSupportTaxesLettersConstitutionProofCriminalsVersionsConsistentMeant To BeWomens RightsPenaltiesTaxationMasculineHornsViolationProvisionDilemmaWere Meant To BeCriminal LawPronouns
Author:Susan B. Anthony
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“In the ninth and tenth centuries the Vikings invaded Britain from Scandinavia and settled in large numbers. Their language, which we call Old Norse, was at least partly comprehensible to the English, who did not hesitate to take over hundreds of words from it: skirt, window, scrub, sky, give, hit, kick, scatter, scrape, skill, scowl, score, fellow, want, skin, knife, law, happy, ugly, wrong and even the pronouns they and them.”

WantGivingLawLanguageNumbersSkyCenturySkillsWindowSkinsFellowsUglyKicksBritainScoreKnivesSkirtsLarge NumbersVikingsPronounsNorseScandinavia
Author:Larry Trask
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“All the words in the English language are divided into nine great classes. These classes are called the Parts of Speech. They are Article, Noun, Adjective, Pronoun, Verb, Adverb, Preposition, Conjunction and Interjection.”

LanguageClassSpeechNineDividedArticlesEnglish LanguageVerbsAdjectivesNounsConjunctionsPronounsAdverbsPrepositionsParts Of Speech
Book:How to Speak and Write Correctly (illustrated): Fully Formatted Version
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“In Buddhist ideology, the conventional self is that which is constructed in a way by the use of the pronoun, and when you realize there is no absolute ego there, no disconnected one, self, or ego, then that actually strengthens your conventional ego. It does so in the sense that then you realize it's a construction, and you can strengthen it in order to help others, or do whatever you're trying to do, it's not like you no longer know who you are. Then you can organize your behavior by using your ego, as it's now the pronoun.”

KnowsWayTryingDoeSelfHelpingUseOrderRealizingLike YouEgoBehaviorAbsolutesWho You AreHelping OthersIdeologyBuddhistConstructionConventionalOrganizeDisconnectedPronouns
Author:Robert Thurman
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“I have a funny story to tell about English and how I came to fall in love with the language. I was desperate to fit in and spoke English all the time. Trouble was, in my household it was a no-no to speak English because somehow it is disrespectful to call parents and grandparents "you" - impersonal pronouns are offensive in Vietnamese.”

StoriesFallSpeakLanguageParentTroubleFitFalling In LoveDesperateSpokesHouseholdOffensiveGrandparentVietnameseSpeak EnglishDisrespectfulParents And GrandparentsPronounsFunny Story
Author:Andrew Lam
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“All people in the world - who are not hermits or mutes - speak words. They speak different languages, but they speak words. They say, "How are you" or "I'm not feeling well" all over the world. These common words - these common elements that we have between us - the writer has to take some verbs and nouns and pronouns and adjectives and adverbs and arrange them in a way that sound fresh.”

PeopleWorldWayWellsDifferentFeelingsSpeakLanguageSoundCommonElementsVerbsAdjectivesNounsHermitsDifferent LanguagesPronounsAdverbsNot Feeling WellAdjectives And Adverbs
Author:Maya Angelou
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“Words are like that, they deceive, they pile up, it seems they do not know where to go, and, suddenly, because of two or three or four that suddenly come out, simple in themselves, a personal pronoun, an adverb, an adjective, we have the excitement of seeing them coming irresistibly to the surface through the skin and the eyes and upsetting the composure of our feelings, sometimes the nerves that can not bear it any longer, they put up with a great deal, they put up with everything, it was as if they were wearing armor, we might say.”

IfsKnowsTwoSometimesFeelingsSeemsMightEyeThreeSimpleDealsFourSeeingBearsSkinsSurfaceUpsetExcitementNervesDeceivingCan NotArmorAdjectivesComposurePronounsAdverbs
Author:Jose Saramago
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“They found the corpse in the closet of Alcide's apartment, and they hatched a plan to hide his remains." Eric sounded like that had been kind of cute of us. "My Sookie hid a corpse?" "I don't think you can be too sure about that possessive pronoun." "Where did you learn that term, Northman?" "I took 'English as a Second Language' at a community college in the seventies.”

ThinkingKindFoundLanguageTermCommunityPlansCollegeRemainsCuteApartmentClosetsSeventiesCorpsesEricPossessiveCommunity CollegePronounsEric NorthmanBill Compton
Book:Sookie Stackhouse 8-copy Boxed Set
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“We're trained to see only male or female and to plot people into those categories when they actually don't fit neatly at all. But if we pause, watch and listen closely we'll see the multiplicity of ways in which people are sexed and gendered. There exists a range of personal identifications around woman, man, in-between-we don't even have names or pronouns that reflect that in between place but people certainly live in it.”

PeopleIfsMenWayNamesWatchesFitFemaleMalesSexualityRangePlotCategoriesPausesIdentificationMultiplicityPronouns
Author:Minnie Bruce Pratt
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“I think a lot of my interest in history now isn't so much in places and names and texts and public figures, but more in examining all the nuances and idiosyncrasies of particular stories of everyday people. And if that doesn't happen, then I usually transplant myself and my own stories to a particular historical event. Which is why you'll see me, the first person pronoun, interacting in a song about Carl Sandburg, or you'll find my [sic] interacting with Saul Bellow. It's sort of a re-rendering of history and making it my own.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWritingFirstsPersonsStoriesHappensSongNamesInterestMy OwnEventsFiguresParticularHistoricalEverydaySongwritingFirst PersonNuanceExaminingInteractingRenderingPublic FiguresIdiosyncrasiesTransplantsPronounsHistorical Events
Author:Sufjan Stevens
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“I still use the pronoun she for my publicity materials, and for mainstream media stuff, for two reasons: the first is that I do a lot of work in public schools, and I want those young women and girls to see every kind of she there can be. I want them to see my biceps and my shorn hair and shirt and tie and for some of them to see me as a possibilityI want them to see me living outside of the boxes, because they might be asphyxiating in their own box and need to see there is air out here for them to breathe, that all they have to do is lift the lid a little.”

WantNeedsFirstsKindLittlesStillsTwoReasonUseMightSchoolYoungGirlStuffAirMediaMaterialsHairBoxesBreatheLiftsShirtsTiesMainstreamYoung WomenPublic SchoolPublicityMainstream MediaPronounsBiceps
Author:Rae Spoon
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