Home > Work > Queenie

Queenie QUOTES

Queenie QUOTES

1 " You know, those men: bike riding, knitted sweater? Pretends Facebook isn’t important to him, but it really is?” I was met with a blank stare, so carried on. “Craft beer, start-ups, sense of entitlement? Reads books by Alain de Botton, needs a girlfriend who doesn’t threaten his mediocrity? "

― Candice Carty-Williams , Queenie

2 " Is this what growing into an adult woman is—having to predict and accordingly arrange for the avoidance of sexual harassment? "

― Candice Carty-Williams , Queenie

3 " Sleep paralysis is a strange thing. I'd had dozens of episodes at university when I'd take naps, and when I looked at it, read that's something about the brain being disrupted and waking up before the body, which is why you can't move when you're hallucinating that there's a faceless man climbing across the floor towards you. "

― Candice Carty-Williams , Queenie

4 " [W]hen my little girl was born, I put my finger in her tiny hand, and she opened her eyes and squeezed it so tightly. And I looked at her, and I realized that she was more powerful than any delicate princess I'd read about. I'd just given birth to a queen. A girl who would grow up to be strong and brave. So I called her Queenie. "

― Candice Carty-Williams , Queenie

5 " I wished that well-meaning white liberals would think before they said things that they thought were perfectly innocent. "

― Candice Carty-Williams , Queenie

6 " It's a family thing. It is an annoying and time-wasting thing. "

― Candice Carty-Williams , Queenie

7 " My eyes must spend at least fifty per cent of any given day rolled to the back of my head. "

― Candice Carty-Williams , Queenie

8 " That’s the thing about people who love to play devil’s advocate!’ I shouted. ‘There’s no emotional involvement in it for you, there’s nothing at stake! "

― Candice Carty-Williams , Queenie

9 " CAN YOU TURN THAT OFF, GRANDMA?’ I shouted down. ‘YOU KNOW I AM STRUGGLING.’

There was a long pause.

‘Who yuh tink yuh talking to?’ my grandmother shouted back. ‘Yuh tink say you can be DJ inna my house cause of a man? "

― Candice Carty-Williams , Queenie

10 " The road to recovery is not linear. It’s not straight. It’s a bumpy path, with lots of twists and turns. But you’re on the right track. "

― Candice Carty-Williams , Queenie

11 " Being brave isn't the same as being okay," my mum said quietly. "

― Candice Carty-Williams , Queenie

12 " Turns out the sadness that silence from the person you love brings can be temporarily erased by the dull thrill of attention from strangers. "

― Candice Carty-Williams , Queenie

13 " Maybe if all ah we had learned to talk about our troubles, we wouldn’t carry so much on our shoulders all the way to the grave.” He turned to walk out, his stick hitting the floor with purpose. “Maybe we haffi learn from this new generation, Veronica. "

― Candice Carty-Williams , Queenie

14 " It's not putting black lives on a pedestal, I don't even know what that means," I said, my heart beating fast. "It's saying that black lives, at this point, and historically, do not, and have not mattered, and that they should!"
I looked first at Gina, then around the room to see if anyone was going to back me up. Instead, I was met with what I'd been trying to pretend hadn't always been a room full of white not-quite-liberals whose opinions, like their money, had been inherited. "

― Candice Carty-Williams , Queenie

15 " Before I got off the bus, I made an internal list of people who could touch my hair:

1. Me

2. A hairdresser

3. That's it, that's the whole list "

― Candice Carty-Williams , Queenie

16 " Instead, I was met with what I'd been trying to pretend hadn't always been a room full of white not-quite-liberals whose opinions, like their money, had been inherited. "

― Candice Carty-Williams , Queenie

17 " He truly wasn't very funny but:

1. Apart from Kyazike, who is ten times as funny as me, I don't find anyone as funny as me, even in this, the darkest period of my life.

2. Actually, no man is as funny as me or any woman I've ever met. "

― Candice Carty-Williams , Queenie

18 " I looked at my three friends, the lights exploding in the sky and illuminating their beautiful faces. They all represented a different part of my life, had all come to me at different times; why they'd all stuck with me, I was constantly tying to work out. "

― Candice Carty-Williams , Queenie

19 " You said that I could be any type of black girl that I wanted to be. "

― Candice Carty-Williams , Queenie

20 " Why are people always complaining about the dead period between Christmas and the New Year? It’s complete bliss. "

― Candice Carty-Williams , Queenie