Anne Roiphe Quotes

It is in many circumstances a troubling thing to belong to the advanced class of a backward nation. One surrenders coherence and begins a difficult process of choice which ends, often, in an eclectic idiosyncrasy.

A lot of black people believe that Jews in this country have become white. They behave like white people rather than Jewish people.

I think the first time 'white' was used was in the 1600s. Generally, we were described by where we came from... All of a sudden, this word 'white' came through, and now everyone is going for their own sense of power... to figure out who's on top.

It's perfect to be the same as everyone else.

I went to high school in Frisco, Texas, where a lot of people look the same, dress the same, act the same. People are either like, 'You're not black enough for this' or 'You're not white enough for this.'

I was making big paintings with mythological themes. When I started painting black figures, the white professors were relieved, and the black students were like, 'She's on our side.' These are the kinds of issues that a white male artist just doesn't have to deal with.

Every race is totally different.

I really wanted to be born a woman. It all started there. A South American woman. And I'm upset that I was born a white Jewish male. I've been angry since.

I'm not a fan of identity politics.

I am Ecuadorian but people felt so safe passing me off as a skinny, blue-eyed white girl.

It is hard to be an individual in Japan.

It didn't matter that I wore clothes from Sears; I was still different. I looked different. My name was different. I wanted to pull away from the things that marked my parents as being different.

While children are struggling to be unique, the world around them is trying all means to make them look like everybody else.

You know, our sense of individuality is just the number one target of civilization.

If you don't look like the ruling class, bring your inhaler.

I'm doing this play right now, the new David Mamet play. It's called 'Race,' and it's very interesting how people really leave the theater filled with the desire to talk about the play and the issues and the characters, and how they're all navigating their personal views around race.

A man must know how to act in the face of opinion; a woman to submit to it.

There's always been a quiet conversation and joke that if you're not hard, if you're not from impoverished neighborhoods, if you're not certain constructs of a black stereotype, then you not black.

It's a bit weird; everybody is trying to be different, but then they're exactly the same as whatever mob they hang out with.

In the locker room, and when I'm with my friends, we use racial slurs... What I do with my black friends is not up to white America to dictate to me what's appropriate and inappropriate.

I would probably have more in common with a whale than with a bourgeois married couple employed at worthy institutions that I would wipe from the face of the earth if it was given to me to do so.

When I was younger, I went through a phase when I didn't like my hair. Because the school I went to was primarily Caucasian, there wasn't anyone who had my hair texture. I remember one day I straightened my hair, and that was the first day that people gave me compliments on it.

Growing up, I had really big hair. Giant hair. As I got older, the goal was to make it smaller - I wanted to look like everyone else. So I got a weave. I would manipulate my hair and try to make it straight.

I'm not going to be intimidated by people or identity politics. I think that's a dead end.

I always tried to fit in, so I was a cheerleader with the orange skin and white-blonde hair, and Hooters was part of that.