Quotes About Recognition

We have different tactics for dealing with sexism and racism; and one difficulty is that these tactics can be in tension. When we give problems their names, we can become a problem for those who do not want to talk about a problem even though they know there is a problem. You can cause a problem by not letting things recede.

Becoming the race person means you are the one who is turned to when race turns up. The very fact of your existence can allow others not to turn up.

It happened right then; he looked at me and it was the thing I'd been waiting for but didn't know it. I don't mean anything corny like I fell in love or even into a crush or anything like that. It was more a feeling like when I'd get picked first for volleyball or find one of those stupid school candygrams in my locker. It was knowing someone else thought about me for more than one second, maybe even about me when I wasn't there.

It was so easy to disown what you couldn't recognize, to keep yourself apart from things that were foreign and unsettling. The only person you can be sure to control, always, is yourself. Which is a lot to be sure of, but at the same time, not enough.

I was used to being invisible. People rarely saw me, and if they did, they never looked close. I wasn't shiny and charming like my brother, stunning and graceful like my mother, or smart and dynamic like my friends. That's the thing, though. You always think you want to be noticed. Until you are.

It's funny how someone's perception of you can be formed without you even knowing it.

I'd done the right thing. I always did. It just would have been nice if someone had noticed.

There comes a point when things are undeniable and can't be hidden any longer. Even from yourself.

As I shut the door and started to walk away, I heard him say, Hey. Sydney. Yeah? You had on a shirt with mushrooms on it, and your hair was pulled back. Silver earrings. Pepperoni slice. No lollipop. I just looked at him, confused. Layla was walking toward us now. The first time you came into Seaside, he said. You weren't invisible, not to me. Just so you know.

That's the thing, though. You always think you want to be noticed. Until you are.

When I got to my own face, I found myself staring at it, so bright with dark all around it, like it was someone I didn't recognize. Like a word on a page that you've printed and read a million times, that suddenly looks strange or wrong, foreign, and you feel scared for a second, like you've lost something, even if you're not sure what it is.

For all the invisible girls and for my readers, for seeing me

Don't I know it.

You can't unlearn something, even if you want to. You know what you know.

It was so easy to disown what you couldn't recognize, to keep yourself apart from things that were foreign and unsettling

You just had to know where to look.

But it was important to simply be sought, even if you didn"t ever want to be found.

If there was a way to recognize something you'd never seen but still knew by heart, I felt it as I looked at his face. Finally, someone understood.

I realized all those times I'd felt people stare at me, their faces had been pictures, abstracts. None of them were mirrors, able to reflect back the expression I thought only I wore, the feelings only I felt. Until now, this moment, as our eyes met. If there was a way to recognize something you'd never seen but still knew by heart, I felt it as I looked at his face. Finally, someone understood.

very quietly, I heard a voice in my ear.It said, in a weird, cheesy, right-out-of-one-of-my-mother's-novels way, "Ah. Wemeet again." I turned my head, just slightly, and right there, practically on top of me, was theguy from the car dealership. He was wearing a red Mountain Fresh Detergent T-shirt—not just fresh: mountain fresh!—it proclaimed, and was smiling at me. "Oh,God," I said. "No, it's Dexter

Roo had seen something in it, and recognized a part of me that matched. How could someone know you better than yourself? Especially if they really didn't know you, not at all.

At times, I found myself questioning his very existence, even though I knew I had, in fact, spotted him, with my own eyes.

You always think you want to be noticed. Until you are.

It was so easy to disown what you couldn't recognize, to keep yourself apart from things that were foreign and unsettling. The only person you can be sure to control, always, is yourself. Which is a lot to be sure of, but at the same time, not enough.