Quotes About Bullying

I was born 'Harmony,' and it was weird because when I was a little kid, I was picked on so much that when I was 13, I changed my name to Harmful. I thought it was a tougher name, so I had it legally changed. And then, I don't know, it just didn't seem to catch on, so... legally, my name is still Harmful, but I just said I'll go back to Harmony.

Growing up in the Soviet Union, ballroom dancing wasn't the coolest thing to do. But that probably made me tougher, because it wasn't an easy task to do ballroom dancing and not get bullied. And I never got bullied in my life, even though I changed to five secondary schools in three different countries.

I would get bullied a lot. You know, it was the '70s and '80s, so it was a lot of racism back then towards Indian people. And it wasn't actual hatred, it was just that blind, 'Let's pick on that guy.' You know, and you've got to figure that I was a very small kid. And I had a big mouth, so I'm sure that didn't help.

I did get bullied and I did get picked on and I did have that feeling in my gut of being incredibly self-conscious. I naturally gravitated towards my elders because I didn't know how to speak or be present with my peers.

I wasn't always this confident. Growing up as the awkward gay kid in a small town in Pennsylvania, you're constantly told, 'Don't be yourself, don't be proud of who you are.'

Basically, I was pretty ostracized in my hometown. Me and a few other guys were the town freaks- and there were many occasions when we were dodging getting beaten up ourselves.

My dad worked two jobs and moved us to the suburbs, and just being a black person, I went through a lot of racism and being called names and being bullied every single day. And it was hard. I didn't have any friends.

A Mexican guy named Sam pushes Gary Frankel next to Isabel. "This guy can break your arm with one snap, asshole. Get out of my sight before I sic him on you," Sam says. Gary, who's wearing a coral shirt and white pants, growls to look tough. It doesn't work.

On the playground, children used to sing the chorus "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me." Few things then or now have ever struck me as more false than that ludicrous chant. Words can devastate, and they can heal.

I just want the bullying to stop. That is all I ever wanted. I used to love going to school. Now I hate it.

I'll remind her of how fat her arms looked in that slutty dress she wore at senior prom. That always makes her cry. Like goddamned Niagara falls.

Like I said, I know bullies. Deflect, deflect, make them think they got their way even when they didn't, but never actually give in to them. Become innocuous, not worth tormenting or thinking about.

In fact I was not alone in doing this. Almost everyone cried, but we all learned to hide it, and those who didn't were the ones who got bullied.

Similarly, if the American people and their representatives do not know and understand what is in our Constitution, others will take advantage of them. Only when we understand the law of our land can we effectively hold our representatives accountable. Knowledge is power, and we must refuse to be bullied.

There have been many stories recently about the bullying epidemic that seems to be occurring in our public school system. We should not be terribly surprised by this because children emulate what they see adults doing. One does not have to look at television for very long or listen to the radio for an extended period before one sees supposedly rational and mature adults vehemently attacking one another, calling each other names and acting like third graders.

If you wouldn't join in a mugging you saw taking place on a street, if you wouldn't physically attack or verbally abuse and cruelly insult an acquaintance in your school, why would you ever ridicule or hurl vicious and hurtful words at a person online?

I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that's fair. In these words he epitomized the history of the human race.

Everyone watched Maddy. Not outright – the glances came at her like light dancing off a mirror ball, moments of eyes flicking across her face and gone. It was almost as if the class were on a collective joyride at her expense: the more miserable she felt, the more excited their smirks became.

My former bullies pay extra to come backstage and meet me after shows, and I pretend not to know them in front of their friends. It is the most divine pleasure to exact the revenge of the brutalized child that resides within.

I've always fought for what I believe in. I used to get made fun of for dancing, and I would argue back, or fight the kids, or do whatever I had to do to shut them up. I have that in me.

I was a shy kid. I was awkward. I was picked on.

I'm lucky that I've never been bullied personally. There are always going to be kids who are mean and say stuff, but the people that matter to you - the people you love, like your parents, your siblings, and your friends - those are the people you should listen to.

In fact, most people who are bullies are people who have been abused in one way or the other in some other part of their life, and somebody who is bullied at school might come home and bully their younger siblings or their cousins or other people in their neighborhood, or in cyberspace.

To me, it is not necessarily you responding that trolls want: they want to scare, they want to intimidate, and they want to silence people - so ignoring it doesn't make a difference.