Quotes About Stigma

What's the big fucking deal? Lots of amazing people have committed suicide, and they turned out alright.

Nothing in my life has ever made me want to commit suicide more than people's reaction to my trying to commit suicide.

As Nic said, second-hand clothes were like day drinking, government handouts and having a lawyer: classy if you're rich, proof you're trash if you're poor.

Incarceration seems to have been obtained in consequence of Mrs. Packard using her reason and, not as reported, by her losing her reason.

You got judged one day at the very beginning, and that was it forever. Nothing you could do to change anyone's opinion.

There seems to be no stopping drug frenzy once it takes hold of a nation. What starts with an innocuous HUGS, NOT DRUGS bumper sticker soon leads to wild talk of shooting dealers and making urine tests a condition for employment -- anywhere.

Of course it's alright for librarians to smell of drink.

It's all about fear. That same fear that gays have about coming out is the fear that women have about being feminists or being pro-women. It's the same fear that Jews have about being too Jewish. And it's the same exact fear that black writers have about being too ethnic.

Popular culture woefully underprepares us for actual therapy.

I thought that if you come across as a freak, there will be some kind of distance. Maybe the distance became excessive. I realized that people were afraid of me without knowing me.

One of the most rebellious things a woman can do is allow people to think she's mean.

Over the years, my marks on paper have landed me in all sorts of courts and controversies - I have been comprehensively labelled; anti-this and anti-that, anti-social, anti-football, anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-Semitic, anti-science, anti-republican, anti-American, anti-Australian - to recall just an armful of the antis.

I'lI say this: I recall entering Congress in 1971 and being called a 'feminist' by members of my own party as if it was a dirty word. They didn't realize that I wore that label as a badge of honor.

The difference in the quality of medical care received by people with mental illness is one of the reasons why they live shorter lives than people without mental illness. Even in the best-resourced countries in the world, this life expectancy gap is as much as 20 years. In the developing countries of the world, this gap is even larger.

It seems every white receiver has the same thing said about him: He's supposed to be good on third and five. He's supposed to run good pass routes.

As recently as 1979, neither panic attacks nor panic disorder officially existed.

I think people reckon I am prim and proper.

It's great that ballroom dancing is being recognised. For many years ballroom dancers were misunderstood and other dance forms didn't want anything to do with us.

A hundred years ago, if you had a child out of marriage, you'd be a social disgrace. Today women feel comfortable enough economically and culturally to bring up a child without a recognized commitment from a man.

There's certain countries that you can't get in if you've got a criminal background record. There's certain jobs in the States that you can't get because you've got a criminal background record. That follows you the rest of your life... and that's something you have to deal with the rest of your life.

I'm openly gay, and I've got a major label record deal in Nashville, and it happened when I was 42 years old. It's not supposed to happen that way.

I've lived with my dyslexia and gone on to have a successful recording career, but academically I never had a chance in hell because I didn't fall into that bracket.

Private landlords as well as public landlords are free to discriminate against people with criminal records for the rest of their lives. You come out of prison, and where are you expected to go?

The black characters on TV are the sidekicks, or they're insignificant. You could put all the black sidekicks on one show, and it would be the most boring, one-dimensional show ever. Even look at the black women on 'Community' and 'Parks and Recreation' - they are the archetype of the large black women on television. Snide and sassy.