Quotes About Stigma

The recurring question that anyone from Bihar gets is whether Patna has improved. I'm not interested in answering that question.

I didn't even know I was considered plus-size until I was on the red carpet here in L.A. one day and a lady said, 'How do you feel about being a plus-sized girl in Hollywood?' I was like, 'What's she talking about?'

If you do a cable show, you have a radio show, whatever, if you're fat and you've got red hair, look, they're going to pick on you.

Precise historical reasons are difficult to pinpoint, but red hair, it seems, bestows a sense of otherness. Red is the colour of blood and danger.

People are racist about redheads in a way they'd never dare to be about black or Asian people.

People look at you, and they've got just the perfect little box for you, the perfect category. Call you a redneck. Call you a hillbilly. Like those were insults.

I have never really referred to my voice as 'gay.'

There was a really long period of time when, if the newspapers ever referred to me, even if I was talking about, I don't know, cake making, they would put 'lesbian Sandi Toksvig.'

What's worse in Hollywood, being handicapped or being a woman over 50?

There are obviously issues in our industry. That starts at the top with studio execs who - not just men - don't believe a woman could handle a huge franchise or big action movie.

If you hang around people from L.A., they're, like, used to having their city being maligned.

I've been called worse than a Harvard kid.

What's so brave about being bald? I've not fought for my country or found the cure for cancer - I've just gone out without my hat on!

I guess, somewhere along the line, when we first came out, somebody thought it was a crime to be young and not wear a cowboy hat and sing country music.

Women's behavior in handling beauty, even before feminism, was to deny they had any. Don't hate me because I'm beautiful.

I think we've gotten to a point where we're becoming really sensitive to things like body dysmorphia, but I think it's gone too far, where people are accusing everyone of hating themselves.

There are the guys that wear the white hats and they're painting the picture of someone to wear the black hat and they chose me - even though they don't really know me.

Once they put you in like a label category it just haunts you.

A lot of women feel apologetic or feel the need to make excuses for not having children but women don't need to if they don't want to.

If we could end the old fashioned idea that feeling down is something to be ashamed of, something that you shouldn't burden others with, we would make our society a much happier and healthier place.

Well you know, it's true that as a fat person I run a greater risk of heart disease, diabetes, and a number of other things. But guess what? The amount of that risk is almost infinitessimal!

People get into debt head over heels because banks make it so easy to do so. Then the banks come along and act like these people who can't or won't pay their bills are the dregs of society.

I had a hell of a time convincing people I was gay - which was so annoying!

I can't do the conventional heroine's role.