Lindy Quotes & Sayings

You know what works best when life sucks?"
"I'm sure you're about to tell me," she said dryly.
"Flipping it off and carrying on. You take your hand, like this." Liz raised her hand and fisted it. "And you lift that middle finger way up and you shake the shit out of it, right at the sky." She demonstrated, upper lip curled and fire in her eyes. — Lindy Zart

I spent a lot of time alone as a kid. I've never been an easy hugger. The social conventions that keep human beings separate and discrete - boundaries, etiquette, privacy, personal space - have always been a great well of safety to me. I am a rule follower. I like choosing whom I let in close. The emotional state of emergency following a death necessarily breaks those conventions down, and, unfortunately, I am bad at being human without them. I — Lindy West

He gave us life. All the rest of it...that's part of living. I don't think He randomly picks people to lose more than others or that He decided He didn't like you so He's making you suffer. I don't think He has any control over any of that. It's all about free will, right? We're given life and what we decide to do with that life and what happens to that life is out of His hands. — Lindy Zart

I fervently believe that people shouldn't stay in bad relationships just because of some artificial rom-com notion of true love being "forever." In fact, I think that the pressure of conforming to that framework ruins-literally RUINS-a lot of people's lives. — Lindy West

University of Hawaii Press, 1983; The Happiest Man: The Life of Louis Borgenicht (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1942). Used by permission of Lindy Friedman Sobel and Alice Friedman Holzman. The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher. ISBN 978-0-316-04034-1 E3 — Malcolm Gladwell

And isn't it weird that no one wants to change who they are, yet they aren't even trying to be themselves? Just a thought. We're all so focused on being somebody, and it's usually never the real us. — Lindy Zart

The sound of his stable, strong heart soothing. She let her eyes close, and though her heart was torn and possibly irreparable, like Lincoln's, with the two ruined pieces there was one whole heart. — Lindy Zart

Their story isn't a fairytale, but that's okay, because fairytales are predictible, and sometimes boring. — Lindy Zart

Love was forever, love was not lost when a life was; love did not fall away or weaken a person. Love was strong and people were stronger because of it; love continued, in all forms, in every way, until the end of time and even after that. — Lindy Zart

For breakfast, I make an amazing protein shake with fruit, Greek yogurt, protein powder, flaxseed oil and honey. It's a nice way to get a healthy start and a little bit of sweetness, too. — Lindy Booth

She had realized something over the recent months: it didn't matter who you were or what you'd accomplished in life; none of that mattered when tragedy struck. You had no pull; no power. You had no choice. There was nothing to gamble with; nothing to do to put the odds in your favor. You were there and then you were gone, leaving those around you to realize how insignificant they all really were; leaving them to try to pick up the destroyed pieces. — Lindy Zart

He laughed hysterically. — Lora Lindy

Peanut butter is my favorite food."
Rivers looks at me for a long time, finally shaking his head. He moves to my side, reclining next tome. "Peanut butter is not food."
"Then what is it?"
"I don't know. A condiment. Like ketchup or mustard."
"Really, Rivers? Do you put peanut butter on a hamburger?"
"Do you eat it plain?" he shoots back.
"Yes."
"Okay, do most people eat it plain? — Lindy Zart

Internet trolling wasn't just a symptom, it was a canary. Trolls tested the boundaries of how far society would allow racism, misogyny, and transphobia to be normalized. Would anyone do anything? Would anyone take action? Would anyone powerful take this seriously? The answer turned out to be no. Those of us on the receiving end begged for help, and were told to grow a thicker skin, because the Internet "isn't real life." Until, surprise, the Internet became president, and we as a society were so inured to hate speech - our boundaries had been so thoroughly obliterated and "political correctness" so stigmatized - that we had no defense. There — Lindy West

I'm painfully shy. — Lindy Booth

Christian was well aware how hard it was to keep the house clean, the clothes laundered, and the meals cooked. His mom had an extremely hard job. He would argue with anyone who hinted otherwise. — Lindy Zart

Far as I can see, we mostly exist as *ideas* in each other's heads. The way *you* see me. The way my *boss* sees me. The way the *waitress* at Lindy's sees me. — Mike Carey

There is nothing novel or comedic or righteous about men using the threat of sexual violence to control non-compliant women. This is how society has always functioned. Stay indoors, women. Stay safe. Stay quiet. Stay in the kitchen. Stay pregnant. Stay our of the world. IF you want to talk about silencing, censorship, placing limits and consequences on speech, this is what it looks like. — Lindy West

Fat people already are ashamed. It's taken care of. No further manpower needed on the shame front, thx. I am not concerned with whether or not fat people can change their bodies through self-discipline and "choices." Pretty much all of them have tried already. A couple of them have succeeded. Whatever. My question is, what if they try and try and try and still fail? What if they are still fat? What if they are fat forever? What do you do with them then? Do you really want millions of teenage girls to feel like they're trapped in unsightly lard prisons that are ruining their lives, and on top of that it's because of their own moral failure, and on top of that they are ruining America with the terribly expensive diabetes that they don't even have yet? You know what's shameful? A complete lack of empathy. — Lindy West

We were just so bad at being together. He felt as guilty as I felt pathetic, and it made us closer, for a while. — Lindy West

If you're a man who works in comedy full-time and you aren't aware of what your female colleagues go through (if you have female colleagues at all), stop assuming that their experience is the same as yours, and start wondering why they aren't talking to you. The — Lindy West

We can mention periods obliquely, of course, when we want to delegitimize women's real concerns, dismiss their more inconvenient emotions, and perpetuate the myth that having outie junk instead of innie junk (and a male gender identity) makes a person an innately more rational and competent human being. — Lindy West

Giving back feeds the heart; paying forward feeds the soul. — Lora Lindy

but they tell you that if you hate yourself hard enough, you can grab just a tail feather or two of perfection. — Lindy West

Real change is slow, hard, and imperceptible. — Lindy West

If you're the very luckiest kind of astronaut ever, your big payoff is that you get to visit a barren airless wasteland for five minutes, do some more math, and then go home - ice cream not guaranteed. — Lindy West

I sometimes think of people's personalities as the negative space around their insecurities. — Lindy West

Sharon's face turned pale as she looked at the doctor, waiting for him to continue about the news of her husband James. She could tell by the look on his face the news would be heartbreaking. Her heart started racing as she shifted from one foot to the other. When he didn't finish his sentence, she snapped at him. "Spit it out, what are the results?" He took a deep breath, and as he exhaled his cheeks — Lora Lindy

You have to swallow, every day, that you are a secondary being whose worth is measured by an arbitrary, impossible standard, administered — Lindy West

You believe you can make it every year. You don't think it's going to end. But the reality is that most teams, you end up in, you end up out. — Lindy Ruff

Hale had answered when the President of the United States can't go to a city of the United States and be protected, we've come to a very difficult time in our nation's history, and encouraged him to come. — Lindy Boggs

You know what is so appealing about you, in a twisted, messed up kind of way?"
"What's that?"
"You have no idea how tactless you are."
"Well. I have some idea," I grumble. — Lindy Zart

It has been a privilege beyond belief for me to have represented the State of Louisiana in Congress and to have been given the blessed assignment of U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See. — Lindy Boggs

This is just a wacky idea I had, but maybe it's not a coincidence that, in a country where half the population's normal reproductive functions are stigmatized, American uterus- and vagina-havers are still fighting tooth and nail to have those same reproductive systems fully covered by the health insurance that we pay for. — Lindy West

In the omnidirectional orgy gardens of Vlaxnoid 7, no one cares about your arm flab. — Lindy West

Honestly, this 'Where do you get your confidence?' chapter could be sixteen words long. Because there was really only one step to my body acceptance: Look at pictures of fat women on the Internet until they don't make you uncomfortable anymore. That was the entire process. (Optional step two: Wear a crop top until you forget you're wearing a crop top. Suddenly, a crop top is just a top. Repeat.) — Lindy West

Thanks for nothing, regular human mom. Footnote: nothing except for the unconditional love and support and meticulous care to make sure I faced the world fully informed about my body and reproductive health. — Lindy West

You are it for me. Understand? There's no one else. There won't ever be. There never really was. Just you. It's always been you. — Lindy Zart

I didn't want to wait two more weeks. I didn't want to think about this every day. I didn't want to feel my body change. I didn't want to carry and feed this artifact of my inherent unlovability - this physical proof that any permanent connection to me must be an accident. Men made wanted babies with beautiful women. Men made mistakes with fat chicks. — Lindy West

We always think we have more time and that is the wrong way to think, because time is something we never have enough of. — Lindy Zart

Each song had a story to tell, each song was a small, but significant tale. — Lindy Zart

I embrace me, exactly as I am, and the rest of the world can screw off. — Lindy Zart

People you love aren't defined by objects, but by the place they hold in your heart. — Lindy Zart

I say no to people who prioritize being cool over being good. I say no to misogynists who want to weaponize my body against me. I say no to men who feel entitled to my attention and reverence, who treat everything the light touches as a resource for them to burn. I say no to religious zealots who insist that I am less important than an embryo. I say no to my own instinct to stay quiet. It's a way of kicking down the boundaries that society has set up for women - be compliant, be a caregiver, be quiet - and erecting my own. I will do this; I will not do that. You believe in my subjugation; I don't have to be nice to you. I am busy. My time is not a public commodity. — Lindy West

Sometimes when you think you have nothing, you realize you have yourself, and that's something. — Lindy Zart

We're all building our world, right now, in real time. Let's build it better. — Lindy West

You know the saying that nothing can last forever? It's partly true. Feelings can stop, people can leave us, but regardless, a piece of them is always with us, in some way. Maybe it's in a song, or a forgotten note, a picture. Even when you no longer love someone or can't be with them, you still remember them, you still remember good parts of them, and you smile. Why worry about it lasting or not? Even if it doesn't, you'll still have a part of him. And he'll still have a part of you. And isn't that what's really important? Holding the best pieces of someone in our hearts so that the love never really fades, so that we don't forget that we once knew them, and they were special to us. — Lindy Zart

I'm going to go see if Graham needs first aid." Or mouth to mouth. It is my civic duty. — Lindy Zart

I just, I don't know, put up so many invisible walls between us when I was younger that it seems impossible to tear them down now. — Lindy Zart

There's a difference between not caring about what others think, and not caring about yourself. Your problem is you don't even care about you. And if you don't care about yourself, how the hell is anyone else supposed to? — Lindy Zart

This sounds geeky, but when I run, I like to listen to musicals like 'Les Miserables.' The soundtracks are 75 minutes or longer, and I keep going until the story ends, so it feels like a good workout. — Lindy Booth

I think I would have missed you even if we'd never met. — Lindy Zart

Don't act like I'm dying and you're not. I just have a better idea of when it's happening to me. — Lindy Zart

Well, Hale was one of the first people who suggested to President Johnson that there should be a commission. — Lindy Boggs

If you get scared tonight, you can sleep with me. Or even if you don't. — Lindy Zart

Don't blameme in the morning when you're irrevocably obsessed with me."
"I don't think I need to wait until morning for that to happen, — Lindy Zart

it is easier to mock and deride individual fat people than to fix food deserts, school lunches, corn subsidies, inadequate or nonexistent public transportation, unsafe sidewalks and parks, healthcare, mental healthcare, the minimum wage, and your own insecurities. — Lindy West

Something remarkable can always be the result of something devastating, if you choose to find that one positive in a nest of negatives. — Lindy Zart

Why would someone request that their toenails be painted at a podiatrist's? Hot pink, even. We are not a salon. When I told the guy that, he got really irate and left. — Lindy Zart

Better?" I went from holding her hand to hugging her. "Lindy, you loved me when I wasn't even human.
You kissed me when I had no lips. You saw what was deep down inside me when I wasn't even sure
about it myself. Believe me, there's no way I could do better. I think you're perfect. — Alex Flinn

So I was forced to go to school wearing a menstrual pad belt that had been in our first aid drawer since approximately 1961. If you've never seen one of these things, because you haven't been to the antiquities museum, it is a literal belt that goes around your waist, with two straps that dangle down in your front and back cracks, ice cold metal clips holding a small throw pillow in place over your shame canyon. — Lindy West

He so must have male PMS. And it really does exist 'cause I glanced at an article about it online once. — Lindy Zart

Dave brought a knife and a gun to a comedy show. Because of a disagreement about whether or not comedy clubs are safe for women. Because the way people talk onstage has no bearing on how they behave in real life. It's — Lindy West

But what scares me the most about him is that he makes me want more - more of everything. More than this life, more than what I am promised, more than I can ever truly have. — Lindy Zart

I've always found the ones that are the quietest make the most of their words when they do talk. — Lindy Zart

I struggle to conceive of the "resilience" I've developed in my job as a good thing - this hardening inside me, this distance I've put between myself and the world, my determination to delude myself into normalcy. From the cockpit, it feels like much more of a loss than a triumph. It's like the world's most not-worth-it game show: Well, you've destroyed your capacity for unbridled happiness and human connection, but don't worry - we've replaced it with this prison of anxiety and pathological inability to relax! — Lindy West

I'm competing, Kennedy," he breathes against my neck. "And I'm going to win."
Zart, Lindy (2014-11-20). Roomies (p. 154). Kindle Edition. — Lindy Zart

Have you ever felt like you were searching for something, only you didn't know what it was until you found it? — Lindy Zart

My mom, dad, and sister have all watched every episode of everything I've ever done. — Lindy Booth

You can't stand right next to a storm and expect not to get impacted by it. — Lindy Zart

No one could control the length of their life, but they could control how they lived it. — Lindy Zart

Lindy Hoppers never die - they just swing out. — Frankie Manning

Strength wasn't decided by what you could do, but by what you could do without. — Lindy Zart

The most terrifying thing in the world was having to give a speech at my girlfriend's wedding. I was physically shaking and sweating the entire time. — Lindy Booth

There's no "winning" when it comes to dealing with Internet trolls. Conventional wisdom says, "Don't engage. It's what they want." Is it? Are you sure our silence isn't what they want? Are you sure they care what we do at all? From where I'm sitting, if I respond, I'm a sucker for taking the bait. If I don't respond, I'm a punching bag. I'm the idiot daughter of an embarrassed dead guy. On the record. Forever. — Lindy West

You'll never heal if you don't face what hurts you. — Lindy Zart

My poor sister was forced to be in the plays that I would write. We would go to my grandma's retirement building and perform 'Phantom of the Opera.' — Lindy Booth

I think ... what you need to find is a way not to feel bad about living. — Lindy Zart

The narrative for girls is that you just hang around and wait to be "chosen" and then you belong to somebody and you live happily ever after. There isn't room for more nuanced concerns about the creepy proprietary nature of that relationship model, or the breadth of what fulfillment really means for women. — Lindy West

Like most fat people who've been lectured about diet and exercise since childhood, I actually know an inordinate amount about nutrition and fitness. — Lindy West

That's the thing about 'what ifs'; they don't matter. They don't change anything. All they do is make it unable for you to heal. — Lindy Zart

But Hale's warning the President about going to Dallas was that there was great infighting among the members of the Democratic party and the Democratic stars in the state and he didn't want the President to become involved in a factional disagreement. — Lindy Boggs

Every human being is a wet, gassy katamari of triumphs, traumas, scars, coping mechanisms, parental baggage, weird stuff you saw on the Internet too young, pressure from your grandma to take over the bodega when what you really want to do is dance, and all the other fertilizer that makes a smear of DNA grow into a fully formed toxic avenger. — Lindy West

Please don't forget: I am my body. When my body gets smaller, it is still me. When my body gets bigger, it is still me. There is not a thin woman inside me, awaiting excavation. I am one piece. I am also not a uterus riding around in a meat incubator. There is no substantive difference between the repulsive campaign to separate women's bodies from their reproductive systems - perpetuating the lie that abortion and birth control are not healthcare - and the repulsive campaign to convince women that they and their body size are separate, alienated entities. Both say, "Your body is not yours." Both demand, "Beg for your humanity." Both insist, "Your autonomy is conditional." This is why fat is a feminist issue. All — Lindy West

It's never about how much you have-it's about how much what you have means to you. — Lindy Zart

When you want something so bad, when you deny yourself it, day after day, for so long, after a while, you ask yourself why you're even doing it. You hope it will fade and die; you hope your secrets won't be revealed, because it wouldn't just kill you if they were, but it would kill other people as well. So you forsake yourself for the greater good, but sometimes, most times, it's too much of a burden, Sara. Do you know what I'm saying? — Lindy Zart

I have an amazing 1930s dress I picked up in Toronto at Cabaret on Queen West. It's a red knee-length tea dress, and it's absolutely beautiful. It makes me happy every time I put it on. — Lindy Booth

I don't want to save the world, I just want to inspire it. — Lindy Lewis

So I said, "I'll miss you. You are the truest friend I've ever had."
I could see that my words were a knife in his gut. Yet, it seemed kinder than the alternative, for him to know I love him, but that I'm leaving anyway. — Alex Flinn

Be. So I follow the Lindy effect as a guide in selecting what to read: books that have been around for ten years will be around for ten more; books that have been around for two millennia should be around for quite a bit of time, and so forth. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I feel like I've been swimming in the open ocean and now I'm exhausted and floating. — Lindy Zart

His body heat seeps into my side, as does his sweet smell that makes me homesick for a home I've never had. — Lindy Zart

One time, I noticed that the little waxy strips you peel off the maxi pad adhesive were printed, over and over, with a slogan: 'Kotex Understands.' In the worst moments, when my period felt like a death - the death of innocence, the death of safety, the harbinger of a world where I was too fat, too weird, too childish, too ungainly - I'd sit hunched over on the toilet and stare at that slogan, and I'd cry. Kotex understands. Somebody, somewhere, understands. — Lindy West

Fat people are not here as a foil to boost your own self-esteem. Fat people are not your inspiration poem. Fat people can be competent, beautiful, talented, and proud without your approval. — Lindy West

Misogyny is explicitly, visibly incentivized and rewarded. You can watch it self-perpetuate in front of your eyes. I — Lindy West

Your crazy makes my crazy make sense."
"That makes absolutely no sense at all."
"Exactly."
"So ... you love me? Like, love me like you want me to have your babies."
I grin, knowing that'll spook him. He is exceptionally mature about it , only going a little white.
"Yeah. Like that. What about you?"
"I don't want you to have my babies. Men aren't cut out for that. Wimps."
Zart, Lindy (2014-11-20). Roomies (p. 212). Kindle Edition. — Lindy Zart

Only within the arms of nature, am I truly free. — Lindy Zart

even in a world of pain and ugliness, cruelty and loss, there are still amazing things to cling to, to tell us not to give up, not to lose hope, and continue on to another day. There is life in death, always. — Lindy Zart

Maybe I'm a little callous, a little insensitive, a little self-centered, but hey, that's how I roll. — Lindy Zart

He was talking. I tried not to think of how he looked and instead of what he was telling me. Once I accomplished that, my brain couldn't get past the 'running' part.
"I don't run." I walked the mile run at school. True story.
I abhorred any kind of physical exercise. I wasn't good at it. I was skinny, but I was soft; had absolutely no muscle mass at all. That's the way I liked it. Who was he to try to change that, change me? I wouldn't let him. No way, no how.
One half of his mouth lifted. He seemed to be enjoying this a little too much. "You do now. You have to be fit, you have to be strong, Taryn, if you're to stand any chance of surviving this. Come on, we'll start with stretching."
He forced me to twist my body into unimaginable positions. I even had to touch my toes. The agony. Luke took pleasure from my pain; even laughing as I moaned and groaned through it all.
Then, the worst came about. He. Made. Me. Run. — Lindy Zart