Best 45 quotes of Vivek Shraya on MyQuotes

As a brown artist, I have mixed feelings about my relationship to art and my "responsibilities" post-Trump.

As a general rule, I tend to collaborate with artists whose work I admire.

As a person of color, I know race can't be stripped from admiration or preference.

As much as I believe in the capacity for art to create change, and as much as being an artist is physically and emotionally challenging, there is ultimately something a bit comfortable about making art in the comfort of your own home.

Children are receptive to talking about gender creativity, confirming the importance of the book as a means to instigate this dialogue at an early age.

Children's books have great potential to reveal new possibilities to readers, because the intended audience is at an age of genuine learning.

Generally, I start by observing the existing and popular narratives in my social spheres and media, and the pressures I face in my own life experiences. As someone who is "newly" trans, I am constantly thinking about what the dominant narratives are around transness, how my work can push against these narratives, and how it already falls into these traps.

I always work with text orally in the writing process, saying passages aloud to measure flow.

I am always hesitant to call myself an activist, mostly out of respect for the activists who are using their bodies and voices to protest or activists online who are constantly engaging and educating others.

I am more likely to get paid for my art if it's presented alongside a white artist, so the questions around value and agency arise: What choices should I make, or do I have to make, if I want to be compensated for my work? Why isn't my art valued on its own?

I couldn't write about love without writing about hate - specifically, how the experience of hatred embeds itself in the body and prevents love from entering or leaving.

I didn't want to give the white reader an opportunity to think of racism as imaginary - a sentiment that is already a central barrier in addressing the problem.

I don't yet know what style will be required for my next novel, but my sense is that each book will involve a new relationship to language.

I do use art as a site of protest, particularly in relation to dominant narratives.

I especially worry about the ways Canadians can be glib about our supposed difference from the US in our "acceptance" of "diversity.

I feel like I have had to catch up to the art I've made, and learn from the protagonists I have written, especially in relation to gender.

I have always considered the aesthetic of a project, including press photos, as a means to further the message of the art itself.

I have been and continue to be committed to art as a tool to ignite, comfort, and discomfort.

I have dedicated a significant portion of my time and artistry to making art that addresses various forms of oppression, including white supremacy, misogyny, and biphobia.

In my thirties, I have felt a greater urgency to make art that highlights what it feels like to be racialized, likely due to living in a country that obscures our racism with the idea of "multiculturalism.

In poetry, I didn't have to provide resolution. I could ask hard questions without feeling responsible for the answers.

I recently did a reading at an elementary school in Ottawa, and one of the children asked me if I was a girl. I said yes. Another child commented that I had a deep voice. I responded: "Can girls have deep voices?" There was a pause and then the group responded, "Yes!

I tend to focus less on genre as a starting point and more on idea or intention and let the idea dictate genre.

I think white artists have a responsibility to be not only naming white supremacy, but to be using their power and privilege to support artists of color.

I used singing as a safety measure. I would pay attention to what songs the popular girls liked, learn those songs from the radio or library cassettes, and then "accidentally" sing or hum these songs in class. This would impress the girls, who would then defend me from the boys.

I worry about what Trump will inspire in Canada, especially given incidents that have already occurred here since the election.

I would love to see more dialogue around the "responsibilities" of art consumers - how can audiences better financially support artists we love, artists who are doing the work, so that artists have a more solid foundation upon which to make art?

Making music has been connected to one of my greatest heartaches, because my own music has never quite connected with audiences. But it was this heartache that pushed me to explore other artistic avenues, like writing and filmmaking, and I ultimately feel most at home in a multidisciplinary environment.

Music is my first love, where my artistic journey began.

My intention was never to write a "trans novel" - which is perhaps an effective strategy for writing a trans novel.

My interest in language is steadfast, but I think each project and its accompanying intentions dictate how language must be used.

Now is not the time for Canadians to be sanctimonious. It is time for us to be prudent and active.

Of course, I can't separate my queerness from my brownness - if anything, my queerness amplifies my brownness, and vice versa - but I spent so much of my early twenties trying to erase my differences, often without awareness of what I was doing.

Should I be collaborating with artists of color solely because of their race and my politics? This question is weighted with my own worry that I have been invited to speak or collaborate solely because of my race, and not because of my abilities.

When I do book readings, I always incorporate music or singing.

When I was writing, I wanted every word to be not only deliberate, but musical. Precious.

When I wouldn't leave home without my blue contacts or when I was bleaching my hair, I didn't have the language to articulate that I was trying to assimilate to whiteness. If anything, I was trying to "look normal.

Writing about racism requires a directness that writing a love story does not.

dad had to... ...work three jobs he had to give his time off to sleep instead of knowing me

Falling in love with another human is terrifying. As our language insists, romantic love is always preceded by a fall, the necessity of losing control and potentially hurting yourself in the process of connecting with another

i have white dreams billboards magazines mighty praise accolades top 10 lists and top 10 hits so i climb dodge boulders earn blisters but even the top of the mountain is white

I’m afraid of men because it was men who taught me to fear. I’m afraid of men because it was men who taught me to fear the word girl by turning it into a weapon they used to hurt me. I’m afraid of men because it was men who taught me to hate and eventually destroy my femininity. I’m afraid of men because it was men who taught me to fear the extraordinary parts of myself

Sexist comments, intimidation, groping, violating boundaries, and aggression are merely seen as "typical" for men. But "typical" is dangerously interchangeable with "acceptable".

What would my body look and feel like if I didn't have to mold it into both a shield and an ornament? How do I love a body that was never fully my own?

Why is being touch by strangers — strangers who refuse to identify themselves — a form of flattery?