I am self-conscious beyond measure. I am intensely and constantly preoccupied with my body in the world because I know what people think and what the… - Roxane Gay

That’s not what I am looking for. John Louis von Neumann said, “If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.” Mathematics may well be simple, but the complexities of race and culture are often irreducible. They cannot be wholly addressed in a single essay or book or television show or movie.

I believe women not just in the United States but throughout the world deserve equality and freedom but know I am in no position to tell women of other cultures what that equality and freedom should look like.

Perhaps, then, unlikable characters, the ones who are the most human, are also the ones who are the most alive. Perhaps this intimacy makes us uncomfortable because we don't dare be so alive.