Quotes about skin
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“What the marchers on Washington knew, what the marchers in Selma knew, what folks like Julian Bond knew, what the marchers in this room still know, is that justice is not only the absence of oppression, it is the presence of opportunity. Justice is giving every child a shot at a great education no matter what zip code they’re born into. Justice is giving everyone willing to work hard the chance at a good job with good wages, no matter what their name is, what their skin color is, where they live. Justice is living up to the common creed that says, I am my brother’s keeper and my sister’s keeper. Justice is making sure every young person knows they are special and they are important and that their lives matter -- not because they heard it in a hashtag, but because of the love they feel every single day not just love from their parents, not just love from their neighborhood, but love from police, love from politicians. Love from somebody who lives on the other side of the country, but says, that young person is still important to me. That’s what justice is.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Remarks by the President at the NAACP Conference at Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (July 14, 2015)
2015

Love, Education, Making love, Justice

“To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Seventh State of the Union (3 December 1907)
1900s

Children, Nature

“Forget about winning and losing; forget about pride and pain. Let your opponent graze your skin and you smash into his flesh; let him smash into your flesh and you fracture his bones; let him fracture your bones and you take his life. Do not be concerned with escaping safely — lay your life before him.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

As quoted in Bruce Lee: Artist of Life (1999) edited by John R. Little, p. 192

Life, Pain, Forgetting

“Efficient exploitation of “human resources” requires that the structures that refer the others’ actions to the exploiter’s ends must extend beneath the victim’s skin. The exploiter has to bring about the partial disintegration and re(mis)integration of the others’ matter, parts and properties so that as organized systems the exploited are oriented to some degree by habits, skills, schedules, values and tastes to the exploiter’s ends rather than, as they would otherwise be, to ends of their own. In particular, the manipulations which adapt the exploited to a niche in another’s economy must accomplish a great reduction of the victim’s intolerance of coercion.”

Marilyn Frye book The Politics of Reality

Source: The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory (1983), p. 60

Parting

“The more time I spent in jail, the more I realized that the law isn’t rational at all. It’s a lottery. What color is your skin? How much money do you have? Who’s your lawyer? Who’s the judge?”

Trevor Noah book Born a Crime

page 238
Born a Crime

Money, Law, Color, Time

“The so-called “innocents” are still wearing the skins of sheep to cover their evil intentions. Thus, we must avoid flatterers at any cost, so as not to become their victims.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Evil

“Isn't it lovely, all alone
Heart made of glass, my mind of stone
Tear me to pieces, skin to bone
Hello, welcome home”

Billie Eilish (2001) American singer-songwriter

Source: + Khalid, Song Lovely

Love, Home, Tear, Heart

“Who likes wrinkles?
No one, however remember the laughter, happiness and joy
that created those beautiful marks.
Tell me…would you rather have smooth skin like a cold stone or to see ripples in it from years of happily sitting in a river of running water with the hot sun beating down upon it?”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Happiness, Beauty, Laughter, Water

“When people went on vacation, they shed their home skins, thought they could be a new person.”

Aimee Friedman (1979) American writer

Source: Sea Change

People, Home, Personality

“Close your eyes and turn your face into the wind.

Feel it sweep along your skin in an invisible ocean of exultation.

Suddenly, youyou are.”

Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer

Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

Feeling

“It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.”

Mitch Albom book The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Source: The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003)
Context: Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them - a mother's approval, a father's nod - are covered by moments of their own accomplishments. It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.

Children, Understanding, Water, Heart

“I mean my characters are more like men than these real men are, see. They’re rough and rude, they got hands and they got bellies. They hate and they lust; break the skin of civilization and you find the ape, roaring and red-handed.”

Robert E. Howard (1906–1936) American author

From a letter to Harold Preece (c. January or February 1928)
Letters

Men, Hate

“Today on the way home, it snows. Big, soft caressing flakes fall onto our skin like cold moths; the air fills with feathers.”

Margaret Atwood book Cat's Eye

Source: Cat's Eye

Way, Home

“It was there, beyond the skin of this world, that a cure of ugliness could be found.”

Ted Dekker book Skin

Source: Skin

World

“At that moment I was sure. That I belonged in my skin. That my organs were mine and my eyes were mine and my ears, which could only hear the silence of this night and my faint breathing, were mine, and I loved them and what they could do.”

Dave Eggers (1970) memoirist, novelist, short story writer, editor, publisher

Love, Silence, Night

“The sorrow was so large it threatened to tear through my skin. When he died, all things swift and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.”

Madeline Miller book The Song of Achilles

Source: The Song of Achilles

Beauty, Tear

“Above, the stars shone hard and bright, sparks struck off the dark skin of the universe.”

Stephen King book The Stand

Source: The Stand

Star, Universe

“we are drawn to each other like drops of water, like the planets we repulse each other like magnets, like the color of our skin.”

Tite Kubo (1977) Japanese manga artist

Source: Bleach, Volume 04

Color, Water

“Our worst pain is confined within our own skin.”

Charles Frazier (1950) American writer

Pain

“What is important is the story. Because when we are all dust and teeth and kicked-up bits of skin - when we're dancing with our own skeletons - our words might be all that's left of us.”

Alexandra Fuller (1969) Zimbabwean writer

Source: Scribbling the Cat

Dance

“i want to give up my bearings, slip out of who i am, shed everything, the way a snake discards old skin.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

Way

“I felt a queasy mixture of relief and horror: when you finally stop an itch and realize it’s because you’ve ripped a hole in your skin.”

Gillian Flynn book Gone Girl

Source: Gone Girl

“Wearing your clothes or standing in the shower for over an hour, pretending
that this skin is your skin, these hands your hands,
these shins, these soapy flanks”

Richard Siken (1967) American poet

Source: Crush

Clothes

“To put to rest any doubts you might have… I’m jealous of every man who comes within ten feet of you. I’m jealous of the clothes on your skin and the air you breathe. I’m jealous of every moment you spend out of my sight”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Scandal in Spring

Clothes

“We were just sitting on the bed, together, and you were just drinking from me, your mouth on my skin, and"

"You mean you didn't look?”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: The Darkest Surrender

Drink

“The world was reduced to the surface of her skin and her inner self was safe from all bitterness.”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), p. 279, referring to Amaranta

World

“If the lot of you survives, Curran will flay the skin off your backs," Doolittle said.
"That's what I always love about you, Doctor." Raphael grinned. "You're a cup-halfway-full kind of guy. All flowers and sunshine.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Strikes

Love, Guy, Flowers

“In his wolf-skin he was as strong as any of them, but he was a gentle person in many ways. He'd feel so bad about failing he'd probably step aside for someone else without a fight.”

Annette Curtis Klause Blood and Chocolate

Source: Blood and Chocolate

Way, Feeling, Strong, Wolf

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you.” “Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.” —MARGERY WILLIAMS”

Jenny Han book P.S. I Still Love You

Source: P.S. I Still Love You

Truth, Horse, Hurt

“You hold on to old experiences: injuries, injustices, and great love affairs, too. And you hold them in your joints and your organs, and wear them on your skin.”

Ann Brashares book My Name is Memory

Source: My Name Is Memory

Love

“She couldn’t get any farther away inside from her skin. She couldn’t get away.”

Cynthia Voigt (1942) American writer of young adult books

Source: When She Hollers

“The greatest mania of all is passion: and I am a natural slave to passion: the balance between my brain and my soul and my body is as wild and delicate as the skin of a Ming vase.”

Hunter S. Thompson book The Curse of Lono

Source: The Curse of Lono

Soul, Nature, Passion

“Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.”

Joyce Carol Oates (1938) American author

Soul, Reading

“People say that time slips through our fingers like sand. What they don't acknowledge is that some of the sand sticks to the skin. These are memories that will remain, memories of the time when there was still time left.”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Invisibility

People, Memory, Time

“Theophane gave birth to a magical ram named Krysomallos, who for some reason had wool made of gold. Eventually, Krysomallos would be skinned for his fleece, which became known as the Golden Fleece, which means I am related to a sheepskin rug.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

Source: Percy Jackson's Greek Gods

Birth

“How is it right to slip free of an old skin and walk away from the scene of the crime? We came, we saw, we took away and we left behind, we must be allowed our anguish and our regrets.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

“If i'm going to survive, it won't be because i have a lion-skin cloak. I'm not Hercules.”

Rick Riordan book The Titan's Curse

Source: The Titan's Curse

“People like to say being gay isn't like skin color, isn't anything physical. They tell us we always have the option of hiding.
But if that's true, why do they always find us?”

David Levithan (1972) American author and editor

Source: Two Boys Kissing

People, Color

“You are your father's daughter,' he said, the skin around his eyes tightening. 'Trent is his father's son. Apart, you are annoying. Together… you have the potential to be a problem.”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: The Good, the Bad, and the Undead

Problem, Daughters

“The more beautiful the skin is, the more deadly it is. That's what Will's like. All that pretty face and whatnot just hides how twisted up and rotten he is on the inside.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Beauty

“All sanity depends on this: that it should be a delight to feel heat strike the skin, a delight to stand upright, knowing the bones moving easily under the flesh.”

Doris Lessing book The Golden Notebook

Anna Wulf, in "The Golden Notebook"
The Golden Notebook (1962)
Context: I knew, and it was an illumination — one of those things one has always known, but never understood before — that all sanity depends on this: that it should be a delight to feel the roughness of a carpet under smooth soles, a delight to feel heat strike the skin, a delight to stand upright, knowing the bones are moving easily under flesh.
Context: I knew, and it was an illumination — one of those things one has always known, but never understood before — that all sanity depends on this: that it should be a delight to feel the roughness of a carpet under smooth soles, a delight to feel heat strike the skin, a delight to stand upright, knowing the bones are moving easily under flesh. If this goes, then the conviction of life goes too. But I could feel none of this. … I knew I was moving into a new dimension, further from sanity than I had ever been. <!-- p. 585

Feeling, Dependency

“If you look closely you'll find all my lovers inscribed on my skin.”

Jill Ciment (1955) Canadian writer

Source: The Tattoo Artist

Lovers