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Top 60 Melissa Febos Quotes (2025 Update)
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Melissa Febos Quote: “To be human meant that unlike in most other species, females were the cultivators of meticulous plumage. We competed to be the weakest and smallest and most infantile. We seemed to spend all of our resources withering ourselves to be attractive to males. The goal was to be as soft and tidy and delicate as possible. It made no sense at all. I was not in the habit of withering myself. I was not tidy or delicate.”

51. “To be human meant that unlike in most other species, females were the cultivators of meticulous plumage. We competed to be the weakest and smallest and most infantile. We seemed to spend all of our resources withering ourselves to be attractive to males. The goal was to be as soft and tidy and delicate as possible. It made no sense at all. I was not in the habit of withering myself. I was not tidy or delicate.”

— Melissa Febos

Melissa Febos Quote: “I have since learned that recognizing the invisible parts of oneself in another person can feel like a radiant kind of love.”

52. “I have since learned that recognizing the invisible parts of oneself in another person can feel like a radiant kind of love.”

— Melissa Febos

Melissa Febos Quote: “Real trauma is like a giant hunk of scar tissue that the rest of your life accommodates, grows around. 251.”

53. “Real trauma is like a giant hunk of scar tissue that the rest of your life accommodates, grows around. 251.”

— Melissa Febos

Melissa Febos Quote: “I had made a choice to tell the world the things I couldn’t talk about. In doing so, I had forced myself to talk about them, though I still barely could with her. My choice revealed those things to her and simultaneously forced her to have a conversation with the world. Even more unfair, I didn’t want to know about it. I couldn’t even bare to listen.”

54. “I had made a choice to tell the world the things I couldn’t talk about. In doing so, I had forced myself to talk about them, though I still barely could with her. My choice revealed those things to her and simultaneously forced her to have a conversation with the world. Even more unfair, I didn’t want to know about it. I couldn’t even bare to listen.”

— Melissa Febos

Melissa Febos Quote: “I’ll say it again, because it bears repeating: the resistance to memoirs about trauma is always in part – and often nothing but – a resistance to movements for social justice.”

55. “I’ll say it again, because it bears repeating: the resistance to memoirs about trauma is always in part – and often nothing but – a resistance to movements for social justice.”

— Melissa Febos

Melissa Febos Quote: “I know the impossibility of the hickey, whose urge is not ultimately to mark or to be marked, but to possess and be possessed. I cannot render anything precisely in words, as I cannot crush my lover’s body inside of mine. All I can do is leave a mark – the notation of my effort, a symbol for the thing. That is the endless pleasure and frustration of the writer and the lover: to reach and reach and never become.”

56. “I know the impossibility of the hickey, whose urge is not ultimately to mark or to be marked, but to possess and be possessed. I cannot render anything precisely in words, as I cannot crush my lover’s body inside of mine. All I can do is leave a mark – the notation of my effort, a symbol for the thing. That is the endless pleasure and frustration of the writer and the lover: to reach and reach and never become.”

— Melissa Febos

Melissa Febos Quote: “I was not a little mother or a hot mama. I was an eleven-year-old girl. Now, it seems to me a startlingly efficient way to age a child in a single word. Sometimes the word itself matters less than the authority with which it is spoken. It is the act of naming that claims you.”

57. “I was not a little mother or a hot mama. I was an eleven-year-old girl. Now, it seems to me a startlingly efficient way to age a child in a single word. Sometimes the word itself matters less than the authority with which it is spoken. It is the act of naming that claims you.”

— Melissa Febos

Melissa Febos Quote: “Writing is a form of freedom more accessible than many.”

58. “Writing is a form of freedom more accessible than many.”

— Melissa Febos

Melissa Febos Quote: “Instead of criminal, women’s bodies are inherently defective, aesthetically defective. To the body whose value is judged almost solely on aesthetics, it is a devastating sentence. We are too short, too tall, too fat, too thin, too dark, too stiff, too loose, too solicitous, too yielding, too assertive, too weak, or too strong.”

59. “Instead of criminal, women’s bodies are inherently defective, aesthetically defective. To the body whose value is judged almost solely on aesthetics, it is a devastating sentence. We are too short, too tall, too fat, too thin, too dark, too stiff, too loose, too solicitous, too yielding, too assertive, too weak, or too strong.”

— Melissa Febos

Melissa Febos Quote: “You had a patriarchy attack! Like a panic attack or a heart attack – but a patriarchy attack.” She shook her head now as we remembered the incident. “Patriarchy colonizes our brains like a virus,” she said. It was an apt comparison. Like a virus, patriarchy harms the systems that it infects and relies on replication to survive. It flourishes in those who are not aware of its presence, and sometimes even in those actively working to expel it.”

60. “You had a patriarchy attack! Like a panic attack or a heart attack – but a patriarchy attack.” She shook her head now as we remembered the incident. “Patriarchy colonizes our brains like a virus,” she said. It was an apt comparison. Like a virus, patriarchy harms the systems that it infects and relies on replication to survive. It flourishes in those who are not aware of its presence, and sometimes even in those actively working to expel it.”

— Melissa Febos

Melissa Febos Quote: “Seeing the East River beside us, so gorgeous and contaminated, was like bumping into an ex you’re still in love with. The city wasn’t mine anymore, and it hurt to see it looking so beautiful and so familiar.”

61. “Seeing the East River beside us, so gorgeous and contaminated, was like bumping into an ex you’re still in love with. The city wasn’t mine anymore, and it hurt to see it looking so beautiful and so familiar.”

— Melissa Febos

Melissa Febos Quote: “It reminded me of the anxiety I feel whenever I set a boundary with a friend or colleague. If they receive it gracefully or demonstrate their respect for it, I often fight an urge to express my “gratitude” by erasing the boundary.”

62. “It reminded me of the anxiety I feel whenever I set a boundary with a friend or colleague. If they receive it gracefully or demonstrate their respect for it, I often fight an urge to express my “gratitude” by erasing the boundary.”

— Melissa Febos

Melissa Febos Quote: “I have found that a fulfilling writing life is one in which the creative process merges with the other necessary processes of good living, which only the individual can define.”

63. “I have found that a fulfilling writing life is one in which the creative process merges with the other necessary processes of good living, which only the individual can define.”

— Melissa Febos

Melissa Febos Quote: “It is a violent way to emerge, to tell a secret.”

64. “It is a violent way to emerge, to tell a secret.”

— Melissa Febos

Melissa Febos Quote: “During fleeting casual sexual encounters, women and girls are expected to place a man’s physical and emotional interests above their own, to assume responsibility for ensuring that they are met. But in committed relationships, they are often expected to do this every minute of their lives.”

65. “During fleeting casual sexual encounters, women and girls are expected to place a man’s physical and emotional interests above their own, to assume responsibility for ensuring that they are met. But in committed relationships, they are often expected to do this every minute of their lives.”

— Melissa Febos

Melissa Febos Quote: “The more I think about it, the more amazed I am that anyone realistically expects young women to easily say no to anything, least of all the sexual desires of men. If I struggle to say no to a lunch invitation, a work request, any number of less fraught entreaties, when I have some pressing personal reason, how can a teenager be expected to stop a man’s hand as it reaches under her clothes? Some do, of course, which seems miraculous.”

66. “The more I think about it, the more amazed I am that anyone realistically expects young women to easily say no to anything, least of all the sexual desires of men. If I struggle to say no to a lunch invitation, a work request, any number of less fraught entreaties, when I have some pressing personal reason, how can a teenager be expected to stop a man’s hand as it reaches under her clothes? Some do, of course, which seems miraculous.”

— Melissa Febos

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