Slur Quotes

Many suburban legislators representing affluent school districts use terms such as "sinkhole" when opposing funding for Chicago's children. "We can't keep throwing money," said Governor Thompson in 1988, "into a black hole." The Chicago Tribune notes that, when this phrase is used, people hasten to explain that it is not intended as a slur against the race of many of Chicago's children. "But race," says the Tribune, "never is far from the surface ... ~ Jonathan Kozol

Not everyone will support you. If you take every insult or rude slur from people personally, you will always be offended for the rest of your life. So give up worrying about if people support you or not. If they do, it will show. If it doesn't, who cares. ~ Lorenzo Dozier

I was not in a country where my ancestors had been enslaved. I was not stared at when I walked through different neighborhoods either in the day or the evening, no waitress gave me poor service, no one made any snide remarks about my body, and I never heard a racial slur. In short, I was free. ~ Morgan Jerkins

Despite my deep unease about animal advocates working for things we don't want and asking for changes we don't believe in, I am not an "abolitionist." First, the abolition of animal slavery will no more end speciesism by itself than the abolition of American slavery ended racism. To change the world, I think we should aim higher. Second, I'm increasingly convinced that no matter who uses the term, it hides a slur. When used to refer to others, it connotes zealotry and obstructionism, and when taken as self-definition, it is seen as an attack by anyone who does not apply it to herself. Yes, it's a highly defensible moral philosophy, right up there with Peter Singer's application of Utilitarianism to animal liberation, and Tom Regan's Theory of Rights, but like those other intellectual concepts, it's useful only so far as it engenders right action. ~ Sarahjane Blum

To use the image of Che Guevara to sell vodka is a slur on his name and memory. He never drank himself, he was not a drunk, and drink should not be associated with his immortal memory ... As a supporter of the ideals for which Che Guevara died, I am not averse to its reproduction by those who wish to propagate his memory and the cause of social justice throughout the world. ~ Alberto Korda

The customer was middle-aged, handsomely dressed, and drunk. He wanted to talk and he couldn't have stopped even if he hadn't really wanted to talk. He was polite and friendly and when I heard him he didn't seem to slur his words much, but you knew that he got up on the bottle and only let go of it when he fell asleep at night. He would be like that for the rest of his life and that was what his life was. You would never know how he got that way because even if he told you it would not be the truth. At the very best a distorted memory of the truth as he knew it. There is a sad man like that in every quiet bar in the world. I ~ Raymond Chandler

He turned from the sight of human ignorance and human fate and the sea eating the ground we stand on, which, had he been able to contemplate it fixedly might have led to something; and found consolation in trifles so slight compared with the august theme just now before him that he was disposed to slur that comfort over, to deprecate it, as if to be caught happy in a world of misery was for an honest man the most despicable of crimes. ~ Virginia Woolf

Because I live in south Florida I store cans of black beans and gallons
of water in my closet in preparation for hurricane season.
I throw a hurricane party in January. You're my only guest.
We play Marco Polo in bed. The sheets are wet like the roof caved in.
There's a million of me in you. You try to count me as I taste the sweat
on the back of your neck. I call you Sexy Sexy, and we do everything twice.
After, still sweating, we drink Crystal Light out of plastic water bottles.
We discuss the pros and cons of vasectomies. It's not invasive you say.
I wrap the bedsheet around my waist. Minor surgery you say.
You slur the word surgery, like it's a garnish on a dish you just prepared.
I eat your hair until you agree to no longer talk about vasectomies.
We agree to have children someday, and that they will be beautiful even if they're not.
As I watch your eyes grow heavy like soggy clothes, I tell you When I grow up
I'm going to be a famous writer. When I'm famous I'll sign autographs
on Etch-A-Sketches. I'll write poems about writing other poems,
so other poets will get me. You open your eyes long enough to tell me
that when you grow up, you're going to be a steamboat operator.
Your pores can never be too clean you say.
I say I like your pores just fine. I say Your pores are tops.
I kiss you with my whole mouth, and you fall asleep next to my molars.
In the ~ Gregory Sherl

Around here normal is a slur,' he says, 'Deep down everyone wants to be a star and normal is the road to nothingness. ~ Sarah Crossan

The automobile industry began a campaign to popularize the use of the word "jaywalking" (walking like a "jay," or rube), a term so derogatory that when it was used in 1915 by New York's police commissioner, The Times responded with an editorial criticizing the "truly shocking" and "highly opprobrious" slur. ~ Anonymous

What makes Travels with Charley so readily accessible to even the most casual reader is the deft evocation of the natural world, the colors and textures of leaves on the trees, the rich smells of earth, the slur of rain on pavement, the sharp rays of the sun as they pillar through a scud of clouds. Indeed, one can hardly open a page of this book without stumbling upon some bright image from nature. ~ John Steinbeck

You know what the worst part about my drinking is? When I'm drunk I slur. You know, like I say racial slurs. Wow, nobody likes that at a barbeque. ~ Amy Schumer

Racist" is not - as Richard Spencer argues - a pejorative. It is not the worst word in the English language; it is not the equivalent of a slur. It is descriptive, and the only way to undo racism is to consistently identify and describe it - and then dismantle it. The attempt to turn this usefully descriptive term into an almost unusable slur is, of course, designed to do the opposite: to freeze us into inaction. ~ Ibram X. Kendi

I have times when I'm off-balance. I have times when I slur my words. I have times when I walk into walls. I have times when I can't remember somebody's name. ~ Michael J. Fox

1.I WON'T SHAM

Why pretend all is well, yet in hurt
When inside I'm dying for your affection?
Why should l flout you?
When my heart yearns for communion?

'l don't care' cries the broken hearted
When inside the heart cries for love
When the very reason they are crying
Is them they are pretending to slur

'l never loved you' cries the divorced
When their heart bleeds for love, just one act of love
The one that brought them together at first
The very reason they even got married

'l hate you' cries the frustrated
When fulfillment is all they long for
The reality of which is still a fallacy to them
If only they could hold on just a little longer

'That's a dry joke' cries the scowling
When laughter is what they long for
In as much as they pretend to frown
Merriment is still so true in their hearts

But, l hate to say goodbye, when all l want is to be with you
I hate to walk away, when l could have gone with you
You'd make me sad by waving goodbye
When all that's true is for you and me to be together

I hate to shout at you, when l can just speak tenderly
l hate to hang you down on the phone,
When l could have said a little more to make you blissful
I hate to say goodnight when l'm not heavy-eyed myself

All that's real to me is l abhor to be a dummy
But hold on my love, l WON'T SHAM.... ~ TinMasun

Forgotten [10w]
There's no greater slur of memory than to be forgotten. ~ Beryl Dov

So much of desire, at that age, was a willful act. Trying so hard to slur the rough, disappointing edges of boys into the shape of someone we could love. We spoke of our desperate need for them with rote and familiar words, like we were reading lines from a play. Later I would see this: how impersonal and grasping our love was, pinging around the universe, hoping for a host to give form to our wishes. ~ Emma Cline

One thing I resent is the slur that I just support political candidates because of the business. ~ Rupert Murdoch

You cannot show real respect to your parents by perpetuating their errors ... Do you consider that the inventor of a steel plow cast a slur upon his father who scratched the ground with a wooden one? I do not consider that an invention by the son is a slander upon the father; I regard each invention simply as an improvement; and every father should be exceedingly proud of an ingenious son. If Mr. Talmage has a son, it will be impossible for him to honor his father except by differing with him. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

If I catch one of my fans saying something improper, a gay slur or any derogatory term, I instantly tweet directly at them and say, 'This isn't how we do it.' ~ Drake Bell

Liberals: The stupidest and weakest members of the political triumvirate, they allowed conservatives to turn their name into a slur against them, exposing them as the political equivalent of the kid who lets the school bully pummel him with his own fists (Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself). ~ John Scalzi

it's going great. Two months in, and I've created three apps."

"Apps?"

"For people who buy my book as an e-book --which will be everybody. The first is called Don't Look. It's for the overly sensitive. It blurs and turns the type red when a dog dies or a baby is born with a birth defect. Stuff like that. My second is It's Not Okay When You Say It, and it delivers an electrical zap if the reader laughs at a racial slur. My third is Jesus Thesaurus, which replaces explicit sexual language with church words. So, when one of my characters 'saints' a guy's 'disciple', He'll beg her to 'cavalry' his 'Baptists' and 'shout amen'. ~ Helen Ellis

When she looked in the glass and saw her hair grey her cheek sunk, at fifty, she thought, possibly she might have managed things better
her husband; money; his books. But for her own part she would never for a single second regret her decision, evade difficulties, or slur over duties ~ Virginia Woolf

I have a speech impediment because I slur a lot, and they even make fun of me on 'Cougar Town' because there's certain word combinations that I just can't say. ~ Ian Gomez

The fact that 'attention seeking' is still considered a slur says much about the role of women in public life, on every scale. ~ Laurie Penny

So there is nothing inherently subversive about pleasure. On the contrary, as Karl Marx recognized, it is a thoroughly aristocratic creed. The traditional English gentleman was so averse to unpleasurable labour that he could not even be bothered to articulate properly. Hence the patrician slur and drawl, Aristotle believed that being human was something you had to get good at through constant practice, like learning Catalan or playing the bagpipes; whereas if the English gentleman was virtuous, as he occasionally deigned to be, his goodness was purely spontaneous. Moral effort was for merchants and clerks ~ Terry Eagleton

The essence of religious feeling does not come under any sort of reasoning or atheism, and has nothing to do with any crimes or misdemeanors. There is something else here, and there will always be something else - something that the atheists will for ever slur over; they will always be talking of something else. ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

If you bury your face in your tear-stained pillow and beg God to please send you your soul mate, may you not slur your words in such a way that they sound like "cell mate." ~ Rob Brezsny

Woman is frequently praised as the more "creative" sex. She does not need to make poems, it is argued; she has no drive to make poems, because she is privileged to make babies. A pregnancy is as fulfilling as, say, Yeats' Sailing to Byzantium ... To call a child a poem may be a pretty metaphor, but it is a slur on the labor of art. ~ Cynthia Ozick

In my dictionary, and everyone's dictionary in the 1970s, the word 'queer' did mean strange and unusual. There was no slur to it. ~ Joe Wurzelbacher

Myron was just getting comfortable when he heard a toilet flush. He looked a question at Win. "I am not alone," Win said. "Oh." Myron adjusted himself on the couch. "A woman?" "Your gifts," Win said. "They never cease to amaze." "Anybody I know?" Myron asked. Win shook his head. "Not even somebody I know." The norm. Myron looked steadily at his friend. "You want to talk about this?" "No." "I'm here if you do." "Yes, I see that." Win swished around the drink in the snifter. He finished it in one gulp and reached for the crystal decanter. There was a slight slur in his speech. Myron tried to remember the last time he had seen Win the vegetarian, the master of several martial arts, the transcendental meditator, the man so at ease and in focus with his surroundings, have too much to drink. It had been a very long time. "I have a golf question for you," Myron said. Win nodded for him to proceed. ~ Harlan Coben

Pretentious
When someone told me
I was all 'pretentious and chichi',
I got quite splenetic over the slur
and almost threw my tulip wine glass of
Chateau Lafite Rothschild Pauillac 1996
right in his face!

I said 'almost'.
Why waste perfectly good wine on a Neanderthal? ~ Beryl Dov

Fury is an entirely appropriate response to a system that sends young people to kill other young people in a war that never should have been waged. Yet the American Right is forever trying to pathologise anger as something menacing and abnormal, dismissing war opponents as hateful and, in the latest slur, wild-eyed. This is much harder to do when victims of wars begin to speak for themselves: no one questions the wildness in the eyes of a mother or father who has just lost a son or daughter, or the fury of a soldier who knows that he is being asked to kill, and to die, needlessly. ~ Naomi Klein

It was in 1590
winter. Austria was far away from the world, and asleep; it was still the Middle Ages in Austria, and promised to remain so forever. Some even set it away back centuries upon centuries and said that by the mental and spiritual clock it was still the Age of Belief in Austria. But they meant it as a compliment, not a slur, and it was so taken, and we were all proud of it. I remember it well, although I was only a boy; and I remember, too, the pleasure it gave me.
Yes, Austria was far from the world, and asleep, and our village was in the middle of that sleep, being in the middle of Austria. ~ Mark Twain

The summary of Lambert and Lillenfelt's "Bloodstains" in Scientific American Mind in the October 12, 2007 The Informed Reader passes along many of these authors' strong opinions on complex and controversial topics without informing the readership that the authors' perspective is extreme, polarized, and vulnerable to challenge at many crucial points.
It is clear that false memories can be implanted in about 25% of subjects, when those memories concern issues in the normal and expectable range of experience. However, about 75% of subjects resist such efforts, and efforts to implant memories of abuse or offensive medical procedures are almost universally rejected. Therefore a wholesale attack against therapies that explore patients' memories is unwarranted. "Recovered Memory Therapy" is not a school of treatment. It is a slur used to mischaracterize approaches offensive to the authors' perspectives, designed to evoke an emotional bias against those to whom the slur is applied. ~ Richard P. Kluft

A politician, a man engaged in party contests, must be an opportunist. Let us give up saying that word as if it contained a slur. If you want to win in party action, I take it for granted that you want to lure the majority to your side. I never heard of any man in his senses who was fishing for a minority. ~ Woodrow Wilson

He's been looking at me like I've been drinking, and I can't blame him. My dress is ripped and my words slur. I'm not myself, I think, bu then I realize something even scarier: I am exactly myself. ~ Ally Carter

To blame the existence of al Qaeda on poverty like Egypt's is a slur on the poor. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

I'm a whitebread cracker. That's my favorite white person slur: "whitebread". The other day, someone came up to me and said, "What's up, whitebread?" And I was like, "That's not even an insult. That's just my race plus a food. I can do that, too, black bean soup! Stay out of this, Asian chicken platter!" ~ Mike Birbiglia

This is the man who will be my grandfather - the man who will be the man who was my grandfather. The tenses slur and slide under the pressure of collapsed time. ~ Wendell Berry

Mr. Schmidt had screamed at me in New York: LOSER! You English Loser ... I suppose he thought it was the most grievous insult he could hurl. But such a curse doesn't really have any effect on an English person - or a European - it seems to me. We know we're all going to lose in the end so it is deprived of any force as a slur. But not in the USA. Perhaps this is the great difference between the two worlds, this concept of Loserdom. In the New World it is the ultimate mark of shame - in the Old it prompts only a wry sympathy. ~ William Boyd

To punish someone for your own mistakes or for the consequences of your own actions, to harm another by shifting blame that is rightly yours; this is a wretched and cowardly sin. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Never drink more than one cocktail before giving a talk. True, the drinks may relax you, but they may also slur your speech and blur your memory, making you wonder who are all those people out there and why are they staring at you? ~ Teresa Bloomingdale

Elitism is the slur directed at merit by mediocrity. ~ Sydney J. Harris

What signs fail to express, their application shows. What signs slur over, their application says clearly. ~ Ludwig Wittgenstein

My arms quickly grew too tired, and all the heat I'd gained from the shower left me. Giving up, I tossed the towel to the floor, crawled between the covers, and curled into a ball. I couldn't even rub my feet together to try to generate more heat. Clay walked in and turned off the lights. I listened to the familiar rustle of clothes. Instead of the usual bounce of him jumping up on the end of the bed, he peeled back the covers, and the bed dipped as he slid in next to me. I didn't bother to pretend I wasn't interested in what he offered. Heat radiated from him, chasing the chill from the sheets. "I really hope you're wearing shorts or something," I said with a slight slur. I stuck my cold feet right on his legs and shimmied over to his side to huddle against his warmth. Boy, was he warm. It didn't matter, though. The shaking didn't stop, but I was too exhausted to worry about it. Sighing, ~ Melissa Haag

Women's fiction doesn't sound like anything but a slur to my ears. ~ Sheila Heti

A critic can call any poem 'doggerel.' That is no more than a slur. 'Doggerel' or 'maudlin' or 'sappy' or 'sentimental' is in the ear of the listener. By the by, 'sentimental' is okay as it is defined as 'marked or governed by feeling, sensibility, or emotional idealism.' It is 'sentimentality' that is to be avoided, like the fiddleback spider, being as it is 'the quality or state of being sentimental to excess or in affectation.' Again we are faced with a judgement call and must keep a sharp eye on our outpourings to insure they are not overly gooey.

The intellectual elite probably believe that most of the lyrics songwriters create are 'doggerel' of one kind or another--that is to say 'trivial"......the young songwriter has now been warned about the implacable nature of the enemy. Under a rather large umbrella, preferred twentieth-century taste in art of all kinds has been characterized by a kind of detachment, or sangfroid. It is simply not chic to be carried away in one's emotional reaction to a subject. All serious communication or complaint must be carefully wrapped in a protective coating of irony and/or satire. ~ Jimmy Webb

Some labeled Jerry Falwell an American version of the Ayatollah Khomeni. People for the American Way, a group organized to counter the Moral Majority, launched a slick media campaign attaching the Nazi slur to the religious right. ~ Charles Colson

You can never really, truly, understand discrimination unless you've been fuckin' ugly. Ugly people face as much, or more, discrimination than any fuckin' minority group, and they have none of the ... recourse ... You don't have any group that's going to come together and fight for your rights ... 'cause there's no unity among the ugly ... And ugly isn't even a minority! We're the fuckin' majority, and we still take the fuckin' backseat!
...
Any minority would rather be called the worst racial slur according to their group than pointed out as unattractive: someone calls you a nigger, a lot of people fuckin' bunch up around you and go 'what the fuck you say to him?!'; someone calls you dog-dick-fuckin'-ugly, you wear that all by yourself. ~ Doug Stanhope