Mary Beth Patterson Quotes
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When I am made fun of in the press I just remember those days when I'd come home to find that the water had been turned off because my mother couldn't afford the bill. Suddenly, everything feels easier.
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I believe I owe all the best parts of my adulthood to embracing my imperfections and showcasing them.
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I certainly know first hand the waste one lady can create through her primping routine, because I am a victim of fashion: to me a day without makeup and a bouffant to match is a day wasted. I love it all - whether it's fancy, cheap or, I'm ashamed to say, even if it's bad for the environment.
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Do I ever think Gossip will be really massive in America? No, I don't think it'll happen - and that's fine. It's kind of nice because I get to experience everything at once. I get to come home and it not be weird, like in Paris or something. It is nice to be completely anonymous.
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I was always being told off at school. The teachers would say: 'Everyone's talking, but you're the one I can hear.'
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I feel sorry... for people who've had skinny privilege and then have it taken away from them. I have had a lifetime to adjust to seeing how people treat women who aren't their idea of beautiful and therefore aren't their idea of useful, and I had to find ways to become useful to myself.
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This archaic idea - that a woman who is unmarried and childless at 30 is somehow unnatural - will probably always exist, and, like most social standards, it is ridiculous.
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I'm naturally a mousy blonde, so I dye my hair, and my eyebrows would disappear if I didn't get through at least a pencil a month.
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I have a lot of feminist idols. My favorite thing about growing up in Arkansas - well, not favorite but something I've always felt grateful for - was that I really had to dig for what I could. There was no Internet. There wasn't tons of feminist literature floating around.
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A beautiful plant is like having a friend around the house.
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I was overcome by the Holy Ghost one time, but in a Baptist way. I was six or seven, and I was saved. I just cried and cried. It was joy!
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I'm a great believer in karma, and the vengeance that it serves up to those who are deliberately mean is generally enough for me.
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When I was a teenager I would lock myself in the bathroom for hours, bouffanting my hair like Patty Duke and trying to recreate Barbra Streisand's flawless eyeliner, only to comb it all out and wash it all off before stepping out into the world a butchish bisexual teen.
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I'm passionate about color. My best friend and I sit and look at Pantone books for fun.
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Portland is a place where you can find a community as a feminist, a vegan or a fat activist. Artists, musicians, knitters, and filmmakers can all meet like-minded souls. It's proved the perfect place for me and all my punk friends.
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I've never had a very quiet voice. I tried in choir to make it smaller, and it just didn't work out. And I listened to a lot of soul music when I was growing up on my own accord. But I was mostly into Mama Cass and Gladys Knight, and they all had big voices too; just different than mine.
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I shave my body in all kinds of ways, wear tons of eyeliner and dye my hair pink.
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Because I didn't have any queer, lesbian, female role models I hated my own femininity and had to look deep within myself to create an identity that worked for me. Pop culture just doesn't hand us enough variety to choose from.
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There is no shame like poor shame. It can make you warm and charming, bitter and resentful, all at once.
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I've had people ask me in interviews what it's like to have money, but that's not how it is. I have a middle-class life. I have a room in London but not a house, nor a BMW.
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My number-one theory in life is that style is proportional to your lack of resources - the less you have, the more stylish you're likely to be.
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I work really well under pressure but I really hate doing things on a timeframe.
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If you have a therapist who agrees with your every word, then your brain isn't getting proper exercise.
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In moments when I question if I should be having kids, I think of all those phone calls from my sister-in-law, in which, 3,000 miles away, I hear my nephews screaming for her attention. I tell her I have to go because I am packing to leave for Europe, and her tone flatlines: 'That must be nice.'