30 Days of Quotes About Life ~ Day 8 ~ Andre Gide

Day 8 ~

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.” 

~ André Gide


I love a good story. I love a good real life story even more. Andre Gide, a writer I was not familiar with prior to this quote journey, was someone truly fascinating. He wrote about liberation of the self from within the constraints of religion and seemed to have been a bit of a walking contradiction at times.

Born to a Protestant family in Paris, he published his first novel at only 22 years old. He discovered and came to terms with his homosexuality, and was at one time was partnered with Oscar Wilde, one of the other people I have discussed in this series. He had a child from what appears to have been a very short heterosexual relationship, then was married to a woman though the marriage was never consummated. One of his later books was based on that relationship.

After traveling extensively, he wrote in opposition to colonialism. He became a Communist, then spoke openly against it. The Catholic Church put his works on the forbidden books list, and he won the Nobel Prize in literature.

As I said before, he was an exceedingly interesting person. What I wouldn't give for a time travel machine and a few hours in a bar with a guy like him.

Now, for the quote.

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.” 

It's one that I have always loved anyway, and knowing a bit more about him now, I think I love it even more.

As a writer with a public persona, I've had to grow a thick skin. It takes a lot to put yourself out there, to open yourself up to constant criticism. I suppose that there would be some incentive to embellish, to spin stories, to lie, to exaggerate things about one's self to appease an audience. I don't do that. There are people who do. I'm not one of them.

I cuss when it feels right. I don't do it for effect.

I reveal things when it feels right. I don't do it for views.

I commit to the truth. I don't spin things to over-sell them.

I won't compromise my integrity for numbers.

I don't want a bunch of fans around just because I state totally obvious things or talk about the same manufactured debates everyone else does or because I said shit and fuck and bitch a lot. I'm not going to humiliate people I love just to tell a funny story that will get me three seconds of fame but scar them for life.

I strive for accuracy in everything I write, whether it's about me or someone else or something in the news. I've been known to retract things in posts, go back and edit them, write apologies when something was incorrect and pull entire posts when there were errors. I don't set out to hurt people with what I write, and when it happens, I'm devastated.

I'm a dork and a nerd and an introvert and occasionally a hot mess. But I'm always real.

Some people seem to like it, but not everyone does. For as many fans as I have accumulated over the years, I have made plenty of enemies too.

There are those who hate everything I stand for, who have accused me of lying, of falsifying stories, of being melodramatic. There are people who think I talk too much about equal rights and feminism and rape and lost babies. That I should just write about happy things and positive stories in the news. Who wonder why I have to question things the way I do, why I have to stir up trouble.

Hate on, haters.

It's fine. Really. It doesn't phase me, and it sure as hell isn't going to change how I do things around here.

People might not like the truth, but that's their problem, not mine.