Jimmy Reid Quotes

I will never be Jimmy,” Joan said. “Or Marty. Or Teddy. I don’t want to tell jokes at other people’s expense, and pretend I’m never afraid, and refuse to ask for help. I don’t want to hold in how I feel, or hide it if I’ve been hurt, or try to prove to anyone that I don’t cry. Because I do cry sometimes.

I was nervous for her, tell you the truth. There were so many men in the scene that were…into young girls. Thirty-something rock stars sleeping with teenagers. Not saying it was okay, just saying that’s how it was. How old was Lori Mattix when she was with Jimmy Page? Fourteen? And Iggy Pop and Sable Starr? He sang about it, man. He was bragging about it.

I clutched my anger to my chest like a last pair of marked-down Jimmy Choos in my size.

A rat race is for rats. We're not rats. We're human beings. Reject the insidious pressures in society that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you, that would caution silence in the face of injustice, lest you jeopardise your chances of self-promotion and self-advancement. This is how it starts. And before you know where you are, you're a fully paid-up member of the rat pack. The price is too high. It entails the loss of your dignity and human spirit.

She was trying to prove that she could be just like a man to all of them. To Jimmy. To Lydia. Because the world had decided that to be soft was to be weak, even though in Joan’s experience being soft and flexible was always more durable than being hard and brittle. Admitting you were afraid always took more guts than pretending you weren’t. Being willing to make a mistake got you further than never trying. The world had decided that to be fallible was weak. But we are all fallible. The strong ones are the ones who accept it.

At which point, one of the pilots, Jimmy Hayman, said, "I've got a hard part you can do first." Joan stared right at him, unsure how to respond. But then Lydia laughed. And in the moment, Joan wanted to slap her. Didn't Lydia Understand that if one of them made it seem like it was okay, the rest of them would be sidelined as humorless? Didn't Lydia get that this was how the men kept them separate and under-estimated? With these small jokes that made them look petty if they got upset? Couldn't Lydia see how it worked?