"I was 23, and that was my first professional job. Anybody who has curly hair knows you don't want it to be brushed out because it becomes a never-ending tangle"
About this Quote
The line works because it’s funny without begging for laughs. “Anybody who has curly hair knows” is a soft, inclusive invitation, but it also draws a boundary: there’s lived experience here that outsiders routinely ignore. In entertainment, that ignorance becomes policy. Hair, like accent, posture, even personality, gets “corrected” to match someone else’s idea of what reads on camera or fits a role. The “never-ending tangle” isn’t just a grooming problem; it’s what happens when an industry standardizes you—then acts surprised when the result is messier than what you started with.
There’s also a subtle career subtext: early jobs teach you the rules by violating you. Davis compresses a whole lesson about control, vulnerability, and credibility into a single tactile image. It’s not a speech about exploitation; it’s the kind of anecdote that makes the point sharper because it refuses to inflate itself.
Quote Details
| Topic | New Job |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Davis, Judy. (2026, January 17). I was 23, and that was my first professional job. Anybody who has curly hair knows you don't want it to be brushed out because it becomes a never-ending tangle. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-was-23-and-that-was-my-first-professional-job-62116/
Chicago Style
Davis, Judy. "I was 23, and that was my first professional job. Anybody who has curly hair knows you don't want it to be brushed out because it becomes a never-ending tangle." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-was-23-and-that-was-my-first-professional-job-62116/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I was 23, and that was my first professional job. Anybody who has curly hair knows you don't want it to be brushed out because it becomes a never-ending tangle." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-was-23-and-that-was-my-first-professional-job-62116/. Accessed 17 Feb. 2026.





