β
That is β your friend?"
"Philtatos," Achilles replied, sharply. Most beloved.
β
β
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β
Straight people, he thinks, probably don't spend this much time convincing themselves that they're straight.
β
β
Casey McQuiston (Red, White & Royal Blue)
β
Weβre sick of hearing people say, βThat band is so gay,β or βThose guys are fags.β Gay is not a synonym for shitty. If you wanna say somethingβs shitty, say itβs shitty. Stop being such homophobic assholes.
β
β
Pete Wentz
β
Give your friendships the magic you would give a romance. Because they're just as important. Actually, for us, they're way more important.
β
β
Alice Oseman (Loveless)
β
This is a team of gay dudes, isn't it?"
What gave it away? The pink shirts, or half our team drooling over you?
β
β
Simone Elkeles (Rules of Attraction (Perfect Chemistry, #2))
β
The only queer people are those who don't love anybody.
β
β
Rita Mae Brown
β
The single best thing about coming out of the closet is that nobody can insult you by telling you what you've just told them.
β
β
Rachel Maddow
β
Race, gender, religion, sexuality, we are all people and that's it. We're all people. We're all equal.
β
β
Connor Franta
β
Last night I was seriously considering whether I was a bisexual or not but I donβt think so though Iβm not sure if Iβd like to be and argh I donβt think thereβs anything wrong with that, if you like a person, you like the person, not their genitals.
β
β
Jess C. Scott (Tongue-Tied)
β
Self pity becomes your oxygen. But you learned to breathe it without a gasp. So, nobody even notices you're hurting.
β
β
Paul Monette
β
If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.
β
β
Harvey Milk
β
I am an unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort.
β
β
E.M. Forster (Maurice)
β
Two dudes met. They fell in love. They lived. That's our story.
β
β
Adam Silvera (They Both Die at the End (Death-Cast, #1))
β
What sexual preference do you hope she has?β βHappiness.β Isnt that cool?
β
β
Francesca Lia Block (Weetzie Bat (Weetzie Bat, #1))
β
I am not here to entertain straight people.
β
β
Sarah Schulman
β
Gender preference does not define you. Your spirit defines you.
β
β
P.C. Cast (Awakened (House of Night, #8))
β
Will put his hand on Nico's shoulder. "Nico, we need to have another talk about your people skills."
"Hey, I'm just stating the obvious. If this is Apollo, and he dies, we're all in trouble."
Will turned to me. "I apologize for my boyfriend."
Nico rolled his eyes. "Could you notβ"
"Would you prefer special guy?" Will asked. "Or significant other?"
"Significant annoyance, in your case," Nico grumbled
β
β
Rick Riordan (The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo, #1))
β
Girls love each other like animals. There is something ferocious and unself-conscious about it. We don't guard ourselves like we do with boys. No one trains us to shield our hearts from each other. With girls, it's total vulnerability from the beginning. Our skin is bare and soft. We love with claws and teeth and the blood is just proof of how much. It's feral.
And it's relentless.
β
β
Leah Raeder (Black Iris)
β
I donβt want anyone to hold back who they are. Itβs not okayβ¦ itβs not a good thing
β
β
Connor Franta
β
Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are.
β
β
Quentin Crisp
β
She's happy with who she is. Maybe it's not the heteronormative dream that she grew up wishing for, but... knowing who you are and loving yourself is so much better than that, I think.
β
β
Alice Oseman (Loveless)
β
I'm blown away by how happy you make me. Thank you for being there for me when I'm stupid enough to think I'd rather be alone.
β
β
Adam Silvera (History Is All You Left Me)
β
Itβs okay. It may not seem like it right now, but you are going to be fine. I know itβs scary, but donβt be afraid. You are who you are, and you should love that person, and I donβt want anyone to have to go through 22 years of their life afraid to accept that.
β
β
Connor Franta
β
This is why homophobia is a terrible evil: it disguises itself as concern while it is inherently hate.
β
β
Tyler Oakley (Binge)
β
I've always known I was gay, but it wasn't confirmed until I was in kindergarten.
It was my teacher who said so. It was right there on my kindergarten report card: PAUL IS DEFINITELY GAY AND HAS VERY GOOD SENSE OF SELF.
β
β
David Levithan (Boy Meets Boy)
β
With ignorance comes fear- from fear comes bigotry. Education is the key to acceptance.
β
β
Kathleen Patel (The Bullying Epidemic-the guide to arm you for the fight)
β
Disclaimer: Consider all perceived errors and scrutinize all self-evident truths.
β
β
Adam Scott Huerta (Motive Black: A novel (Motive Black Series Book 1))
β
There are worst things in life than kissing boys.
β
β
Benjamin Alire SΓ‘enz (Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (Aristotle and Dante, #1))
β
It comes to this then: there always have been people like me and always will be, and generally they have been persecuted.
β
β
E.M. Forster (Maurice)
β
If you voted for a man who said "Grab em by the pussy," you have zero room to claim to protect anyone in bathrooms.
β
β
DaShanne Stokes
β
But this is your life, and it will stretch out before you, and you are the only person who can make it whatever you want it to be.
β
β
Christina Lauren (Autoboyography)
β
If a couple of gay guys want to throw the gayest, most fabulous wedding of all time, the only way it should offend you is if you werenβt invited.
β
β
Orlando Winters (Stop Being a F***ing Idiot)
β
The beauty of standing up for your rights is others will see you standing and stand up as well.
β
β
Cassandra Duffy
β
Thereβs a Greek legendβno, itβs in something Plato wroteβabout how true lovers are really two halves of the same person. It says that people wander around searching for their other half, and when they find him or her, they are finally whole and perfect. The thing that gets me is that the story says that originally all people were really pairs of people, joined back to back, and that some of the pairs were man and man, some woman and woman, and others man and woman. What happened was that all of these double people went to war with the gods, and the gods, to punish them, split them all in two. Thatβs why some lovers are heterosexual and some are homosexual, female and female, or male and male.
β
β
Nancy Garden (Annie on My Mind)
β
To Julian, he asked, "Is Yadriel your friend?"
The word burned. "Β‘Mi querido!" he snapped viciously.
β
β
Aiden Thomas (Cemetery Boys (Cemetery Boys, #1))
β
human beings are human beings, just treat everyone like that.
β
β
Hayley Williams
β
wtf even is my sexuality
β
β
Daniel Howell
β
I hate that word. Straight. At the very least, those of us who are nonstraight should get called curvy. Or scenic. Actually, I like that: 'Do you think she's straight?' 'Oh no. She's scenic
β
β
Nina LaCour (You Know Me Well)
β
To think that God loves the trees, but condemns that blossoming thing they do in the spring.
β
β
Christina Lauren (Autoboyography)
β
Love isnβt a choice. You fall for the person, not their chromosomes.
β
β
I.W. Gregorio (None of the Above)
β
You don't deserve the anger you're turning on yourself. Your abuser's the one who does.
β
β
Cheryl Rainfield (Scars)
β
the Bible is only as good and decent as the person reading it.
β
β
Dan Savage (American Savage: Insights, Slights, and Fights on Faith, Sex, Love, and Politics)
β
He's not afraid of anything he feels. He's not afraid of saying it. He's only afraid of what happens when he does.
β
β
Casey McQuiston (Red, White & Royal Blue)
β
People like to say being gay isn't like skin color, isn't anything physical. They tell us we always have the option of hiding.
But if that's true, why do they always find us?
β
β
David Levithan (Two Boys Kissing)
β
Freedom isn't just about voting and marrying and kissing on the street, although all of these things are important. Freedom is also about what you will allow yourself to do.
β
β
David Levithan (Two Boys Kissing)
β
It's hard not to be a fighter when you're constantly under siege.
β
β
Cassandra Duffy
β
Queer' not as being about who you're having sex with (that can be a dimension of it); but 'queer' as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and that has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.
β
β
bell hooks
β
Bodies are fucking weird, especially when it feels like you don't belong in your own.
β
β
Mason Deaver (I Wish You All the Best (I Wish You All the Best, #1))
β
I have almost completed a long novel, but it is unpublishable until my death and England's.
β
β
E.M. Forster
β
Sheβs inching forward.
Is there a heterosexual explanation for why sheβs inching forward?
β
β
Adiba Jaigirdar (The Henna Wars)
β
Was it love or wasn't it that she felt for Carol? And how absurd it was that she didn't even know. She had heard about girls falling in love, and she knew what kind of people they were and what they looked like. Neither she nor Carol looked like that. Yet the way she felt about Carol passed all the tests for love and fitted all the descriptions.
β
β
Patricia Highsmith (The Price of Salt)
β
Do not start. Do not blush. Let us admit in the privacy of our own society that these things sometimes happen. Sometimes women do like women.
β
β
Virginia Woolf (A Room of Oneβs Own)
β
Whatever happensββhis grip tightens a littleββI wish you all the best, Benjamin De Backer.β He says it with a smile. βYou deserve it.
β
β
Mason Deaver (I Wish You All the Best (I Wish You All the Best, #1))
β
She thought of people she had seen holding hands in movies, and why shouldn't she and Carol?
β
β
Patricia Highsmith (The Price of Salt)
β
Me being in love with a girl and wanting her to be with me, doing what I need to do to make her stay with me; it affects no one, yet itβs terrifying to people and they think youβre a monster.
β
β
Sara Quin
β
the only thing worse than a bigot is an βallyβ who canβt stop congratulating themselves on their enlightenment.
β
β
Julio Alexi Genao
β
I was determined that in fiction anyway two men should fall in love and remain in it for the ever and ever that fiction allows.
β
β
E.M. Forster
β
If you love your country, you must be willing to defend it from fraud, bigotry, and recklessness--even from a president.
β
β
DaShanne Stokes
β
All I can tell you is this. Some hearts break from grief some from joy. Some even break from love. But hearts break because they are too small to contain the gifts life gives us. Your task will be to let your heart grow large enough not to break
β
β
Catherine M. Wilsonson
β
It's astonishing the amount of time that certain straight people devote to gay sex - trying to determine what goes where and how often. They can't imagine any system outside their own, and seem obsessed with the idea of roles, both in bed and out of it. Who calls whom a bitch? Who cries harder when the cat dies? Which one spends the most time in the bathroom? I guess they think that it's that cut-and-dried, though of course it's not. Hugh might do the cooking, and actually wear an apron while he's at it, but he also chops the firewood, repairs the hot-water heater, and could tear off my arm with no more effort than it takes to uproot a dandelion.
β
β
David Sedaris (When You Are Engulfed in Flames)
β
You're not under attack when others gain rights and privileges you've always had.
β
β
DaShanne Stokes
β
If I was gay, I wouldn't need an asterisk beside my name. I could stop worrying if the girl I like will bounce when she finds out I also like dick. I could have a coming-out party without people thinking I just want attention. I wouldn't have to explain that I fall in love with minds, not genders or body parts. People wouldn't say I'm 'just a slut' or 'faking it' or 'undecided' or 'confused.' I'm not confused. I don't categorize people by who I'm allowed to like and who I'm allowed to love. Love doesn't fit into boxes like that. It's blurry, slippery, quantum. It's only limited by our perceptions and before we slap a label on it and cram it into some category, everything is possible.
β
β
Leah Raeder (Black Iris)
β
Never be content to sit back and watch as others' rights are trampled upon. Your rights could be next.
β
β
DaShanne Stokes
β
Love has no gender - compassion has no religion - character has no race.
β
β
Abhijit Naskar (Either Civilized or Phobic: A Treatise on Homosexuality)
β
What do you say when The Girl tells you that you're The Girl to her?
β
β
Casey McQuiston (I Kissed Shara Wheeler)
β
Amazing how eye and skin color come in many shades yet many think sexuality is just gay or straight.
β
β
DaShanne Stokes
β
No matter whether youβre a gay or a mixed race couple; when youβre drawn together, ultimately it doesnβt matter what everybody thinks because itβs so honest, true, and sincere. How can that be wrong?
β
β
Tegan Quin
β
It angered him that his sexuality was an issue at all. As far as he was concerned, who he decided to sleep with was his business alone.
β
β
Christina Westover (Precipice)
β
I don't know whether to cry or scream or do both. It feels like I've done more than enough of both. And it feels like I haven't done enough.
And at some point, I know I'm going to have to crawl out of this bed and pick up the pieces but right now, it can be just me. Just me, these four walls, and this bed.
The universe doesn't have to exist outside this bedroom, and that's perfectly okay.
β
β
Mason Deaver (I Wish You All the Best (I Wish You All the Best, #1))
β
It will never stop hurting but it will stop mattering.
β
β
Alexis Hall (Boyfriend Material (London Calling, #1))
β
Only by speaking out can we create lasting change. And that change begins with coming out.
β
β
DaShanne Stokes
β
His hand lay across my stomach as he slept soundly. I entwined my fingers with his and breathed through the warmth that seeped through my chest. Such a simple, sweet thing to do, yet holding hands in bed was incredibly intimate.
β
β
N.R. Walker (Spencer Cohen, Book Three (Spencer Cohen, #3))
β
I hear the word "tolerance" -- that some people are trying to teach people to be tolerant of gays. I'm not satisfied with that word. I am gay, and I am not seeking to be "tolerated." One tolerates a toothache, rush-hour traffic, an annoying neighbor with a cluttered yard. I am not a negative to be tolerated.
β
β
Chely Wright (Like Me: Confessions of a Heartland Country Singer)
β
I think you've got to get out whatever's hurting you through your art, so it doesn't twist you up inside.
β
β
Cheryl Rainfield (Scars)
β
My wife's the reason anything gets done, she nudges me towards promise by degrees. She is a perfect symphony of one our son is her most beautiful reprise. We chase the melodies that seem to find us until they're finished songs and start to play. When senseless acts of tragedy remind us that nothing here is promised--not one day. This show is proof that history remembers. We live in times when hate and fear seem stronger. We rise and fall and light from dying embers--remembrances that hope and love last longer. And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside. I sing Vanessa's symphony. Eliza tells her story. Now, fill the world with music, love, and pride.
β
β
Lin-Manuel Miranda
β
DΓ©jame estar triste, es la ΓΊnica forma que conozco de estrujar la felicidad para que despuΓ©s no me pene.
β
β
Pedro Lemebel (Tengo miedo torero)
β
You always point out the problems with the paintings or the drawings. But what about the things you got right?"
"What about them?"
"Don't they mean something?
β
β
Mason Deaver (I Wish You All the Best (I Wish You All the Best, #1))
β
At any rate, Therese thought, she was happier than she ever had been before. And why worry about defining everything?
β
β
Patricia Highsmith (The Price of Salt)
β
They should love you, just as you are. Parents should love their kids, right?"
"You'd think so.
β
β
N.R. Walker (Spencer Cohen, Book Three (Spencer Cohen, #3))
β
The only opinion I have is that I could never look someone in the eye and tell them that they didnβt love someone that they know they love. Itβs not my job to judge and itβs not a job Iβd want. I love people a lot. All kinds. If we were meant to be the same then we wouldnβt be human.
β
β
Hayley Williams
β
But there was a fire waiting. And there was a little meal laid out on a blanket. And there was a whole world beyond that shoreline, beyond the forest, beyond the knuckle mountains, beyond, beyond, beyond, not beneath the surface at all, but beyond and waiting.
β
β
Emily M. Danforth (The Miseducation of Cameron Post)
β
Love should never mean having to live in fear.
β
β
DaShanne Stokes
β
But where was God now, with heaven full of astronauts, and the Lord overthrown? I miss God. I miss the company of someone utterly loyal. I still don't think of God as my betrayer. The servants of God, yes, but servants by their very nature betray. I miss God who was my friend. I don't even know if God exists, but I do know that if God is your emotional role model, very few human relationships will match up to it. I have an idea that one day it might be possible, I thought once it had become possible, and that glimpse has set me wandering, trying to find the balance between earth and sky. If the servants hadn't rushed in and parted us, I might have been disappointed, might have snatched off the white samite to find a bowl of soup.
As it is, I can't settle, I want someone who is fierce and will love me until death and know that love is as strong as death, and be on my side for ever and ever. I want someone who will destroy and be destroyed by me. There are many forms of love and affection, some people can spend their whole lives together without knowing each other's names. Naming is a difficult and time-consuming process; it concerns essences, and it means power. But on the wild nights who can call you home? Only the one who knows your name. Romantic love has been diluted into paperback form and has sold thousands and millions of copies. Somewhere it is still in the original, written on tablets of stone. I would cross seas and suffer sunstroke and give away all I have, but not for a man, because they want to be the destroyer and never the destroyed.
β
β
Jeanette Winterson (Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit)
β
What do you want?
I want to stop living in fear. I want to stop coming up with excuses about why I'm not interested in dating. I want my family to know me. I want to get to learn more about Lisa. I want to stop feeling like everything I am is inadequate or makes me unworthy of love because of something I can't help.
β
β
Sara Farizan (Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel)
β
Hell, yes," Dev says, sitting up now. "Don't get me wrong - we're totally going to make the beast with two backs tonight. But if we do it right, it's going to feel like holding hands.
β
β
David Levithan (Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist)
β
We, gays, can get married in Canada. We let heterosexuals too, but that was a huge thing, we had to have a referendum and a vote, itβs crazy! But then we were like, if they want to get married.. thatβs cool. Thatβs gonna destroy their relationships, but.. Heterosexuals deserve the same rights as homosexuals.
β
β
Tegan Quin
β
I want youβ"
"Then fucking have me."
"βbut I don't want this."
Alex wants to grab Henry and shake him, wants to scream in his face, wants to smash every priceless antique in the room.
"What does that even mean?"
"I don't want it!" Henry practically shouts. His eyes are flashing, wet and angry and afraid. "Don't you bloody see? I'm not like you. I can't afford to be reckless. I don't have a family who will support me. I don't go about shoving who I am in everyone's faces and dreaming about a career in fucking politics, so I can be more scrutinized and picked apart by the entire godforsaken world. I can love you and want you and still not want that life. I'm allowed, all right, and it doesn't make me a liar; it makes me a man with some infinitesimal shred of self-preservation, unlike you, and you don't get to come here and call me a coward for it.
β
β
Casey McQuiston (Red, White & Royal Blue)
β
My parents taught me never to judge others based on whom they love, what color their skin is, or their religion. Why make life miserable for someone when you could be using your energy for good? We donβt need to share the same opinions as others, but we need to be respectful. When you hear people making hateful comments, stand up to them. Point out what a waste it is to hate, and you could open their eyes.
β
β
Taylor Swift
β
We fitted together like the two halves of an oyster-shell. I was Narcissus, embracing the pond in which I was about to drown. However much we had to hide our love, however guarded we had to be about our pleasure, I could not long be miserable about a thing so very sweet. Nor, in my gladness, could I quite believe that anybody would be anything but happy for me if only they knew.
β
β
Sarah Waters (Tipping the Velvet)
β
Let me have my tax money go for my protection and not for my prosecution. Let my tax money go for the protection of me. Protect my home, protect my streets, protect my car, protect my life, protect my property...worry about becoming a human being and not about how you can prevent others from enjoying their lives because of your own inability to adjust to life.
β
β
Harvey Milk
β
Frankly, I'm not responsible for other people's perceptions and what they consider real or fake. We must abolish the entitlement that deludes us into believing that we have the right to make assumptions about people's identities and project those assumptions onto their genders and bodies.
β
β
Janet Mock (Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More)
β
June, you have killed my sincerity too. I will never again know who I am, what I am, what I love, what I want. Your beauty has drowned me, the core of me. You carry away with you a part of me reflected in you. When your beauty struck me, it dissolved me. Deep down, I am not different from you. I dreamed you, I wished for your existence. You are the woman I want to be. I see in you that part of me which is you. I feel compassion for your childish pride, for your trembling unsureness, your dramatization of events, your enhancing of the loves given to you. I surrender my sincerity because if I love you it means we share the same fantasies, the same madness.
β
β
AnaΓ―s Nin (The Diary of AnaΓ―s Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934)
β
What I love about being queer is... Everything. I like that it makes me different, and I like that it makes people uncomfortable sometimes. I like that it makes people ask me lots of questions about things they probably would not normally ask people about their relationships or lifestyles. And most of all I love being queer because i get to have a girlfriend.
β
β
Tegan Quin
β
I am, and always have been - first, last, and always - a child of America.
You raised me. I grew up in the pastures and hills of Texas, but I had been to thirty-four states before I learned how to drive. When I caught the stomach flu in the fifth grade, my mother sent a note to school written on the back of a holiday memo from Vice President Biden. Sorry, sirβwe were in a rush, and it was the only paper she had on hand.
I spoke to you for the first time when I was eighteen, on the stage of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, when I introduced my mother as the nominee for president. You cheered for me. I was young and full of hope, and you let me embody the American dream: that a boy who grew up speaking two languages, whose family was blended and beautiful and enduring, could make a home for himself in the White House.
You pinned the flag to my lapel and said, βWeβre rooting for you.β As I stand before you today, my hope is that I have not let you down.
Years ago, I met a prince. And though I didnβt realize it at the time, his country had raised him too.
The truth is, Henry and I have been together since the beginning of this year. The truth is, as many of you have read, we have both struggled every day with what this means for our families, our countries, and our futures. The truth is, we have both had to make compromises that cost us sleep at night in order to afford us enough time to share our relationship with the world on our own terms.
We were not afforded that liberty.
But the truth is, also, simply this: love is indomitable. America has always believed this. And so, I am not ashamed to stand here today where presidents have stood and say that I love him, the same as Jack loved Jackie, the same as Lyndon loved Lady Bird. Every person who bears a legacy makes the choice of a partner with whom they will share it, whom the American people will βhold beside them in hearts and memories and history books. America: He is my choice.
Like countless other Americans, I was afraid to say this out loud because of what the consequences might be. To you, specifically, I say: I see you. I am one of you. As long as I have a place in this White House, so will you. I am the First Son of the United States, and Iβm bisexual. History will remember us.
If I can ask only one thing of the American people, itβs this: Please, do not let my actions influence your decision in November. The decision you will make this year is so much bigger than anything I could ever say or do, and it will determine the fate of this country for years to come. My mother, your president, is the warrior and the champion that each and every American deserves for four more years of growth, progress, and prosperity. Please, donβt let my actions send us backward. I ask the media not to focus on me or on Henry, but on the campaign, on policy, on the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans at stake in this election.
And finally, I hope America will remember that I am still the son you raised. My blood still runs from Lometa, Texas, and San Diego, California, and Mexico City. I still remember the sound of your voices from that stage in Philadelphia. I wake up every morning thinking of your hometowns, of the families Iβve met at rallies in Idaho and Oregon and South Carolina. I have never hoped to be anything other than what I was to you then, and what I am to you nowβthe First Son, yours in actions and words. And I hope when Inauguration Day comes again in January, I will continue to be.
β
β
Casey McQuiston (Red, White & Royal Blue)
β
Sometimes I still feel that there are two of me: one clean, flawless picture, the other imperfect and cracked; one boy, one girl; one voice that speaks aloud and one that whispers in my ear; one publicly known to have been troubled but be on the mend, the other who has privately lost something to do with innocence and gained something to do with knowledge and adulthood that can never be undone. I feel sometimes there are things that tear me in two directions, that there are two sets of thoughts that grow side by side. But then I realize that I am whole, whatever that means and does not mean; I am complete without the need for additions or alteration.
β
β
Abigail Tarttelin (Golden Boy)
β
The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right. Without hope, not only gays, but the blacks, the seniors, the handicapped, the us'es, the us'es will give up. And if you help elect to the central committee and other offices, more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward. It means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone.
So if there is a message I have to give, it is that if I've found one overriding thing about my personal election, it's the fact that if a gay person can be elected, it's a green light. And you and you and you, you have to give people hope....
β
β
Harvey Milk
β
Then came the most exquisite moment of her whole life passing a stone urn with flowers in it. Sally stopped; picked a flower; kissed her on the lips. The whole world might have turned upside down! The others disappeared; there she was alone with Sally. And she felt that she had been given a present, wrapped up, and told just to keep it, not to look at it β a diamond, something infinitely precious, wrapped up, which, as they walked (up and down, up and down), she uncovered, or the radiance burnt through, the revelation, the religious feeling!
β
β
Virginia Woolf (Mrs. Dalloway)
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In loving him, I saw a cigarette between the fingers of a hand, smoke blowing backwards into the room and sputtering planes diving low through the clouds. In loving him, I saw men encouraging each other to lay down their arms. In loving him, I saw small-town laborers creating excavations that other men spend their lives trying to fill. In loving him, I saw moving films of stone buildings; I saw a hand in prison dragging snow in from the sill. In loving him, I saw great houses being erected that would soon slide into the waiting and stirring seas. I saw him freeing me from the silences of the interior life.
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David Wojnarowicz (Close to the Knives: A Memoir of Disintegration)
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It shouldn't have mattered, not when Miel and the other girls in his class wore jeans more than they wore skirts. Not when they told their brothers what to do, and borrowed their fathers' books.
But there was everything else. The idea of being called Miss or Ms. or worse, Mrs. The thought of being grouped in when someone called out 'girls' or 'ladies.' The endless, echoing use of 'she' and 'her,' 'miss' and 'ma'am.' Yes, they were words. They were all just words. But each of them was wrong, and they stuck to him. Each one was a golden fire ant, and they were biting his arms and his neck and his bound-flat chest, leaving him bleeding and burning.
'He.' 'Him.' 'Mister.' 'Sir.' Even teachers admonishing him and his classmates with 'boys, settle down' or 'gentlemen, please.' These were sounds as perfect and clean as winter rain, and they calmed each searing bite of those wrong words.
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Anna-Marie McLemore (When the Moon Was Ours)
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Let's make no mistake about this: The American Dream starts with the neighborhoods. If we wish to rebuild our cities, we must first rebuild our neighborhoods. And to do that, we must understand that the quality of life is more important than the standard of living. To sit on the front steps--whether it's a veranda in a small town or a concrete stoop in a big city--and to talk to our neighborhoods is infinitely more important than to huddle on the living-room lounger and watch a make-believe world in not-quite living color.
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And I hardly need to tell you that in the 19- or 24-inch view of the world, cleanliness has long since eclipsed godliness. Soon we'll all smell, look, and actually be laboratory clean, as sterile on the inside as on the out. The perfect consumer, surrounded by the latest appliances. The perfect audience, with a ringside seat to almost any event in the world, without smell, without taste, without feel--alone and unhappy in the vast wasteland of our living rooms. I think that what we actually need, of course, is a little more dirt on the seat of our pants as we sit on the front stoop and talk to our neighbors once again, enjoying the type of summer day where the smell of garlic travels slightly faster than the speed of sound.
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Harvey Milk