Queer Youth Quotes

“Gay kids aren’t a “plot point” that you can play with. Gay kids are real, actual kids, teenagers, growing up into awesome adults, and they don’t have the books they need to reflect that. Growing up, my nose was constantly stuck in a book. Growing up as a lesbian, I was told over and over and over by the lack of gayness in said books that I did not exist. That I wasn’t important enough to tell stories about. That I was invisible. Why are we telling our kids this? Why are we telling them that they’re a minority, and they don’t deserve the same rights as straights, that they’re going to grow up in a world that despises them, that the intolerance of humanity will never change, that they’re worthless. It’s not true.”
― Sarah Diemer

“You had to be willing to fight in order for a love story to last a life time.”
― Cristina Marrero, The Unsung Love Story

“Love is a wild fire that cannot be contained by any mere element known to man.”
― Cristina Marrero, The Unsung Love Story

“Together, in that room, our childhood notions of love melted away. We discovered love was not a fairytale. Sometimes there were no happy endings, and when there were, you needed to work like hell to keep the happiness alive.”
― Cristina Marrero, The Unsung Love Story

“For the first time in my life, I said the words, “I need a drink.”
― Cristina Marrero, The Unsung Love Story

“I'm a prince who likes dresses.”
― Jen Wang, The Prince and the Dressmaker

“The eye of youth is very observant. Youth has its moments of keen intuition, even normal youth -- but the intuition of those who stand mi-way between the sexes is so ruthless, so poignant, so deadly, as to be in the nature of an added scourge...”
― Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness

“YOU DESERVE LOVE

This is for all of the kids
Who are feeling scared

This is for the quiet ones
Who never had someone say they cared

This is for all of the times
You were forced to stay inside

This is for the ones of you
Who have slowly died

Whether you’re gay or straight
Love him or her
You deserve to live
You deserve to love
Whether you found someone
Or have heard you’re wanted enough
Know that you’re needed
Know that you’re loved

This is for all of us kids
Who cry alone in our beds

This is for all the dark times
When no light had been shed

This is necessary
Because I feel you’re hurt

Now’s a time to be happy
And you have my support”
― Trisha North, My Greatest Fear

“The one undeniable benefit of having spent some time in the closet is that it nurtures a talent that you can fall back on any time: lying convincingly. Sometimes I worried that queer kids in the twenty-first century coming out at twelve, or even younger, would never develop that valuable skill.”
― Bob Smith, Remembrance of Things I Forgot

“The thing is, you can't just be yourself if whenever people look at you they see something entirely different”
― Rahul Kanakia, We Are Totally Normal

“When I left, I took everything with me...I reached under my bed where there were two leather-bound journals that had gold lettering on the front covers and that fastened with a flimsy lock. I read the lettering out loud to myself and gingerly placed the books into my backpack. Diary.”
― Tanya Marquardt, Stray: Memoir of a Runaway

“To be clear, I’m not, like, a drag queen. I’m not trans. I just like how I look with my eyes outlined in dark colors, or sometimes some color on my eyelids or lips. Call me femme if you want, or a queen, but whatever it is, it’s just me. And after sitting in a room with a dozen other kids and knowing thousands of other kids are also sitting in rooms, taking the same test, making us all anonymous little filled-in dots on answer sheets, I desperately want to feel like me again. I deserve to. So I buy me, or at least the things that make me feel like me. Capitalism must be so proud of what it’s made me into.”
― Lev A.C. Rosen

“We were magical and alive - we cared about music and conversation, sex and spit and blood, holding on tight to the space between youth and adulthood. When I look back at that time, my nostalgia can be blinding. Because we weren’t night dwellers, vampires who would live forever. We were a bunch of kids playing at being Lost Boys, looking for our version of Neverland.”
― Tanya Marquardt, Stray: Memoir of a Runaway

“- You said I wouldn't catch fire if I touch you, I say. - And that's not true, I will. It will be a wildfire and I won't be able to put it out.”
― Robby Weber, If You Change Your Mind

“I've had my heart broken too many times to think that visibility means everything. I don't think it changes who steps up and who stands back. [...] For some people visibility is about saving a life, and for other people it's about making things more comfortable. But again my dears, it's not about comfort. Safety, yes please. But comfort, comfort is overrated. As far as I'm concerned, life is about being alive and being connected to our fellow creatures. Full stop. And you're generation is making it worse with your serious faces and safe spaces and goddamn trigger warnings... Hello my darlings, loosen up! Live a little. Such a dick. Tell a joke. Fall in love. Show up to start trouble when it's necessary and don't whine when the world doesn't hold your hand.”
― Agnes Borinsky, Sasha Masha