Meredith Russo > Quotes

“For as long as I could remember, I had been apologizing for existing, for trying to be who I was, to live the life I was meant to lead.”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“You can have anything,” she said, “once you admit you deserve it.”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“I know it hurts. I know it hurts so bad you can barely breathe sometimes. I know because I’ve been there. Please don’t leave us. I promise life can be good, and we need you too much.”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“I’m not brave,” I said, smiling despite myself. “Bravery implies I had a choice. I’m just me, you know?” I”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“I wasn’t sorry I existed any more. I deserved to live. I deserved to find love. I knew now – I believed, now – that I deserved to be loved.”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“Just because you have a past doesn't mean you can't have a future.”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“I have a past, okay? And you really don't want to get involved with it.'
'Everybody's got a past,' he said. 'That doesn't mean you can't have a future.”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“You tried to kill yourself,” she said, rolling her eyes up to heaven and biting her knuckle. “Andrew Hardy was gonna die one way or the other, and one of the choices gave me a daughter in exchange while the other left me with no one.” “I”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“Hell, even the straight people have enough skeletons in their closet to fill a tomb. Everybody’s too afraid of going to hell or getting made fun of to be honest about what they want and who they are, so they can’t even really admit what they want to themselves.”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“Maybe that's what life is about: surviving what you can't control and clinging to the good things the winds whip up.”
― Meredith Russo, Birthday

“Being a girl in this world means being afraid. That fear'll keep you safe. It'll keep you alive.”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“I’ve seen trans people in movies and TV shows, but judging by how unrealistic and shitty bi characters tend to be, I’m gonna assume I know nothing. So what’s okay for me to ask?”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“You can have anything once you admit you deserve it.”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“Just 'cause I'm bi doesn't mean I have magic powers. I'm not the plucky queer sidekick in your romantic comedy.”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“There are enough people waiting to crap in your cereal without you doing it for them.”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“I wondered when I’d reach the end of things I didn’t know. *”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“God wanted me to live, and this was the only way I knew how to survive, so this was what God wanted.”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“Maybe secrets were part of life; maybe everyone had something they were lying to themselves about, or something they were hiding.
I looked up at the cross again and wondered if I was supposed to hear this particular sermon at this particular moment for a reason. I decided that the people who had said God didn’t love me, who said I didn’t have a place on Earth—they were wrong. God wanted me to live, and this was the only way I knew how to survive, so this was what God wanted. This was what I wanted. I had chosen to live, and it seemed like, finally, I was doing just that.”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“I wondered if joy could ever be felt by itself without being tainted with fear and confusion, or if some level of misery was a universal constant, like the speed of light.”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“Amanda’s life and identity would be just as valid if she didn’t figure herself out until later in life, or if she were a tomboy, or if she were bisexual or a lesbian or asexual, or if she had trouble passing, or if she either could not or chose not to get “bottom” surgery.”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“His shadow stretched out past mine. I remembered Mom telling me how frightening men were, all men really, how helpless it often felt to be a woman among men, and for the first time I understood what she meant.”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“As I spoke I thought back to what Virginia had said weeks before, about getting anything you wanted if you let yourself believe you deserved it. For as long as I could remember, I had been apologizing for existing, for trying to be who I was, to live the life I was meant to lead. Maybe this would be the last conversation I would ever have with Grant. Maybe not. Either way, I realized, I wasn’t sorry I existed anymore. I deserved to live. I deserved to find love. I knew now—I believed, now—that I deserved to be loved.”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“There is no wrong way to express and embody your most authentic self!”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“I have, in some ways, cleaved to stereotypes and even bent rules to make Amanda’s trans-ness as unchallenging to normative assumptions as possible.”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“How much of life was like that, just waiting for me to come and give it a chance.”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“You know walls are there for a reason though, right? They keep things from falling apart.”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“I wonder if maybe I just can't cry anymore, if maybe growing up means testosterone is running through my body like an invading army, butchering and bunting everything tender.”
― Meredith Russo, Birthday

“More likely, and more complicated, is the thought that she’s just gone, and that this letter is the last part of her I’ll ever see or touch, and the only afterlife she or anyone ever gets is the ripples their lives make in the world around them—heaven in the hearts of those who live on, love branching out like roots in an old-growth forest.”
― Meredith Russo, Birthday

“I thought of going the rest of my life pretending I sprang to life from nothing at sixteen years old and felt my cheeks flush with shame and anger. I was so tired of cowering. I was so tired of hiding. I wanted to tell the truth, to say it out loud.”
― Meredith Russo, If I Was Your Girl

“If I were gay and I heard everyone around me constantly calling everything they don't like gay and yelling 'fag!' at the drop of a hat, maybe that would make it hard to come out even to people I care about.”
― Meredith Russo, Birthday