August > August's Quotes

“I would like people to stop pressuring children to make friends. Friendships can’t be artificially created.”
― Naoki Higashida, Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8: A Young Man's Voice from the Silence of Autism

“I think it hits us all at the same time that maybe we'll live long enough to grow up.”
― Andrew Joseph White, Hell Followed With Us

“When something terrible happens—or at least, when you learn about it—it feels like it should affect the entire world. It feels like something should change. But it doesn’t.”
― Andrew Joseph White, The Spirit Bares Its Teeth

“I think the entire world depends on people pretending they don’t know they’re doing terrible things.”
― Andrew Joseph White, The Spirit Bares Its Teeth

“Are you trans?” Salvador blinks. “Uh.” “Wait, no.” I can’t just ask people if they’re trans. “I shouldn’t have…” “No, it’s fine,” Salvador says. “I mean, yeah, of course. I’m super trans. Like, an honestly heretical amount of trans. Why?”
― Andrew Joseph White, Hell Followed With Us

“Because they gave birth to something they do not understand, because they tried so many times to fix me and they failed.”
― Andrew Joseph White, The Spirit Bares Its Teeth

“Bein transgender is who you are, and the pain is what the outside does to you. The pain is what happens when you and the world go at each other's throats.”
― Andrew Joseph White, Hell Followed With Us

“I love you,” I say to him, only it comes out, “Hey.”
“So damn much,” he says back, only it comes out, “Dude.”
He still won’t meet my eyes.”
― Jandy Nelson, I'll Give You the Sun

“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“How nice -- to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned into a pillar of salt. So it goes.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“In the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in His cosmic loneliness.

And God said, "Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done." And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close to mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man blinked. "What is the purpose of all this?" he asked politely.

"Everything must have a purpose?" asked God.

"Certainly," said man.

"Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said God.

And He went away.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

“I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

“We have not touched the stars,
nor are we forgiven, which brings us back
to the hero’s shoulders and the gentleness that comes,
not from the absence of violence, but despite
the abundance of it.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river
                    but then he’s still left
with the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away
                                                                        but then he’s still left with his hands.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“If you love me, Henry, you don’t love me in a way I understand.”
― Richard Siken, Crush

“You go to work the next day pretending nothing happened.
Your co-workers ask
if everything's okay and you tell them
you're just tired.
And you're trying to smile. And they're trying to smile.”
― Richard Siken

“Who was I now—woman or man? That question could never be answered as long as those were the only choices; it could never be answered if it had to be asked.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“I hurried out to the pond to catch polywogs in a jar. I leaned on my elbow and looked up close at the little frogs that climbed up on the sun-baked rocks.

"Caw, caw!" A huge black crow circled above me in the air and landed on a rock nearby. We looked at each other in silence.

"Crow, are you a boy or a girl?"

"Caw, caw!"

I laughed and rolled over on my back. The sky was crayon blue. I pretended I was lying on the white cotton clouds. The earth was damp against my back. The sun was hot, the breeze was cool. I felt happy. Nature held me close and seemed to find no fault with me.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“When I was really small I thought I’d do anything to change whatever was wrong with me. Now I didn’t want to change, I just wanted people to stop being mad at me all the time.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“God,” she said, “by the time we’re old enough to have sex, we’re already too ashamed to be touched. Ain’t that a crime?”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“I am not trapped in the wrong body; I am trapped in a world that makes very little space for bodies like mine.”
― Ivan E. Coyote, Tomboy Survival Guide