MJ > MJ's Quotes

“Never underestimate the power of fiction to tell the truth.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“The only thing was, she didn't really want to see the future. What she wanted was to see something no one else could see or would see, and maybe that was asking for more magic that was in the world.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven Boys

“This is what courage is. It’s not just living through the nightmare, it’s doing something with it afterward. It’s being brave enough to talk about it to other people. It’s trying to organize to change things.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“I cannot let the broken girl inside of me inhale all that I've become. I cannot revert back to another version of myself. I will not shatter, not again, in the wake of an emotional earthquake.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Restore Me

“The Ari I used to be didn't exist anymore. And the Ari I was becoming? He didn't exist yet.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“This time I am a force.
A deviation of human nature.
I am living, breathing proof that nature is officially screwed, afraid of what it’s done, what it’s become.
And I’m stronger. I’m angrier.
I’m ready to do something I’ll definitely regret and this time I don’t care. I’m done being nice. I’m done being nervous. I’m not afraid of anything anymore.
Mass chaos is in my future.

And I’m leaving my gloves behind.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me

“I’m sorry it’s had to be this hard. But if I hadn’t walked this path, who would I be? At the moment I felt at the center of my life, the dream still braided like sweetgrass in my memory. I remembered Duffy’s challenge. Imagine a world worth living in, a world worth fighting for. I closed my eyes and allowed my hopes to soar. I heard the beatings of wings nearby. I opened my eyes. A young man on a nearby rooftop released his pigeons, like dreams, into the dawn.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“Reality's what other people dream for you.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“Why would you be given wings if you weren't meant to fly?”
― Leslye Walton, The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender

“You're more than just neither, honey. There's other ways to be than either-or. It's not so simple. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many people who don't fit.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“I think maybe she could be my girlfriend. I don't want to be her girlfriend, though. But there's this part of me that totally knows I could be her boyfriend. I don't want her to think of me as a boy, or a boy substitute, though. I want to be a boyfriend who is a girl. I have no idea how to explain that stuff to anyone, let alone a girl I like. I just wish it was already all understood.”
― M-E Girard, Girl Mans Up

“My words are unerring tools of
destruction, and I’ve come unequipped with the ability to disarm them.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven Boys

“I remember thinking that I looked like the kind of person I would want to know if I just happened to meet myself.”
― Nina LaCour, Everything Leads to You

“I began to feel the pleasure of the weightless state between here and there.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“I hide myself in my words. There’s a cipher, and one half is in my writing and the other half is in me, and if you have them both then you’ll understand everything. Strangers think it’s just a story, but you’ll know what’s real. You’ll know who I really am.”
― Leah Raeder, Black Iris

“But very quickly I discovered that passing didn't just mean slipping below the surface, it meant being buried alive. I was still me on the inside, trapped in there with all my wounds and fears. But I was no longer me on the outside.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“And that might just be the root of the problem: we're all afraid of each other, wings or no wings.”
― Leslye Walton, The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender

“I found it ironic that I should be blessed with wings and yet feel so constrained, so trapped. It was because of my condition, I believe, that I noticed life's ironies a bit more often than the average person. I collected them: how love arrived when you least expected it, how someone who said he didn't want to hurt you eventually would.”
― Leslye Walton, The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender

“Sometimes I feel like a deperson.”
― Leah Raeder, Black Iris

“The sky was black and strewn with stars. I felt alone on the planet. I was so scared I could hardly breathe. I didn't know where I was headed. I didn't know what to do with my life. I strained to look into my future, trying to picture the road ahead of me, searching for a glimpse of who I would become.
All I could see was the night sky and the stars above me.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“You have to know what you stand for, not just what you stand against.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“Maybe I will die today.
Maybe a bird will fly today.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“I never wanted to be saved. I wanted someone to follow me down into the darkness.”
― Leah Raeder, Black Iris

“We love films because they make us feel something. They speak to our desires, which are never small. They allow us to escape and to dream and to gaze into eyes that are impossibly beautiful and huge. They fill us with longing.

But also.

They tell us to remember; they remind us of life. Remember, they say, how much it hurts to have your heart broken. Remember about death and suffering and the complexities of living. Remember what it is like to love someone. Remember how it is to be loved. Remember what you feel in this moment. Remember this. Remember this.”
― Nina Lacour, Everything Leads to You

“I’m not saying we’ll live to see some sort of paradise. But just fighting for change makes you stronger. Not hoping for anything will kill you for sure. Take a chance, Jess. You’re already wondering if the world could change. Try imagining a world worth living in, and then ask yourself if that isn’t worth fighting for. You’ve come too far to give up on hope, Jess.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“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

“But the true feminist deals out of a lesbian consciousness whether or not she ever sleeps with women.”
― Audre Lorde

“Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference - those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are black, who are older - know that survival is not an academic skill...For the master's tools will not dismantle the master's house. They will never allow us to bring about genuine change.”
― Audre Lorde

“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.”
― Leah Raeder, Black Iris

“I know the difference between what I can't do and what I refuse to do.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues