c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
If you are an LGBT+ person and you come out, you have to go through your knight’s quest to create ground for yourself, to create a space for yourself, to stand there and say, “I exist. I have no reason to feel guilt or shame. I am proud to exist, and while I’m not perfect, I deserve to exist in society just like anyone else.”This became my first big fight.While I consider myself to be fantastically boring, I realized that if I took on my own sexual identity and came out and just told people about it and tried to have a chat with them—tried to be offhand and casual about it—and tried to build our place in society and humanity, then that would be a good mission. This is where I exist in society. I am just this guy. I am transgender, and I exist. But that is just my sexuality. More important than that is that I perform comedy, I perform drama, I run marathons, and I’m an activist in politics. These are the things I do. How you self-identify with your sexuality matters not one wit. What you do in life—what you do to add to the human existence—that is what matters. That is the beautiful thing.
— Eddie Izzard, Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens
We, the weird and sideways folk, have always walked the line of rejection. It's what makes us visionaries. We who are pushed away, to the edge, can see beyond the borders of reality. We frighten the privileged with our possibility.
— G.L. Carriger, The Sumage Solution
A woman who dared to live as an overt homosexual in such unwelcoming times might well have an ego of impressive strength and health that permitted her it know her own mind and to be true to her conception of herself.
— Lillian Faderman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America
I break into heterosexual houses so I can masturbate in their heterosexual kitchens
— Joey Comeau, Lockpick Pornography
That's the craziest, dumbass thing I ever heard tell of. What's the point of being a lesbian if a woman is going to look and act like an imitation man? Hell, if I wanted a man, I'll get the real thing not one of these chippies.
— Rita Mae Brown, Rubyfruit Jungle
Men did not touch each other as Karadur touched this man unless they were lovers. But there was more between them, a connection, a feeling that was present even when they sat apart.
— Elizabeth A. Lynn, Dragon's Treasure
Most people think the closet is a small room. They think you can touch the walls, touch the door, turn the handle, and walk free. But when you're inside it, the closet is vast. No walls, no door, just empty darkness stretching the length of the world.
— S.J. Sindu, Marriage of a Thousand Lies
Of course many of us were loaded with self-hate and wanted to change. How could it have been otherwise? All we heard and read about homosexuality was that crap about how we were inverts, perverts, queers — a menace to children, poison to everybody else, doomed never to be happy.
— Lillian Faderman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America
I shivered again, remembering. I put the tip of one finger to my tongue. It tasted sharp—like vinegar, like blood.Like money.
— Sarah Waters, Fingersmith
the love some girls have for other girls is so gentle & so soft & so fucking beautiful, & these girls deserve to have better stories than the ones where they are murdered because they love with too much of their hearts.- love is never a weakness
— Amanda Lovelace, The Princess Saves Herself in this One
Privilege is presuming to speak for others you know nothing about.
— DaShanne Stokes
What good Christians don't realize is that sexual sin is not recreational sex gone overboard. Sexual sin is predatory. It won't be 'healed' by redeeming the context or the genders. Sexual sin must simply be killed. What is left of your sexuality after this annihilation is up to God. But healing, to the sexual sinner, is death: nothing more and nothing less.
— Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor's Journey Into Christian Faith
Too late, too late, your love gave me life. Here am I the creature you made through your loving; by your passion you created the thing that I am. Who are you to deny me the right to love? But for you I need never have known existence.
— Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness
I mean , I never even had to really come out to my parents. They always knew, and it was always okay. Or not even okay, better than that. Not something that had to be evaluated at all. It just was. Like having brown hair.
— Julie Buxbaum, Tell Me Three Things
Madness. That’s what it was. And I could no longer contain it.
— Melanie Harlow, Strong Enough
I hate that would. Straight. At the very least, those of us who are nonstraight should get to be called curvy. Or scenic. Actually, I like that: 'Do you think she's straight?' 'Oh no. She's scenic.
— David Levithan, You Know Me Well
Making out with Marcus had always felt like a race to the finish line, but with Diego I felt like I'd already won.
— Shaun David Hutchinson, We Are the Ants
I can remember thinking I’d been turned inside out. Kind of like the first time I saw you.
— Lauren   James, The Last Beginning
Gay rights aren't predicated on being born gay or having the right gene. Gay rights are predicated on having choice and consent. If you're a man and you can find another man that consents to have sex with you, it's the consent that gives you the right to have sex with him. Genetics are irrelevant when it comes to sexual rights. Just as gay rights are based on choice and consent, so are prostitution rights. All sexual rights are based on choice and consent.
— Chester Brown, Paying for It
I don't think it matters who you love, just as long as you love. Who cares whether it's a man or a woman? Why does that have anything more to do with the person inside than the color of someone's skin? Personally, I'm pretty fucking disappointed that I seem to be one hundred percent heterosexual.
— Jane Green, The Sunshine Sisters
...this is your life. It's not your mom's. You have to do what makes you happy too
— Jessica Verdi, The Summer I Wasn't Me
If there's anything worth any risk at all, it's got to be love, right?
— Jessica Verdi, The Summer I Wasn't Me
The most radical thing that any of us can do is to stop projecting our beliefs about gender onto other people's behaviors and bodies
— Julia Serano, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity
Relationship (definition): Liaison usually involving two people and their dirty dishes.
— Richard Summerbell, Abnormally Happy: A Gay Dictionary
Consider that people will talk about the fact that I now "pass" as a woman, but nobody ever asks about how difficult it must have been for me to "pass" as a man before.
— Julia Serano, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity
Right now, many female activists in their forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, and eighties are gazing thoughtfully into the glowing embers of lesbian culture. For us, this is still an active campfire where we gather and warm ourselves; one which, we hope, will not fade away into forgotten ash, but instead retain hot coals to stoke new fires. Such images of heat and spark have always served to symbolize shifts in leadership; think of that other fire-based metaphor, the passing of the torch - presumably, to a next generation. What does it mean if that next generation is disdainful of the torch, welcomes its dousing, or lacks the data or the will to learn how it was lit and carried forward in the first place?
— Bonnie J Morris
When we hide discrimination under the guise of 'religious freedom,' we make a mockery of human rights.
— DaShanne Stokes
Maybe that was why it was almost always the underclasses, the women, the people of color, the gay people, the ones who were already stigmatized as being vulnerable, availble, trapped by the body, who took the risk of the wire.
— Melissa Scott, Trouble and Her Friends
That is — your friend?" "Philtatos," Achilles replied, sharply. Most beloved.
— Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles
Love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love, cannot be killed or swept aside.
— Lin-Manuel Miranda
The less that women are visible as a research subject, the less we are likely to learn about lesbians.
— Bonnie J. Morris, The Disappearing L: Erasure of Lesbian Spaces and Culture
Imagine learning at such a young age that your very appearance—your very identity—is enough to trigger such confusion and animosity. Imagine knowing that people will hate you for no reason other than you are who you are
— Thomas Beatie, Labor of Love: The Story of One Man's Extraordinary Pregnancy
This thing that’s always been inside and hidden deep is getting bigger and stronger and threatening to show itself, and I want to stop it but I also don’t, and I don’t know if I’m ready, but I think maybe I want what’s inside turned outside, maybe I want everything out in the open, all my secrets laid out for everyone to see. I wonder what that would look like. I wonder what kind of mess it would make. I wonder if you can ever really be ready for the part of you that you’ve been hiding your whole life to finally come out.
— Amy Reed, Clean
I would make a poor princess,' she said. 'Why?''Have you ever wished to be a princess?' Ash challenged her. 'That depends,' Kaisa said. 'On what?''On whether I'd have to marry a prince,' she said and her tone was lighthearted, inviting Ash to share her smile.
— Malinda Lo, Ash
If you're reading this and you think that maybe you could love someone of the same gender (or nongender), all I have to say to you is this: Congratulations! You're perfect and wonderful and more alive than you ever knew. Be proud of who you are because you're already more than enough.
— Hannah Hart, Buffering: Unshared Tales of a Life Fully Loaded
In the Somali culture many things go unsaid: how we love, who we love and why we love that way. I don't know why Suldana loves the way she does. I don't know why she loves who she does. But I do know that by respecting her privacy I am letting her dream in a way that my generation was not capable of. I'm letting her reach for something neither one of us can articulate.
— Diriye Osman, Fairytales for Lost Children
It wasn't the first time I'd been with someone, but it was different this time. Maybe it was because when I told them I was bisexual they weren't like the girls who thought I was *really* a lesbian; they weren't like the boys who thought it was hot. Maybe it was because when they told me they were genderqueer I just said that I knew and they cried as they smiled at me. Or maybe it was just because our limbs fit together, maybe because it tasted like salt water and was the colour of sunlight through grass. Or maybe it was just all these things.
— Alison Evans, Ida
How can she stand up there so tall as she’s telling us how her mother beat her and her father molested her when she was a little girl? How is it possible for her to look so proud? How is she not being consumed by shame? She should be disintegrating before our eyes. She should be struck by lightning, and God’s big, angry, booming voice should be shaking the room with “How dare you? I told you never to tell.” But that’s not her God, she says. Her God is loving and kind and wants what’s best for her. Her God loves peace and serenity and forgiveness. Her God doesn’t make her keep secrets. I thought I knew God all my life, but maybe it was some other guy the whole time. I want this God. I want Val’s God. I want a God who doesn’t make me jump through hoops and hate myself to earn his love.
— Amy Reed, Clean
She's always scorned his squeamishness, citing the replacement of his vagina with a dick. Joon thinks that's invasion of a far more nail-biting nature. She has no idea. It was fucking heaven. He'd do it again a million times over. And it's one hell of a long way from chopping open your head for the sake of more tech.
— Ren Warom, Escapology
Guilt keeps on coming today, and never feels any less awful. The thought hadn't even occured to try to see himself for her viewpoint. And it's no excuse for him to say he only knew she had one this morning. Here he is, apparently wanting to protect her, and he hasn't even paid her the common courtesy of trying to know her beyond the abstract concept...and all because she comes with a different personal pronoun.
— Ren Warom, Escapology
But i am a black man whose black mama's body and spirit were terrorized by another black man's hands and words. Sexism and patriarchy are not part of the revolution. I am a gender-maneuvering gay black man whose spirit was terrorized by other straight black men. Hetero-sexism and heteronormativity are not a part of our revolution. I am a black man who has ignored the plights of so many of my brothers. Separation because of difference and elitism based on class is not a part of the revolution.
— Kiese Laymon, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America
She was about to be married, and was frightened to death. And no-one would love her, ever again.
— Sarah Waters, Fingersmith
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.
— Sara Farizan, Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel
It's stillness and pressure and rhythm and breathing.
— Becky Albertalli, Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda
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
— Nina LaCour, You Know Me Well
Everyone's life matters and everyone deserves to be happy but not everyone is in a place where they think, or even believe, happiness is possible.
— Cheryl B. Evans, I Promised Not to Tell: Raising a Transgender Child
I liked Rafael. I liked listening to Rafael. I liked touching him. I liked it when he took me in his arms and made me feel like I belonged to him, like our hearts ran together as one, indistinct. Rafael was beautiful. Rafael was my heart's friend. I didn't understand how that meant I liked boys. As far as I knew, it only meant I liked Rafael.More than liked Rafael.
— Rose Christo, Gives Light
Forget 'pray the gay away.' I you're more turned on by an AR-15 than a pair of tits, time for some serious therapy. Time for all you gun-humpers to come out of the closet. Is this really about the 2nd Amendment and self-defense -- or just a pathetic fetish for guys with tiny pee-pees?
— Quentin R. Bufogle, Horse Latitudes
It is interesting how - depending on the person in power - our LGBT issues are either right at the top of the list - or right at the very bottom. And almost always for exactly the wrong reasons.
— Christina Engela, Inanna Rising: Women Forged in Fire
I wished for impossible things. It was never going to have been a fairy tale for us. There are no fairy tales about two princesses.
— Erin Bow, The Scorpion Rules
Transgender women do not think of themselves as men wearing women's clothing, they ARE women.
— Cheryl B. Evans, I Promised Not to Tell: Raising a Transgender Child
And if the best you can do is quote the Bible in defence of your prejudice, then have the humility to be consistent. The same book that exhorts against the abomination of one man lying with another also contains exhortations against the eating of pork and shell-fish and against menstruating women daring to come near holy places. It’s no good functionalistically claiming that kosher diet had its local, meteorological purposes now defunct, or that the prejudice against ovulation can be dispensed with as superstition, the Bible that you bash us with tells you that much of what you do is unclean: don’t pick and choose with a Revealed Text — or if you do, pick and choose the good bits, the bits that say things like ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone’, or ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself’.
— Stephen Fry, Moab Is My Washpot
The day Verdene left for England, a part of Margot left with her. Verdene has brought color back into her life. Before, everything was black-and-white: Make money or die trying. Feel pain or feel nothing at all.
— Nicole Dennis-Benn, Here Comes the Sun
Love is cursed by monogamy
— Kanye West
Avery doesn’t know what these people are talking about, and since he’s driving, he can’t go online to check. The sensation he has is a strange, difficult one. He knows these people aren’t talking about him. But at the same time they are talking about him, in their blanket dismissal. And they’re also talking about us. Because so many of them are our age or older, stuck in previous decades of thought. The gays of today, the gays of yesterday—we’re all the same bother, all the same wrong. Not people, really. Just something to yell about.
— David Levithan, Two Boys Kissing
Love Is Not A choice
— brendon urie
Maybe I wouldn’t ever be obligated to have sex with another person in order to make them stay with me. The thought was freeing: I wouldn’t have to pretend. It was just a matter of finding someone else who understood.
— Calista Lynne, We Awaken
Of course, I know that love is sometimes like that—some men love men, some women love women.
— Julie Eshbaugh, Ivory and Bone
When has a civilian ever stopped a mass shooting with an AR-15? An AR-15 is a perfect weapon for mass murderers -- not so much for self-defense. Would you bring an AR-15 along on a date? To your place of work? To the movies? If not, how can owning an AR-15 save your life in the event of a mass shooting? Why does the NRA keep telling us we need semi-automatic rifles for self-defense? Whose side are they really on?
— Quentin R. Bufogle
Jesus, Samara Jane, do you fuck your girlfriend with that mouth?” She tugs my lip between her teeth. “Only when she’s good.
— Dahlia Adler, Out on Good Behavior
My family subscribed to this rigid belief system. They were unaware of the reality that gender, like sexuality, exists on a spectrum. By punishing me, they were performing the socially sanctioned practice of hammering the girl out of me, replacing her with tenets of gender-appropriate behavior. Though I would grow up to fit neatly into the binary, I believe in self-determination, autonomy, in people having the freedom to proclaim who they are and define gender for themselves. Our genders are as unique as we are. No one's definition is the same, and compartmentalizing a person as either a boy or a girl based entirely on the appearance of genitalia at birth undercuts our complex life experiences.
— Janet Mock, Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More
Full citizenship was, and to a large degree still is, predicated on keeping 'unacceptable' behavior private. This complicated relationship between the public and private is at the heart of LGBT history and life today.
— Michael Bronski, A Queer History of the United States
Entertainment in its broadest sense- popular ballads, vaudeville, films, sculptures, plays, paintings, pornography, pulp novels-- has not only been a primary mode of expression of LGBT identity, but one of the most effective means of social change. Ironically, the enormous political power of these forms was often understood by the people who wanted to ban them, not by the people who were simply enjoying them.
— Michael Bronski, A Queer History of the United States
I want to understand about change--I don't just want to be at the mercy of it. I feel like I'm waking up inside. I want to know about history. I have all this new information about people like me down through the ages, but I don't know anything about the ages.
— Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues
I wasn’t raised in a household where it was considered abnormal to be gay. So for me to meet people who use the word 'faggot' as an insult, with a derogatory meaning, I can’t take it. I don’t understand it. It’s so foreign to me. I was raised in a household where being gay was like, the most normal thing. You know, my brother is gay, all of my best friends are gay. When my brother came out of the closet, it wasn’t a big deal for my family. Even my grandpa, who is like, super old-school, was like, Good for you! It’s outrageous to me when I see people hate on someone because of their sexuality. I hate the intolerance. I hate the judgment. I hate it so much. Most of my favorite people in my life are gay. It’s something I’m super passionate about, because whenever I would see my friends get bullied, or my brother get hurt for his sexuality, I would become a raging lunatic. I would literally become a raging lunatic because I just can’t take it. When you see someone you love hurting, for such a superficial, bullshit reason, it’s like, how small and spiritually unenlightened and dumb as fuck can a person be? How much further can your head get up your ass that you’re actually judging someone as a person based on their sexuality before you even have a conversation with them?
— Ariana Grande
I don’t check any particular box. I’ve never caught feelings for anyone because they were a male or a female. I feel for people because of who they are. Not what they are.
— Tammy Ferebee, Outsiders
Some things are more important than a rock show and this fight against prejudice and bigotry — which is happening as I write — is one of them.It is the strongest means I have for raising my voice in opposition to those who continue to push us backwards instead of forwards.
— Bruce Springsteen
As you, my fans, know I’m scheduled to play in Greensboro, North Carolina this Sunday. As we also know, North Carolina has just passed HB2, which the media are referring to as the ‘bathroom’ law. HB2 — known officially as the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act — dictates which bathrooms transgender people are permitted to use. Just as important, the law also attacks the rights of LGBT citizens to sue when their human rights are violated in the workplace.No other group of North Carolinians faces such a burden. To my mind, it’s an attempt by people who cannot stand the progress our country has made in recognizing the human rights of all of our citizens to overturn that progress. Right now, there are many groups, businesses, and individuals in North Carolina working to oppose and overcome these negative developments.Taking all of this into account, I feel that this is a time for me and the band to show solidarity for those freedom fighters. As a result, and with deepest apologies to our dedicated fans in Greensboro, we have canceled our show scheduled for Sunday, April 10th. Some things are more important than a rock show and this fight against prejudice and bigotry — which is happening as I write — is one of them. It is the strongest means I have for raising my voice in opposition to those who continue to push us backwards instead of forwards.
— Bruce Springsteen
After accepting the bitter truth of society, I set myself out to lead a life for myself entirely. I realized that the poisonous tentacles of society does not spare anyone, especially people like us. Once I realized that, I became strong from within.
— Santosh Avvannavar, She: Ekla Cholo Re
It takes some intelligence and insight to figure out you're gay and then a tremendous amount of balls to live it and live it proudly.
— Jason Bateman
It's just us, right?'Hannah walks to her. She touches her cheek and finds her eyes. There is a desperate light hanging on her pupils. A flicker of passion, a flicker of shame.'It's just us.
— Kelly Quindlen, Her Name in the Sky
I love you all.Not just the you that you show yourself as,but the you that is true.The you that is you.The you that is nothing else other than itself.
— Chris Oflying
All should be accepted, not excluded from the world. Men who hate others shed hate upon themselves. All should have trust, not broken faith.
— Saul Macomber
A huge part of what animates homophobia among young people is paranoia and fear of their own capacity to be gay themselves.
— J. Juvince
Throughout life the world may box you up and put you down.But no matter what.Everything you feel is valid and true.Everything you are is real and beautiful.Never let anyone deny you of that.
— Chris Oflying
I watched that film the other night and it embarrassed me. So dated, so coy, so evasively homosexual only a fellow homosexual might recognize the subtext.
— David Leavitt, While England Sleeps
Support Gay Liberation the whole way. But forget the practice. Nothing in it but the pain. They can say in public that I'm queer, but that doesn't mean I have to be. Tell the truth––then outwit it in private.
— Kate Millett, Flying
After the Stonewall riots the gay activists had their idealistic hearts in the right place but it turned out they had underestimated the realpolitik of organized crime. Indeed, as gay liberation blossomed in the wild 1970s the bars and bathhouses became increasingly lucrative enterprises, and the Mafia had no intention of abandoning a racket it had controlled for decades. The Mafia families maintained their control by exercising the proverbial carrot and stick. The wise guys seemingly embraced the gay rights movement and cut more so-called Auntie Gays into the action as their fronts, and resorted to violent threats and sometimes murder against others who refused to play ball with the crime families. There were few legitimate businessmen in gay nightlife of the 1970s.
— Phillip Crawford Jr., The Mafia and the Gays
She thought of people she had seen holding hands in movies, and why shouldn't she and Carol?
— Patricia Highsmith, The Price of Salt
It's official, then. Everyone knew I was gay before I did.
— Liz Kessler, Read Me Like a Book
Baz arched an elegant brow. "Are you going to snog the Humdrum-is that your plan? Because he's eleven. And he looks just like you. That's both vain and deviant, Snow, even for you.
— Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl
We were what seemed important then, not some label.
— Nancy Garden
I have heard an argument that transgender people oppress transsexual people because we are trying to tear down the categories of male and female. But isn't this the same reactionary argument used against transmen and transwomen by those who argue that any challenges to assigned birth sex threaten the categories of man and woman? Transgender people are not dismantling the categories of man and woman. We are opening up a world of possibilities in addition. Each of us has a right to our identities. To claim one group of downtrodden people is oppressing another by their self-identification is to swing your guns away from those who really do oppress us, and to aim them at those who are already under siege.
— Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue
The bag I wanted was beyond reason - something to hold my poems, twice as big as the universe and it must be androgynous.
— Eileen Myles
What is the bedrock on which all of our diverse trans populations can build solidarity? The commitment to be the best fighters against each other's oppression. As our activist network grows into marches and rallies of hundreds of thousands, we will hammer out language that demonstrates the sum total of our movement as well as its component communities.Unity depends on respect for diversity, no matter what tools of language are ultimately used. This is a very early stage for trans peoples with such diverse histories and blends of cultures to form community. Perhaps we don't have to strive to be one community. In reality, there isn't one women's, or lesbian, gay, bi community. What is realistic is the goal to build a coalition between our many strong communities in order to form a movement capable of defending all our lives.
— Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue
The hidden secret you are hiding is unbearable. The strength to come out is unbelievable. The joy once you come out is incredible. The relief I felt after coming out was life changing.
— Sara Deuidicibus
It loved to happen, " she repeated. "Isn't that it? What you were saying to Mum the other night? You know," she insisted when Willa must have looked blank. Louie lowered her voice. "About love and everything. You said it just happens, it isn't something you plan for or know about. It comes from outside and changes everything. It loved to happen. Like you and me.
— Paula Boock
I'm not society's version of beautiful But you're mine.
— R.J. Seeley, Jonathan
What happened was private. I was in it with Rose. She had hurt me grievously and now I was forever attached. I was in it now with all the women in the world. I walked home glad. I will die, I thought with a bounce in my step. I'm whole. Not whole like anyone else, but whole like me. Painful, but simple. It was very simple now.
— Eileen Myles, Inferno
It’s been four years since Justin kissed his best friend Lucas when they were both just 12. Then Justin, afraid of what it meant, afraid of how he felt, afraid of what it made him, ran and has been running from and avoiding Lucas for these four years. The thing about running is that no matter how fast you run, the past always catches up with you, and when faced with his past and all the things he’s missed, Justin finds he doesn’t want to run anymore. Now Justin wants to try to make things right with Lucas; he wants his best friend back. But maybe it's too late. Maybe Lucas has moved on. Read the story to find out if Justin is successful. This story isn't only about internalized homophobia and the hurtful things it leads gay kids to do to themselves and others. It is much more about truth, love and hurt and coming to terms with those things, forgiving yourself, and loving yourself enough to hold yourself accountable.
— JUVENALIUS
...How I adore you and want you. You can't know how much...I love belonging to you-- I glory in it, that you alone have bent me to your will, shattered my self-possession, robbed me of my mystery, and made me yours, so that away from you I am nothing but a useless puppet, an empty husk.
— Violet Trefusis, Violet to Vita: The Letters of Violet Trefusis to Vita Sackville-West, 1910-1921
It’s tough enough to be a straight boy in a small town high school looking for the love of your life. But at least your possible loves are all out in the open.
— JUVENALIUS
It’s never too late to find that one person who can change you, for a reason, a season or a lifetime.
— Skye High, From Darkness To Diva
Living in a world of darkness doesn't mean we must surrender, but to survive, we need to occasionally unleash the diva from within.
— Skye High, From Darkness To Diva
Without people coming in to our lives we never evolve, we just remain stagnant. Surely there is more to life than standing still whilst letting it pass you by. What’s even worse, is living a life pretending to be someone, or something that you believe others want you to be.
— Skye High, From Darkness To Diva
Juvenalius, 15 and gay, has been raised in a difficult family and has been held in his aunt's Diana suffocating iron grip for all of his life. He has been made to feel worthless and ashamed; with no freedom, only obedience. Yet this begins to change one day when he meets a boy named Davis at his high school who has drawn the meaningful letter 'C' on his right hand. Now Juvenalius has hope but his behavioral changes are seen as an act of defiance in his aunt's eyes until she catches Juvenalius and Davis kissing out back under the school's library windows. Then Juve's life is unexpectedly transformed.
— JUVENALIUS
I was on my way to talk to Davis when the car hit me". . . . . . "A dark figure emerged from the shadows, half-lit by the glittering streetlight and the pale glow of the moon". . . . . . . "Huge black wings erupted out of her back like a blooming rose. She was beautiful." . . . . "I knew who this woman was.’Are you Death?'" . . . . . “'Most people have something holding them down to this world,' she said, 'like a tether on a balloon. It could be something material, a person, or persons, an unfinished goal. There are many reasons to want to keep living. I wonder, Juvenalius, what is yours?'I smiled just thinking about it. 'His name’s Davis.'Her hand stroked my cheek so gently I wanted to cry. 'Tell me about him,' she whispered."And Juvenalius does. And you will be transfixed as Juve's first friend comes to life in his memory in this Tale with a gay twist.
— JUVENALIUS
Juvenalius has problems... though like most kids on the threshold of sexual awareness he only knows life sucks... he isn't clear about why. His mother rants on and on about the iniquity of his school having a gay straight alliance. She's quite safe about that, as Ryan is too shy to join, or is that scared? His only friend is a dog so the question of boy or girl-friend hardly arises... until he gets a valentine... from the least likely boy in the school.
— JUVENALIUS
Church is so confusing for Juvenalius. His new pastor preaches nothing but hate and condemnation of gays and lesbians, but no matter how carefully he reads his Bible, he can’t find where it says God hates him. Will things change when Juve's boyfriend Devis suggests that they all go to his church instead?
— JUVENALIUS
What's it like for a young teen of barely 14, trying to cope with all the normal problems of adolescence, and wrestling with the realization that he's gay on top of all that? Juvenalius struggles with accepting himself and with the idea of coming out, as well as trying to find a boy who he can love and be loved back in return. Narrated by him, find out how he deals with it all and how those important to his life help.
— JUVENALIUS
It’s much, much tougher when you’re a 17 year-old gay boy, part of only 10% or less of the school population and your possible loves are all in hiding, just as you are, due to the fear of being socially ostracized, laughed at, condemned and physically harassed by your peers.
— JUVENALIUS
Maybe some people enter in your life to create wonderful memories before they leave. Its hard to come to terms with that whether they walk away alive or dead.The only thing we can do is keeping that person in your memory as long as you can. That person does not need to please you like a girlfriend or a boy-friend but they can make you happy.That person does not need to cherish you like parents, but they can give you warmth & they are always ready to protect you.That person does not need to make us laugh at all times like friends, but they can make you smile.That some one who you won't go into hysterics when they leave, but they will always be in your memory forever
— JUVENALIUS
Maybe some people enter in your life to create wonderful memories before they leave. Its hard to come to terms with that whether they walk away alive or dead.The only thing we can do is keeping that person in your memory as long as you can. That person does not need to please you like a girlfriend or a boy-friend but they can make you happy.That person does not need to cherish you like parents, but they can give you warmth & they are always ready to protect you.That person does not need to make us laugh at all times like friends, but they can make you smile.That some one who you won't go into hysterics when they leave, but they will always be in your memory forever.
— JUVENALIUS
Maybe some people enter in your life to create wonderful memories before they leave. Its hard to come to terms with that whether they walk away alive or dead.The only thing we can do is keeping that person in your memory as long as you can. That person does not need to please you like a girlfriend or a boy-friend but they can make you happy.That person does not need to cherish you like parents, but they can give you warmth & they are always ready to protect you.That person does not need to make us laugh at all times like friends, but they can make you smile.That some one who you won't go into hysterics when they leave, but they will always be in your memory forever. JUVENALIUS
— JUVENALIUS
We Boys and Men need to know how to Love. Though It may sometimes hurt, we need to persevere and party it out.
— JUVENALIUS
The greatest people and most successful ones are the ones who never went to school . Sure.
— JUVENALIUS
With those shared personal stories and our own valued experiences we all, sometimes unknowingly, have a unique quality to impress vast and contrasting individual footprints onto this world. You may not relate to me as a drag queen, or even a gay man for that matter. However if you take away that small portion of my life, you’ll soon discover that I’m just like someone who’s already a part of your life, that you’re close to. First and foremost, I am someone’s son, someone’s best friend, someone’s partner or someone who you may perhaps meet on the street one day, extending his hand to you when you need it the most, without judgment or hatred.
— Skye High, From Darkness To Diva
Nothing and no one in the world could kill the love I have for you. I have surrendered my whole individuality, the very essence of my being to you. I have given you my body time after time to treat as you pleased. All the hoardings of my imagination I have laid bare to you. There isn't a recess in my brain into which you haven't penetrated. I have clung to you and caressed you and slept with you and I would like to tell the whole world that I clamour for you. You are my lover and I am your mistress, and kingdoms and empires and governments have tottered and succumbed before now to that mighty combination-- the most powerful in the world.
— Violet Trefusis
I imagined a time when being gay is as unquestioned and un-judged as is having blue eyes. Some might call it fantasy or science fiction. I’d like to think it’s the future.
— Missouri Vaun, All Things Rise
That lovely face sets off a fire inside me that isn't ever supposed to burn.
— Robin Talley, Lies We Tell Ourselves
We're all rejected people, we know what it is to be refused, we know what it is to be oppressed, depressed, and then, accused, and I am very much cognizant of that feeling. Nothing in the world is more painful than rejection. I am a rejected, oppressed person, and so I understand them, as best as I can, even though I am a ❗☒
— Eartha Kitt
We're all rejected people, we know what it is to be refused, we know what it is to be oppressed, depressed, and then, accused, and I am very much cognizant of that feeling. Nothing in the world is more painful than rejection. I am a rejected, oppressed person, and so I understand them, as best as I can, even though I am a heterosexual.
— Eartha Kitt
Being lesbian isn't a way of life, it's a trivial attribute that doesn't change your character.
— Lisa Wheeler
Everyone's got their own way of loving. There's no such thing as 'supposed to
— Rachel Manija Brown
I was always thinking in terms of too much or not enough, rarely allowing myself that crucial space in between. Except when he was around. Except when we were really together. Then I could forget—I couldn’t turn it off, but I could forget to turn it on. Gradually, the columns began to tip. I lost track of keeping track. In order to let us be, I let myself be.
— David Levithan, Wide Awake
And for a moment I though I would tell her, that it would be the easiest and the slightest thing imaginable- that after all, if anyone would understand it, she would. That I need only say, 'I am in love, Helen! I am in love! There is a girl so rare and marvelous and strange, and- Helen, she has all my life in her!
— Sarah Waters
I told myself all sorts of lies, standing there at the bar, but I could not move. And this was partly because I knew that it did not really matter anymore; it did not even matter if I never spoke to Giovanni again; for they had become visible, as visible as the wafers on the shirt of the flaming princess, they stormed all over me, my awakening, my insistent possibilities.
— James     Baldwin
Ben shook his head.Sitting down he asked, “So, you are Marty, right?”He got an incredulous look in response along with a cautious, “Yeah.”“You look way different dressed like that and without any make up on and stuff. Like a pretty guy almost, no offense.”Marty widened her eyes incredulously. “Umm...I have a confession here I obviously need to make. We're in public, so don't you dare punch me, or try to jump me later. I got witnesses who'll be able to verify I was here with you and that you threatened me.”Ben's brows furrowed. “What? Why would I do that?”“Hello, my name is Marty.” Marty extended her hand across the table. “I'm a guy.
— Leona Windwalker, Ben's Beginning
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
Love isn’t a choice. You fall for the person, not their chromosomes.
— I.W. Gregorio, None of the Above
When I was a boy, I used to wake up thinking that the world was ending.
— Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
You have to join every other movement for the freedom of people.
— Bayard Rustin
Then they began saying, "Get hold of him. Put him in Mercury." Now as you know I have two sculptures by Brancusi and several pretty things and I did not want them to start getting rough, so I said, pacifically, "Dear sweet clodhoppers, if you knew anything of sexual psychology you would know that nothing could give me keener pleasure than to be manhandled by you meaty boys. It would be an ecstasy of the very naughtiest kind. So if any of you wishes to be my partner in joy come and seize me. If, on the other hand, you simply wish to satisfy some obscure and less easily classified libido and see me bathe, come with me quietly, dear louts, to the fountain.
— Evelyn Waugh
I had never really thought of marriages as things that involved liking. I had just assumed this man-woman arrangement was yet another adult quirk, like flossing.
— David Levithan, Boy Meets Boy
I tried not to laugh. I thought about how my Southern Baptist friends would respond to the suggestion that their entire denomination was making people gay.
— Justin Lee, Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate
I can tell from the glint in her eyes that she’s at least an acquaintance of Dorothy.
— David Levithan, Boy Meets Boy
does it ever get easier?is there an end to these questions?do you have any answers?will you say them to me?can you stop this unraveling?will you bring me your closure?or am I the only onewho sees anymore?who sees . . .who sees . . .who sees?
— David Levithan, The Realm of Possibility
(Note: I realize this is horrifying. Just keep reading.) "Turn to Leviticus 20:13, because I actually discovered the cure for AIDS. If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them. And that, my friend, is the cure for AIDS. It was right there in the Bible all along — and they’re out spending billions of dollars in research and testing. It’s curable — right there. Because if you executed the homos like God recommends, you wouldn’t have all this AIDS running rampant."This is an American pastor openly calling for the death of all homosexuals. The anti-gay movement is now so extreme, some, (not all) call for genocide. So how about instead of Alex from Target or pumpkin spice lattes, we get this out on the media. Because this is disgusting. No one should have to be called worthless, better in death, for a problem they did not cause. AIDS did not start with homosexuals, and it's not going to end with them. The only thing that has to end is hate like this.
— Anomymous pastor and myself
It's difficult to make the argument that one female fist inserted into one male ass--or, for that matter, dozens or even hundreds of fists inserted into as many asses--can really make a difference for, say, lesbian mothers fighting for custody of their children. -Katherine Raymond
— Carol Queen, PoMoSexuals: Challenging Assumptions About Gender and Sexuality
They'll never know we were here.
— Danny M. Cohen, Train
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.
— Emily M. Danforth, The Miseducation of Cameron Post
What do you call it when a straight person comes out? ... A conversation
— Bill Konigsberg, Openly Straight
Every single courageous act of coming out chips away at the curse of homophobia. Most importantly it's destroyed within yourself, and that act creates the potential for its destruction where it exists in friends, family and society.
— Anthony Venn-Brown, A Life of Unlearning - a journey to find the truth
We do not choose the one we fall in love with, and our perception of happiness is our own and is determined by what we experience...
— Julie Maroh
The Santa Ana Windgusts downdesert canyons.Hot. Dry. Electric.Some say it ignites tempers.I say it ignited us.
— Kristin Elizabeth Clark, Freakboy
Mum,” she frowned “if one has freedom of worship to either be a Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist or pagan: why can’t one have freedom to marry whoever or whatever one loves?
— S.A.  David, 7 Flash
It's important to remember that having a conversation about us (LGBT) without us will usually be a recycling or preconceived ideas and misconceptions. Can you imagine a group of male church leaders discussing the role of women in the church without females present. We would call that misogyny. Or church leadership discussing indigenous issues without ever consulting with indigenous people themselves to get insight into what their life experience is really all about. We would call that white supremacy/racism/elitism. The church has done a great deal of talking about us but rarely has spoken with us. So when church leaders discuss LGBT people, relationships and the community without speaking with or spending time getting to know LGBT people it does beg the question why. What is there to fear? Why the exclusion? Is this another evidence of homophobia? It's time for the church to invite LGBT people into the conversation. For some this is a conversation about their thoughts and beliefs but for us it is about who we are. You can ask questions. What was it like to sit in church and hear the word abomination to describe your orientation. What was it like to get to the point of coming out knowing you might be rejected by those you've loved and a church you've served.? How did you find resolution of your Christian beliefs and your sexuality? In listening you will learn. That's why it's so important to remember. No conversation about us, without us.
— Anthony Venn-Brown
A review of 850 research papers concluded that people with religious involvement and belief system have better mental health outcomes. They have higher levels of psychological well-being such as life satisfaction, happiness, positive effect, and higher morale and less depression and suicide. If however you are gay or lesbian (in the closet or your sexuality/belief system unresolved)…….. it is the exact opposite….it can drive you crazy or kill you (suicide). Also it should be noted that this research has shown that the very places where Christian young people should feel safest (in their churches, Christian homes, schools and with friends) are actually places of harm.
— Anthony Venn-Brown, A Life of Unlearning - a journey to find the truth
The different strategies and visions of ‘reformists’ and ‘radicals’ are not the only subject of major debate within lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer politics. The fact is that only a tiny minority of non-heterosexuals are involved in any sort of political activism. Various writers and activists have noted with rising alarm an almost mass depoliticisation of lesbian and gay communities in the 1990s. The crass commercialism of the gay scene and the rise of the so-called pink pound and of ‘lifestyle’ as a signifier of sexual identity (and human worth) has allowed huge profits to be reaped. Playing on the insecurities of people sells ‘packages’ which can include everything from ‘gay apartments’ to ‘gay holidays’ and ‘gay clothes’ to designer drugs.
— Richard Dunphy, Sexual Politics