Quasi-Queer Quotes

The new year has made me want to try something new with this blog. So in addition to my super sporadic essays, I’ve decided to post monthly collections of quotes. This first bunch includes mostly old favorites and a few from recent reading. After some of them, I’ve offered commentary. I let the quotes determine the categories, and I’ll add more categories each month if they emerge from the quotes I encounter in my teaching, researching, leisure reading, and remembering.

Lately, I’ve been feeling a memorializing impulse and pondering my legacy. Because so much of my life revolves around reading, what better way to portray myself and my values than to share the words that have made me me? I hope my quotes lead you to think about ones that have shaped you, and I hope you share at least some of them in the comments.

I’ve also been trying to live more mindfully, so why not read more mindfully? Why not take the time to record the bits I like? I used to do this quite a lot in my youth, and I’ve always adored books of quotations.

In fact, I remember gleefully discovering and purchasing this book (perhaps at Art’s Bookstore in downtown Atlantic, IA?):

Peter’s Quotations came out in 1977. I would have bought it when I was fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. Note the extravagant subtitles. Not just “Ideas for Our Times,” but also “From Socrates to Yogi Berra” and “Gems of Brevity, Wit and Wisdom.” I tell you, I needed that book! And I didn’t just dip in and out of it. Oh no, I read it straight through, pausing to record the quotes I liked best (in cursive on paper) and illustrating a few. My own compendium of a compendium. Oh how I wish I still had those notes! But they have gone the way of my Encyclopedia Brown story (early fan fiction!).

Rabbit hole: I couldn’t resist doing a little research on Peter’s Quotations. Either I already had a sturdy love for organizational schemes when I encountered the book, or the book contributed to this love. Each category starts with humorous and defining quotes, moves to serious ideas, and closes with pairs of similar or contrasting quotes. I do not plan such an elaborate organization for my monthly quotes, but I gotta be honest, it warms my heart. That and all the glorious cross-referencing!

I also couldn’t resist comparing my categories to Peter’s. Not surprisingly, he did not include Queer or Gender (He did include Women & Women’s Lib, but not Men. In 1977, all the quotes were about men!). But he also didn’t include Mystery (neither the novel nor the awe). And he cross-referenced Soul and God with Religion–to which I just say no.

Digression within rabbit hole: one thing I love about the internet is that you can find images of the covers of books you foolishly gave away. There they are on the screen just as you remember them!

Speaking of giving away books: More recently, but before I got the idea to post quotes on my blog, I rescued this book from a box of books that Ben and I are planning to take to the annual Shelter House Book Sale.

Quotes That Will Change Your Life. Clearly, I have a life-long penchant for wild promises. But I do sort of agree with the quote on the back cover. It’s from the Talmud and new to me: “A quotation at the right moment is like bread to the famished.”

Why do I call my “bread” Quasi-Queer Quotes? Besides the fact that I cannot resist alliteration? Many of the quotes are by queer writers, and the gatherer of these quotes, yours truly, is queer. Some of the quotes have shaped my own queer identity, and some have sparked queer joy.

I hope they offer all of you some sort of spark too. Here are this month’s quotes:

Gender

Gender “at once means so much and signifies nothing.”
—Helen Boyd, She’s Not the Man I Married (2007)
This is such an important, thought-provoking paradox.

God

“But what do it look like? I ast.
Don’t look like nothing, she say. It ain’t a picture show. It ain’t something you can look at apart from anything else, including yourself. I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you’ve found It.
Shug a beautiful something, let me tell you. She frown a little, look out cross the yard, lean back in her chair, look like a big rose.
She say, My first step from the old white man was trees. Then air. Then birds. Then other people. But one day when I was sitting quiet and feeling like a motherless child, which I was, it come to me: that feeling of being part of everything, not separate at all. I knew that if I cut a tree, my arm would bleed. And I laughed and I cried and I run all around the house. I knew just what it was. In fact, when it happen, you can’t miss it. It sort of like you know what, she say, grinning and rubbing high up on my thigh.
Shug! I say.
Oh, she say. God love all them feelings. That’s some of the best stuff God did. And when you know God loves ’em you enjoys ’em a lot more. You can just relax, go with everything that’s going, and praise God by liking what you like.
God don’t think it dirty? I ast.
Naw, she say. God made it. Listen, God love everything you love–and a mess of stuff you don’t. But more than anything else, God love admiration.
You saying God vain? I ast.
Naw, she say. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.
What it do when it pissed off? I ast.
Oh, it make something else. People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.”
—Alice Walker, The Color Purple
This conversation between the novel’s protagonist, Celie, and her friend and lover, Shug, reveals a spirituality that I wish I had been raised with. It’s a spirituality that I try to embrace and that I wish everyone embraced. Let’s chase the “old white man” out of our heads and hearts! Let’s conjure vast fields of purple. Purple has always been my favorite color, and every time I see it (every time the asters bloom in our yard) I think of Walker’s words here. The Color Purple is also important to me because it’s rare to find a bisexual character in a classic novel, and Shug is an interesting one.

Grief

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.
—Archibald MacLeish, “Ars Poetica”

Joy

“Find the good and praise it.”
—Madison Babcock (1892); popularized by Alex Haley
I first heard this gem from my friend Michelle in grad school. If I could follow only one piece of advice, this would be it.

“Does it matter whether you hate your…self?
At least Love your eyes that can see, your mind that can
Hear the music, the thunder of the wings. Love the wild swan.”
—Robinson Jeffers, “Love the Wild Swan”
These are the poem’s final lines. The last four words urge us to wake up. The poem also reminds me of the time when I rounded a bend on the pond at Terry Trueblood and encountered at least fifty pelicans. When they took flight together, the flapping of their wings was God’s whisper.

“What larks!”
—Joe Gargery in Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (1860-61)
Joe is one of my fav fictional father figures, a playful man who loves lavishly. The appeal of his catch-phrase is obvious. I sometimes sign letters or emails with it.

“The ocean of suffering is immense, but if you turn around, you can see the land. The seed of suffering in you may be strong, but don’t wait until you have no more suffering before allowing yourself to be happy. When one tree in the garden is sick, you have to care for it. But don’t overlook all the healthy trees. Even while you have pain in your heart, you can enjoy the many wonders of life–the beautiful sunset, the smile of a child, the many flowers and trees. To suffer is not enough. Please don’t be imprisoned by your suffering.”
—Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching

Learning

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
—Algernon in Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
Witty and all-purpose, this line helps me accept my own messy emotional truths. It’s also near the top of my syllabus for LGBTQ+ Literature.

“Only connect.”
—epigraph from E.M. Forster, Howards End
Also on my LGBTQ+ Literature syllabus. Not just good advice for learning, but also for living, loving, creating, blogging—you name it.

Love

“Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.”
—Janie in Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

“The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—”
—Archibald MacLeish, “Ars Poetica”

Those Winter Sundays
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?”
—Robert Hayden
This gorgeous poem is a poignant reminder that love takes many forms. It also explores the pain of looking at your parents through adult eyes.

“…Love is not love
That alters when it alteration finds…”
—William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116

Mystery

“There are more things in heaven and earth…than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
—Hamlet to his friend Horatio in Shakespeare’s Hamlet 1.5
Hamlet’s words keep us humble, but they also hold out the hope of discovery. They reveal both the limits and the potential of the human imagination. Most of all, they encourage me to use my imagination and to keep an open mind.

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep…”
—Robert Frost, “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening”

“A poem should not mean,
But be.”
—Archibald MacLeish, “Ars Poetica”

Paradox

“Less is more.”

Queer (Identity, Community, Being)

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
—Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself 51

Soul/Spirit

“Be still, and know that I am God.”
­—Psalm 46.10
This was the favorite Biblical passage of Kathy South, my partner Ben’s Aunt Cece, who recently passed away. It helps me feel close to her and reminds me of a silent Quaker meeting that Ben and I attended with her and her husband, Colin. I also call the words to mind when I need to summon calm or want to be more aware of God’s presence.

Of Mere Being
“The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze decor,

A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.

You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.

The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird’s fire-fangled feathers dangle down.”
—Wallace Stevens
This poem reminds me of Anne Lamott’s discussion of the soul in Dusk Night Dawn (2021), a book Ben gave me. “Who is the watcher, deeply inside?” Lamott asks, and she responds with this idea from Adyashanti: “…the part of you that knows you’re afraid isn’t afraid.” Also, I love the image and sounds of the poem’s final line. They help me with my modest mindfulness practice.

Writing

“Writers from a minority, write as if you are the majority. Do not explain. Do not cater. Do not translate. Do not apologize.”
—Viet Thanh Nguyen

“Precise is nice, and specific is terrific.”
—Jeanne Howorth, my ninth-grade English teacher
Unless my memory is playing hilarious pranks on me, I recall Miss Howorth making our class march in a circle around the room chanting this. I share her wisdom with my students, but I wouldn’t dream of asking them to march. I can barely get them to leave their desks and form small groups.

“Brevity is the soul of wit.”
—Polonius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet
Yes, it’s foolish to quote a fool—especially, in this context, a long-winded fool. But Polonius is right. Unless you’re writing a novel, keep it short.  

Your turn! Please share quotes that you love.