Gabby Rivera Quotes

Be brave, America. Be soft. Remember to twist the value sometimes and release all the pressure inside. What you've been through doesn't have to be what you are or who you become.

You will meet people who'll change the course of your life forever. Learn when to hold onto yourself and when to fly directly into the storm.

Who needs a girlfriend when you have abandonment issues and super-powers?

Make your own religion out of doubt and curiosity.

It felt good to pray,to remember to give thanks and feel connected to something beyond the confusion of being human.

At any given moment, millions of systems are at work all around us. The blood pumping through our veins. The planets. The food chain. They're all super-specific systems linked to one another. Some of the systems occur organically as a greater part of the universe, like surprises and sunsets. But others are just made-up. Like, why is the school day eight hours long? And why is it that, even though I'm the smartest person in the world, I can't vote? The arbitrariness of it all is the thing that drives me nuts.

The world is filled with enough room to flee at any moment. In

It made me wonder about all the ways that we are able to love each other and how movies and TV make it seem like you have to discard people once they break your heart or once the love disappears.

Forge your path. Crack your ancestors wide open. By any means necessary, unearth your roots.

Scrape knees for love. Tell hard truths for love. And definitely run heart-first into the unknown for love. Try to have a plan. But if you don't, make sure you have people. You coming, mi gente?

We lived loud and hard against a neighborhood built to contain us. We moved like the earth pushing its way through cement sidewalks.

(...)my love for you is deeper than anything that happened between us. My love for you is the sun, the sky, and the moon. It's the air I breathe. It lives in everything I do. It's better than good. It's everlasting.

For me, everything was internal. I had all the what-if words and fuck-yous in my heart, but they didn't ever come out.

You'll meet people that you love who fuck up constantly. You'll learn how to weed out the assholes from the warriors. You'll know what groups of people to stay away from because they're not safe spaces for your heart. You'll learn when to forgive human error and when to eradicate the unworthy from your spirit.

You can't just go punching a bunch of kids in the face. Remember, you were once that kid looking for someone, anyone to connect to. That's still you.

Libraries are safe but also exciting. Libraries are where nerds like me go to refuel. They are safe-havens where the polluted noise of the outside world, with all the bullies and bro-dudes and anti-feminist rhetoric, is shut out. Libraries have zero tolerance for bullshit. Their walls protect us and keep us safe from all the bastards that have never read a book for fun.

How was I supposed to survive here? These Portlanders were an entirely different breed of white people.

It made sense that these adult women worked hard on their friendships, even when sex and romantic love weren't part of the equation. It made me wonder about all the ways that we are able to love each other and how movies and TV make it seem like you have to discard people once they break your heart or once the love disappears. Maybe that was a horrible lie, a complete disservice to real love.

When boys talked, it sounded like feral dogs barking. They fiended for attention, were always aggressive, and made me wish I could put them down.

(...)my mom was the gravitational pull that kept me stuck to this Earth

All of the moments where I was made to feel like an outsider in a group that was supposed to have room for me added up and left me feeling so much shame.

Seriously, some of my best friends are libraries.

Every day that we exist on this planet the forces of white men in power are aimed at policing women's bodies and subjugating our identities to make us feel lesser than, to control us through physical and economic annihilation.

If it's a phase, so what? If it's your whole life, who cares? You're destined to evolve and understand yourself in ways you never imagined before. And you've got our blood running through your beautiful veins, so no matter what, you've been blessed with the spirit of women who know how to love.

Reading would make me brilliant, but writing would make me infinite.

I'm going to love you without being in love with you.

Read because you're tired of secrets.

Get a little hysterical, Juliet. I mean that's why vibrators were invented, right?

Make plans. Train your body. Follow the guiding spirits. Be ready for anything, but never seek control. It's an illusion. You control nothing. At any point, the universe can come for you--with all its might and love and chaos.

I understood 'microaggressions' to mean 'little bullshit acts of racism.

How am I supposed to be this honest? I know you're not a Magic 8 Ball. You're just some lady that wrote a book. I fall asleep with that book in my arms because words protect hearts and I've got this ache in my chest that won't go away. I read Raging Flower and now I dream of raised fists and solidarity marches led by matriarchs fueled by café con leche where I can march alongside cigar-smoking doñas and Black Power dykes and all the world's weirdos and no one is left out. And no one is living a lie.