Isabel Quintero Quotes

I don't want us to be ashamed anymore (we all were crying by this point) of being pregnant or gay or poor or having a crackhead dad! I want us to be fucking proud of ourselves. (...) So we have to be proud and always remember who we are and when we make it to college, who we were.

Why is every mom's concern about sex? There are more important things in life, like school, careers, poetry, books, ice cream, or learning how to make the perfect chocolate cake. It's so damn frustrating.

This skin thing always pisses me off. What I need is a nopal on my forehead to let the world know about my roots. One of those flat cactus plants that my grandpa grew behind the house before he died--nopal en la frente. Yup. That would solve all my problems.

The way my tia looks at Raul is the way I look at Martin. He makes her happy and helps her see that she is stronger than she thought she was. It's not that he makes her stronger, but he definitely helps her see that she has been strong all along.

If words are our weapons, we must ask ourselves, why should we use rocks and sticks when we have tanks available?

Do not forget about the thorns on the roses
when you say that love is like a red red rose.

Love is like a white geranium.
It grows like a weed
overpowering the ground–
if you don't take care of it
prune it
shape it
it climbs walls
and hides
insects
that slowly eat at it
making it die.
Easily grown
and easily withered.

…by Tracie Morris, "Project Princess." It's about a girl from the projects who doesn't care what people think about her - she just does what makes her feel confident. Then I looked myself straight in the eyes and said, "Gabi, get over it. You look spectacular. You look amazing, so stop your bitching or do something that makes you feel better." I took a deep breath and took off my shorts and shirt and stepped out on the beach like I owned that shit and didn't give a fuck about all the skinny girls around me. After a while, I didn't feel like an outsider and nobody made comments or even cared about what I looked like. The other think about being fat is that you spend too much damn time worrying about being fat and that takes time away from having fun. But I decided today would be different. And it was." Gabi, p 273

And if anyone has trouble understanding that, well, they can kiss my ass.

People are who they are no matter how much you want them to be somebody else, Gabi. And we have two choices: love and accept them with all their faults. Or not. In my case, my parents are choosing to not accept me because I can't change, and I won't pretend to be something I'm not. Your dad was addict because that is what he wanted to be. There was nothing you could have done to change that." Sebastian, p278

I am going to have a grilled cheese sandwich and think about this precarious situation

We are all fragments of one another, strewn across... borders.