53 Lgbt+ Quotes

In a world where love and identity can often be met with challenges, words hold immense power. They can inspire, comfort, and unite. That's why we've gathered a carefully curated collection of the top 53 LGBT+ quotes to celebrate diversity, resilience, and pride. Whether you're seeking motivation, solace, or a reminder that you are never alone, these quotes offer a beacon of hope and a testament to the beauty of living authentically. Let's dive into these powerful words from iconic figures, allies, and trailblazers who continue to shape and support the LGBT+ community.

1. “Self pity becomes your oxygen. But you learned to breathe it without a gasp. So, nobody even notices you're hurting.” - Paul Monette

2. “What sexual preference do you hope she has?” “Happiness.” Isnt that cool?” - Francesca Lia Block

3. “If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.” - Harvey Milk

4. “Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are.” - Quentin Crisp

5. “The only queer people are those who don't love anybody.” - Rita Mae Brown

6. “We’re sick of hearing people say, “That band is so gay,” or “Those guys are fags.” Gay is not a synonym for shitty. If you wanna say something’s shitty, say it’s shitty. Stop being such homophobic assholes.” - Pete Wentz

7. “Humanity was a passing notion to him; something he liked to try on for size and model in the dressing room, but never actually felt compelled to buy.” - Jane Bled

8. “After some years of muddled thinking on the subject, he suddenly saw quite clearly what it was he had been running away from; why he had refused Sandy's first invitation, and what the trouble had been with Charles. It was also the trouble, he perceived, with nine-tenths or the people here tonight. They were specialists. They had not merely accepted their limitations, as Laurie was ready to accept his, loyal to his humanity if not to his sex, and bringing an extra humility to the hard study of human experience. They had identified themselves with their limitations; they were making a career of them. They had turned from all other reality, and curled up in them snugly, as in a womb.” - Mary Renault

9. “This is a team of gay dudes, isn't it?"What gave it away? The pink shirts, or half our team drooling over you?” - Simone Elkeles

10. “But where was God now, with heaven full of astronauts, and the Lord overthrown? I miss God. I miss the company of someone utterly loyal. I still don't think of God as my betrayer. The servants of God, yes, but servants by their very nature betray. I miss God who was my friend. I don't even know if God exists, but I do know that if God is your emotional role model, very few human relationships will match up to it. I have an idea that one day it might be possible, I thought once it had become possible, and that glimpse has set me wandering, trying to find the balance between earth and sky. If the servants hadn't rushed in and parted us, I might have been disappointed, might have snatched off the white samite to find a bowl of soup. As it is, I can't settle, I want someone who is fierce and will love me until death and know that love is as strong as death, and be on my side for ever and ever. I want someone who will destroy and be destroyed by me. There are many forms of love and affection, some people can spend their whole lives together without knowing each other's names. Naming is a difficult and time-consuming process; it concerns essences, and it means power. But on the wild nights who can call you home? Only the one who knows your name. Romantic love has been diluted into paperback form and has sold thousands and millions of copies. Somewhere it is still in the original, written on tablets of stone. I would cross seas and suffer sunstroke and give away all I have, but not for a man, because they want to be the destroyer and never the destroyed.” - Jeanette Winterson

11. “Let's make no mistake about this: The American Dream starts with the neighborhoods. If we wish to rebuild our cities, we must first rebuild our neighborhoods. And to do that, we must understand that the quality of life is more important than the standard of living. To sit on the front steps--whether it's a veranda in a small town or a concrete stoop in a big city--and to talk to our neighborhoods is infinitely more important than to huddle on the living-room lounger and watch a make-believe world in not-quite living color....And I hardly need to tell you that in the 19- or 24-inch view of the world, cleanliness has long since eclipsed godliness. Soon we'll all smell, look, and actually be laboratory clean, as sterile on the inside as on the out. The perfect consumer, surrounded by the latest appliances. The perfect audience, with a ringside seat to almost any event in the world, without smell, without taste, without feel--alone and unhappy in the vast wasteland of our living rooms. I think that what we actually need, of course, is a little more dirt on the seat of our pants as we sit on the front stoop and talk to our neighbors once again, enjoying the type of summer day where the smell of garlic travels slightly faster than the speed of sound.” - Harvey Milk

12. “The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right. Without hope, not only gays, but the blacks, the seniors, the handicapped, the us'es, the us'es will give up. And if you help elect to the central committee and other offices, more gay people, that gives a green light to all who feel disenfranchised, a green light to move forward. It means hope to a nation that has given up, because if a gay person makes it, the doors are open to everyone. So if there is a message I have to give, it is that if I've found one overriding thing about my personal election, it's the fact that if a gay person can be elected, it's a green light. And you and you and you, you have to give people hope....” - Harvey Milk

13. “It's astonishing the amount of time that certain straight people devote to gay sex - trying to determine what goes where and how often. They can't imagine any system outside their own, and seem obsessed with the idea of roles, both in bed and out of it. Who calls whom a bitch? Who cries harder when the cat dies? Which one spends the most time in the bathroom? I guess they think that it's that cut-and-dried, though of course it's not. Hugh might do the cooking, and actually wear an apron while he's at it, but he also chops the firewood, repairs the hot-water heater, and could tear off my arm with no more effort than it takes to uproot a dandelion.” - David Sedaris

14. “['non-white' gay men] are run over at the intersection of racism and homophobia” - Eric C. Wat

15. “I've always known I was gay, but it wasn't confirmed until I was in kindergarten.It was my teacher who said so. It was right there on my kindergarten report card: PAUL IS DEFINITELY GAY AND HAS VERY GOOD SENSE OF SELF.” - David Levithan

16. “With ignorance comes fear- from fear comes bigotry. Education is the key to acceptance.” - Kathleen Patel

17. “Sentencing enhancements won't get police to investigate crimes they don't take seriously to begin with. They won't stop police from harassing trans women on the street because they assume all trans women are sex workers. They won't have any effect against police officers who believe they won't be held accountable. They won't sway the minds of jurors who think 'I killed her because she was trans' is an adequate excuse. Sentencing enhancements will allow them to dole out harsher punishments against the people they think are more deserving. And we already know that the legal system sees people of color, women, sex workers, immigrants, and the homeless as more deserving of punishment. (Tobi Hill-Meyer of COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere), "Disposable People," November 11, 2008, http://nodesignation.com)” - Kay Whitlock

18. “Do not hope to understand the source of my understanding.” - Thomas Fitzgerald

19. “There’s a Greek legend—no, it’s in something Plato wrote—about how true lovers are really two halves of the same person. It says that people wander around searching for their other half, and when they find him or her, they are finally whole and perfect. The thing that gets me is that the story says that originally all people were really pairs of people, joined back to back, and that some of the pairs were man and man, some woman and woman, and others man and woman. What happened was that all of these double people went to war with the gods, and the gods, to punish them, split them all in two. That’s why some lovers are heterosexual and some are homosexual, female and female, or male and male.” - Nancy Garden

20. “All I can tell you is this. Some hearts break from grief some from joy. Some even break from love. But hearts break because they are too small to contain the gifts life gives us. Your task will be to let your heart grow large enough not to break” - Catherine M. Wilsonson

21. “وقد أستطيع إماتة فؤاد من طريق المحاكم في الجزائر . لكن في بلجيكا وبعض بلدان أوربا الشمالية أستطيع أن أغير جنسي وأستبدله كليا بجنس ثان . ففي بلادي لايعترفون بذلك ، أما الحكومة البلجيكية فتمنحني جنسيتها بصفتي رندا المولودة في الجزائر” - حازم صاغية

22. “Yeah, I loved her. I couldn't help it. She was my brother.” - Julie Anne Peters

23. “Maybe I grew up too fast, maybe that's my trouble. I feel so lost out here...hung up between two worlds; half-kid and half-adult, half-boy and half-girl. And sometimes it seems like I get the dirty side of both.” - Ann Bannon

24. “Did I use enough lube last night?”I turned my head to the side and closed my eyes with blushingcheeks. “Don’t…don’t call it that.”“What? Lube?” he asked. I nodded and covered my mouth with myhand. He chuckled and smirked. “All right, did I use enough stuff lastnight?”“Mm-hmm.” - J.M. Colail

25. “Do you wanna go out for lunch? In celebration?” I askedand then touched my lips in thought. “Or we could swing by the storeand get something really good for dinner?”Wesley glanced at me sideways with a puzzled expression Icouldn’t figure out. He looked back at the road. “Maybe later,” he said, chewing on his thumbnail.“Why? Since we’re out, we might as well stop….”“We can’t right now. There are things I have to do first,” he said,looking at me with a grin.“What?” I asked, innocently walking into his trap, though Ishould’ve known better by now.“Like take you home and fuck you up, down, and sideways,” heanswered, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.” - J.M. Colail

26. “Hi honey, I’m home! Take your pants off!” Wesley announced. He kissed my cheek as he passed me and put his lunch container in the sink.” - J.M. Colail

27. “I closed my eyes and resigned myself to the fact that my boyfriend was a pervert. He was lucky he was so cute.” - J.M. Colail

28. “Don’t answer the door without a shirt! Now, go get dressed before you catch a cold,” I scolded.“Why? He was kinda cute. Do you think he would’ve went for it if I said I didn’t have any money?” Wesley asked.“You’re mine and I wouldn’t let you prostitute yourself for pizza. Now go put on a shirt,” I said, pulling two slices onto a plate.” - J.M. Colail

29. “Ma vision de l'amour n'a pas changé, mais ma vision du monde, oui. C'est super agréable d'être lesbienne. Je me sens moins concernée par la féminité, par l'approbation des hommes, par tous ces trucs qu'on s'impose pour eux. Et je me sens aussi moins préoccupée par mon âge : c'est plus dur de vieillir quand on est hétéro. La séduction existe entre filles, mais elle est plus cool, on n'est pas déchue à 40 ans.” - Virginie Despentes

30. “If you are in the closet and fall in love with someone of the same gender, it doesn't automatically remove the shame and fear that's kept you locked away. The love you are experiencing encourages you to face the reality that this is who you really are and also has the power to set you free. The richness, beauty and depths of love can only be fully experienced in a climate of complete openness, honesty and vulnerability. Love, the most powerful of human emotions, is calling you to freedom and wholeness.” - Anthony Venn-Brown

31. “Although my understanding of exactly how much trouble I was in grew more specific over time, as a child I surely understood enough about my condition to know it was something I'd better keep private. By intuition I was certain that the thing I knew to be true was something others would find both impossible and hilarious. My conviction, by the way, had nothing to do with a desire to be feminine, but it had everything to do with being female. Which is an odd believe for a person born male. It certainly had nothing to do with whether I was attracted to girls or boys. This last point was the one that, years later, would most frequently elude people, including the overeducated smarty-pants who constituted much of my inner circle. But being gay or lesbian is about sexual orientation. Being transgedered is about identity.” - Jennifer Finney Boylan

32. “...I really did "choose" to be Jim every single day, but that once I put my sword down I haven't chosen Jenny at all; I simply wake up and here I am.” - Jennifer Finney Boylan

33. “We fitted together like the two halves of an oyster-shell. I was Narcissus, embracing the pond in which I was about to drown. However much we had to hide our love, however guarded we had to be about our pleasure, I could not long be miserable about a thing so very sweet. Nor, in my gladness, could I quite believe that anybody would be anything but happy for me if only they knew.” - Sarah Waters

34. “I wondered if all women did with other women was lie and hug.” - Sarah Winman

35. “And you never even reported it. You should have reported it. I could have took fingerprints. I'd love to lock up them skinheads.""What I'm reporting is the gun, my Sig Sauer." Dave said. "Hetzel will have it. I want it back.""What did it cost you?" Rose said."That's not the point," Dave said. "It's the only gun I ever owned. I'm against guns. They give too many people power who have no right to it. Guns cancel out intelligence, reason, decency, civility, and put terror in their place. I got along without a gun most of my working life. But a man can't buck the odds forever. About five years back I bought the Sig Sauer. I'm used to it. And I don't know that I'm morally prepared to buy another one.” - Joseph Hansen

36. “ I realize how depraved it was to instill false guilt in an innocent child's conscience, causing a distorted image of life, God, & self, leaving little if any feeling of personal worth.” - Mary Griffith

37. “What I love about being queer is... Everything. I like that it makes me different, and I like that it makes people uncomfortable sometimes. I like that it makes people ask me lots of questions about things they probably would not normally ask people about their relationships or lifestyles. And most of all I love being queer because i get to have a girlfriend.” - Tegan Quin

38. “Conse­quently the Wolfenden recommendations will be indefinitely rejected, police prosecutions will continue and Clive on the bench will continue to sentence Alec in the dock. Maurice may get off.” - E.M. Forster

39. “Reputations seldom deliver on promises of happiness.” - Huston Piner

40. “In my family nudity just doesn’t exist; I’m pretty sure my parents were both born fully clothed and still shower that way.” - Huston Piner

41. “Remember that you don't owe anyone an apology. You are who you are, you have no choice, and that is beautiful.” - Emy Storey

42. “No matter whether you’re a gay or a mixed race couple; when you’re drawn together, ultimately it doesn’t matter what everybody thinks because it’s so honest, true, and sincere. How can that be wrong?” - Tegan Quin

43. “I don’t have enough gross words in my gross vocabulary to describe how gross that gross thought is. Gross.” - A.S. King

44. “I left the bed as she had left it, unmade and rumpled, coverlets awry, so that her body's print might rest still warm beside my own.Until the next day I did not go to bathe, I wore no clothes and did not dress my hair, for fear I might erase some sweet caress.That morning I did not eat, nor yet at dusk, and put no rouge nor powder on my lips, so that her kiss might cling a little longer.I left the shutters closed, and did not open the door, for fear the memory of the night before might vanish with the wind.” - Pierre Louÿs

45. “Unnatural, unorthodox, amoral: those pretensions crumble when confronted by true happiness. You shouldn't give another the authority to draw a line defining the boundaries of acceptable joy.” - Darrell Drake

46. “It is immensely gratifying to hear from fans from around the world where being a gay or lesbian teen, having feelings for someone of your own gender is simply not acceptable. We noticed that our show fills a huge void for large audiences in many different countries. That’s why our choice of format for the show, the web series, is such a fortunate one as it allows viewers in those countries to feel acknowledged. While the series is not exclusively dealing with gay and lesbian issues, the fact that we don’t sanitize it gives us truly global appeal, especially with the gay and lesbian community. In fact, demand is such that we are subtitling the show in French and perhaps other languages to even better reach those audiences.” - Otessa Marie Ghadar

47. “There are those from religious backgrounds who resist and oppose LGBT equality; some very obsessively and publicly. They make bold accusations and negative statements about gay and lesbian people, their supposed "lifestyle" and relationships. But when a son, daughter, brother, sister or close friend comes out it is no longer an "issue" it becomes a person. They realise everything they'd said was painfully targeted at someone they love. Then......everything changes.” - Anthony Venn-Brown

48. “You are to be pitied more than I, perhaps. I soar above all your innumerable miseries, partaking of the nature of the angels; for, as you have said, my place is not in your narrow sphere. You have the earth, I have boundless space. Enchained here below by the thousand bonds of your gross, material senses, your spirits cannot plunge into that limpid Ocean of the infinite, where, lost for a day upon your arid shores, my soul drinks deep.” - Herculine Barbin

49. “Well, as I was saying, it costs a lot to be authentic, madam. And one can't be stingy with these things, because you are more authentic the more you resemble what you've dreamed you are. - Agrado from "Todo Sobre Mi Madre” - Pedro Almodóvar

50. “To Bette Davis, Gena Rowlands, Romy Schneider... To all actresses who have played actresses, to all women who act, to all men who act and become women, to all the people who want to be mothers. To my mother. - Dedication, Todo Sobre Mi Madre” - Pedro Almodóvar

51. “Gays, lesbians, straights, feminists, fascist pigs, communists, Hare Krishnas - none of them bother me. I don't care what banner they raise. But what I can't stand are hollow people. When I'm with them I just can't bare it, and wind up saying things I shouldn't.” - Haruki Murakami

52. “Perhaps once one realised how deeply one could bond with a creature as foreign as a dragon, all forms of human love seemed more acceptable.” - Robin Hobb

53. “To all my friends who constantly talk disparagingly about the supposed 'homosexual lifestyle' and stereotype gay people and the community, I'd like to get this straight. There are essentially two worlds – the 'gay scene' and the gay (or LGBTIQ) community. The 'scene' is like the tip of the iceberg; what is seen by others because it is visible on a street, suburb or pride parade. Like the ninety percent of the submerged iceberg, the community is larger and less visible. It consists of organisations, groups, support networks and also gay and lesbian singles and couples living 'normal' lives in the suburbs. Occasionally there is an overlap but not often. Some live, socialise and work in both. Many never enter each others worlds. The values, lifestyles and culture of these two worlds are as different as Asian culture is to western is to African is to Middle Eastern. Dig down even deeper below the surface and you find it is not a single community but diverse communities and subcultures that are separate but not necessarily divided. The common thing that binds them together is their experience of inequality, discrimination and their desire to make a better world for themselves, others and future generations. If you believe that all gays and lesbians are shallow and obsessed with sex, body image, partying, nightclubs and bars then you are obviously an observer from the outside or mixing in the wrong circles.” - Anthony Venn-Brown