Juliet Takes a Breath Quotes

“Reading would make me brilliant, but writing would make me infinite.”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“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.”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“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.”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“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. I”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“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.”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“I wanted her to change my world."
"Mi amor, only you can change your world.”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“Read everything you can push into your skull. Read your mother’s diary. Read Assata. Read everything Gloria Steinem and bell hooks write. Read all of the poems your friends leave in your locker. Read books about your body written by people who have bodies like yours. Read everything that supports your growth as a vibrant, rebel girl human. Read because you’re tired of secrets.”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“home, alone in my room, with the sounds of #2 and #5 trains rumbling in the distance, I started with a letter to myself. Dear Juliet, Repeat after me: You are a bruja. You are a warrior. You are a feminist. You are a beautiful brown babe. Surround yourself with other beautiful brown and black and indigenous and morena and Chicana, native, Indian, mixed race, Asian, gringa, boriqua babes. Let them uplift you. Rage against the motherfucking machine. Question everything anyone ever says to you or forces down your throat or makes you write a hundred times on the blackboard. Question every man that opens his mouth and spews out a law over your body and spirit. Question every single thing until you find the answer in a daydream. Don’t question yourself unless you hurt someone else. When you hurt someone else, sit down, and think, and think, and think, and then make it right. Apologize when you fuck up. Live forever. Consult the ancestors while counting stars in the galaxy. Hold wisdom under tongue until it’s absorbed into the bloodstream. Do not be afraid. Do not doubt yourself. Do not hide Be proud of your inhaler, your cane, your back brace, your acne. Be proud of the things that the world uses to make you feel different. Love your fat fucking glorious body. Love your breasts, hips, and wide-ass if you have them and if you don’t, love the body you do have or the one you create for yourself. Love the fact that you have ingrown hairs on the back of your thighs and your grandma’s mustache on your lips. Read all the books that make you whole. Read all the books that pull you out of the present and into the future. Read all the books about women who get tattoos, and break hearts, and rob banks, and start heavy metal bands. Read every single one of them. Kiss everyone. Ask first. Always ask first and then kiss the way stars burn in the sky. Trust your lungs. Trust the Universe. Trust your damn self. Love hard, deep, without restraint or doubt Love everything that brushes past your skin and lives inside your soul. Love yourself. In La Virgen’s name and in the name of Selena, Adiosa.”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“It's about women of color owning their own space and their voices being treated with dignity and respect. It's about women of color not having to shout over voices to be heard. We are the dominant force almost all the time. White women are the stars of all the movies. White women are the lead speakers in feminist debates, and it's little white girls that send the nation into a frenzy when they've been kidnapped. ...check your privilege. We're the ones that need to give women of color space for their voices.”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“I understood 'microaggressions' to mean 'little bullshit acts of racism.”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“I'm going to love you without being in love with you.”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“Make your own religion out of doubt and curiosity.”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“We lived loud and hard against a neighborhood built to contain us. We moved like the earth pushing its way through cement sidewalks.”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“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.”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“To love another woman is to look at yourself in the mirror and determine that you are worthy of the galaxy and its fury. To love another woman is to love yourself more than you love her.”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“You gonna get a cut?” Blue Lips asked. “I’m afraid of looking like a dyke,” I said. “Are you a dyke?” “I think so.” “Then no matter what you do with your hair, you’re gonna look like a dyke,” Blue Lips said. They”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“Read because you’re tired of secrets.”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“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.”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“All of the women in my life were telling me the same thing. My story, my truth, my life, my voice, all of that had to be protected and put out into the world by me. No one else.”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“(...)my mom was the gravitational pull that kept me stuck to this Earth”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“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.”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“(...)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.”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“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.”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“Whatever pronouns a person chooses, if they choose any at all, are their right. Not a fucking preference,”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“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.”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“Get a little hysterical, Juliet. I mean that's why vibrators were invented, right?”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“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.”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“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.”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“I was used to the buttoned up, wealthy, Casper-skinned whites that always spoke in their library voices and used words like sassy and spicy to describe me. I was used to white people that embodied the suburban American dream. White people like Lainie's parents, who wished their daughters weren't dating me, but tolerated it and engaged me in discussions about affirmative action and how I benefited from it.”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath

“You are what you are, Juliet. You are my blood, my first-born granddaughter. I love you like the seas love the moon,”
― Gabby Rivera, Juliet Takes a Breath