June is Pride Month, a worldwide celebration, commemoration, recognition, and coming together of all members of the LGBT+ community. There are many different ways to celebrate pride as individuals as well as part of our communities. From parades and parties to exhibitions and art performances. You can celebrate pride loudly, quietly, in groups or by yourself.
Books have always been a fantastic resource for learning and witnessing diverse representations. You can find a selection of fantastic books from fiction to biography, poetry to essays all written by LGBTQIA writers on our Pride Books page. Below we’ve listed some of our favourite literary quotes to celebrate pride. Read ours and share your own!
The world isn’t binary. Everything isn’t black or white, yes or no. Sometimes it’s not a switch, it’s a dial.
Jeff Garvin, Symptoms of Being Human
To go to bed and to wake up again day after day besides a woman, to lie in bed with our arms around each other and drift in and out of sleep, to be with each other not as a quick stolen pleasure, nor as a wild treat but like sunlight, day after day in the regular course of our lives. I was discovering all the ways that love creeps into life when two selves exist closely, when two women meet.
Audre Lorde, Zami
Don’t come out because you think society expects you to.
Dean Atta, The Black Flamingo
Come out for yourself.
Come out to yourself.
Shout, sing it.
Softly stutter.
Correct those who say they knew before you did.
That’s not how sexuality works, it’s yours to define.
In the name of those who came before, who fought the police; those whose names we know, and those whose names we can never know.
Jordy Rosenberg, Confessions of the Fox
In the name of those who come after, who will never know our names–.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.”
Mary Oliver, Wild Geese
If one could be friendly with women, what a pleasure – the relationship so secret and private compared with relations with men. Why not write about it truthfully?
Virginia Woolf
I had never realized before how much you can take from someone by not allowing them the words they need to describe themselves. How can you know there are other people like you, when you’ve never had a name to call yourself?
Cassandra Clare, Lord of Shadows
I’m not flaunting anything. I’m just existing. This is me. I can’t hide myself. I can’t disappear. And even if I could, I don’t f***ing want to. I have the same right to be here. I have the same right to exist.
Kacen Callender, Felix Ever After
One must dare to be happy.
Gertrude Stein
Burst down those closet doors once and for all, and stand up and start to fight.
Harvey Milk
It is always important that we continue to educate ourselves and each other on the history of pride as a protest, and the continued necessity to fight for the rights of all LGBT+ people around the world. To learn more about actions you can take to support the community during Pride month and beyond, click here.
Check out our collection of books by LGBT+ authors. Our collections are not exhaustive, but our stock updates every day. World of Books is a great place to find books to continue your education, top up your bookshelves, and celebrate Pride.
What do you think of our literary quotes to celebrate Pride? What quotes or books do you recommend for Pride month and beyond? Let us know in the comments below.
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