“They don't know what a stand up guy you are." 
"Even more so, now that I have four legs, right?”
― Lisa Kaniut Cobb, Down in the Valley

“The truck looked like a beater, maybe built in the 1950's, mostly rust on the outside, but a spaceship on the inside.”
― Lisa Kaniut Cobb, Down in the Valley

“ten reasons to love being queer

viii.
the people within our community are so supportive and so caring and so loving, most of the time towards people they don’t even know
and it is in moments like that when you realize that the queer community is more than a community
we are a family”
― Courtney Carola, Have Some Pride: A Collection of LGBTQ+ Inspired Poetry

“You know, the thing about family is that you can choose it. And I choose you.”
― Brynne Rebele-Henry, Orpheus Girl

“If the family you came from sucked, make up a new one. Look at all the people there are to choose from. If the family you are in hurts, get on the bus. Like now.”
― Lidia Yuknavitch, The Chronology of Water

“We’ve all done this —created our mix-and-match families, our homemade safety nets.”
― David Levithan, Two Boys Kissing

“A found family is every bit as beautiful as a born family. Even more so, perhaps. Stories are about choices, after all, and to choose to be family is as wonderful a story as can be told.”
― Dan Gemeinhart, The Midnight Children

“I live in a constellation of intimates, and the shape of us is a family. We touch base and check in, with each other and also—I am so gratified to report—they sometimes check in with one another. Correspondences have sprung up and friendships have started to form beyond my influence. Family has begun to take on a transitive property as well.”
― S. Bear Bergman, Blood, Marriage, Wine, & Glitter

“People are always trying to claim you, without ever listening to who you are. They want you to be something else, to be the role they have for you in the family.
But really, we're all better off just making our own.”
― Lev A.C. Rosen, Lavender House

“Some people are simply adopted by others, and they’re friends now and there’s nothing to be done about that.”
― Milena McKay, A Whisper of Solace

“Your friend mourns your losses with you, because they experience them too. The truth is, no matter how lonely you might feel, you're never going through anything alone....you can choose your family.”
― Jennifer Lopez, True Love

“He looked at all the people in that room, their tears and their smiles merging together as one, and at the care they all had for him, as if he was worth something great.”
― Grace Curley, The Light that Binds Us

“But mostly he thought about them as the people he'd spent the evening with, the people he was getting to know almost against his will. They'd never be perfect, but they were going to be all right. They'd come to the Foxhole Court as fractured messes but they were fixing each other one semester at a time.”
― Nora Sakavic, The Raven King

“Also, if Briar had a kid, it would basically be my kid, too... I don’t mean that in some like…nuclear family, heterosexual, we’re-registered-at-Hobby-Lobby kind of way. I just mean, you know, Briar is my family, and our family is whatever we decide it is.”
― H.E. Edgmon, The Fae Keeper

“This is why the concept of chosen family is woven so deeply into the fabric of queer community culture: where the bonds of blood have failed us time and again, we hope that our friends, lovers, and mentors will fill the void.
We dream of relationships that stand against the test of time and gay drama, for better or worse, in sickness and in health. Shut out of the heteronormative institutions of marriage and the nuclear family for most of history, queers have traditionally turned to more daring and creative notions of kinship and sharing the future.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World

“Les arbres savent quand un des leurs a soif et ils savent aussi comment rediriger l’eau vers lui. Ils sont solidaires. Ils peuvent se prévenir l’un l’autre du danger, des prédateurs, assurer la survie du groupe dans son ensemble. Tout part des racines, des origines, mais le message transite par les racines secondaires et les radicelles, qui sont plus fines, s’étendent plus loin. Tout se fait en chuchotant à travers le réseau souterrain de champignons, le mycélium, ce que tout le monde croit pourri, oui.”
― Vincent Fortier, Les racines secondaires

“Family,” he began, sharply aware, even with his eyes closed, of William's drawn attention, “is the garden that grows you before you realize you are growing. It is the dirt and the sun and the air, and you take root where you can, even if all you have is stone and shade. And if that first planting does not take, we try again.”
He blinked, found William's eyes on him, their green and brown as dark as deep water in the gathering night. “In a different garden, we try again.”
― Elizabeth Wambheim, Of the Wild

“What is family? Most would say family means a group of people closely related by blood or marriage as parents, children, uncles, aunts, and cousins. This is family of the biological kind. By the same token I’ve learned in my life experience that family can also be of the chosen kind. As queer people we very often find that our chosen families are the ones who love us unconditionally and pick up the slack in support of our personal truths and humanity when our biological family members don’t have the tools.”
― Billy Porter, Unprotected: A Memoir

“So, this isn’t going great, and so far I definitely don’t like these guys as much as I enjoyed hanging out with Paloma and Maritza—chaotic as the queens are—but it could be worse. They’re willing to entertain polite conversation, and we have some things in common. Like, they’re gay, we’re gay, they have twin fae babies, we have a little trash baby we found in the woods.”
― H.E. Edgmon, The Fae Keeper

“Nous gardons la parole. Nous ne divulguons jamais où se trouve la ruelle où nous baisons, où s’étend la plage où nous nous dévêtons, où s’élève le bâtiment où nous dansons. Croix de bois, croix de fer. Ces lieux sont à nous ; les dévoiler au grand jour, de façon ostentatoire, nous mettrait en danger, c’est aussi simple que ça.”
― Vincent Fortier, Les racines secondaires

“I'm OK. Really. I can find people. I'll be all right.”
― Nick Hornby, About a Boy

“But you made it for Dotty. You should keep it in the family,' I said.

Henry took my hands in his and leaned toward me. 'That’s what I’m doing.”
― Louise Miller, The City Baker's Guide to Country Living

“Remi sighed dramatically, clearly for effect. “Everyone expects me to be such a brooding and bloodthirsty killer. I VANT to DWAIN your BLOOD, and all that nonsense. I mean, I drink as needed, but,” he shrugged noncommittally, “I'm not tortured. What I truly crave at my age is new experiences. I can help in many ways, c’ va, and it seems like you could use an extra hand.” He waved his hands in the air, jazz hands fluttering.”
― Karryn Nagel, Guarding Gus

“For their was no finer family than the one you had chosen yourself.”
― M.A. Kuzniar, Upon a Frosted Star

“I have never returned to this lost paradise. Sometimes I am struck with the sudden desire to go to the Gare de l'Est, board the Orient Express, and retrace the route between Innsbruck and Plumeshof. As I so often saw other more or less close friends of the Welser family do, I fantasize about showing up without warning in the pretty meadow surrounded by fir trees and making the climb to the house while thinking only of Aunt Heidi, who has long since gone the to join her two older sons and their father in heaven. I would concentrate on her so strongly that I would eventually see her again on the doorstep, hastily drying her flour-covered hands in her apron; her opal eyes would brighten when she saw me. She would spread her arms while joyfully shouting: "Franziska!" and I would run to her calling back, "Aunt Heidi, Aunt Heidi!" Kurt's contagious laughter would echo in the distance. Lilo, smiling, would be hanging out the laundry. A lifetime of love would still be stretching out before them. A delicious aroma of pancakes would be drifting in the air ... The large earthenware oven, the eiderdown quilts, the painted wooden chairs with a little heart carved in them like the shutters ... nothing would have changed.”
― Françoise Hardy, The Despair of Monkeys and Other Trifles: A Memoir by Françoise Hardy

“I never could have guessed that living outside would end up meaning I'd use the word family in so many different ways, with so many different kinds of people since I left home. The word family will never feel the same as it once did, or maybe it never quite fit.”
― Tommy Orange, Wandering Stars

“Family isn't an accident. It's a beautiful tapestry woven from threads of love, laughter, and a whole lot of embarrassing stories.”
― Rendi Ansyah, Beyond the Bouquet: A Symphony of Love in Fifty Movements

“Home is not a place, it's a feeling. It's the peace of mind knowing your loved ones are watching over you.”
― Rendi Ansyah, Beyond the Bouquet: A Symphony of Love in Fifty Movements