Welcome to the messy middle of grief, rage, love, trauma, queer joy, baked sabotage, medical absurdity, and post-apocalyptic tech paranoia. This isn’t just a quote dump—it’s a curated punch to the emotional solar plexus from across the books I’ve written, cried through, screamed into, and occasionally revised under the influence of caffeine and capitalist dread.
From closeted teenagers in rural Texas to caregiving poets watching their lovers fade, from sarcastic nurses running long-term care units held together by off-brand duct tape to genetically-optimized worlds gone morally bankrupt—these are the lines I didn’t write just to be clever. I wrote them because they wouldn’t leave me alone. Because they burned holes in my gut until I put them down.
If you’ve ever laughed at your trauma, kissed someone you were supposed to hate, prayed for permission to rest, or wanted to unplug from the algorithm that’s swallowing us whole—then one of these quotes might just be yours.
Here are 100 of my favorites from some of my books—each a little shard of glass I bled for:
Before you scroll, ask yourself this: What does it mean to be broken, mended, loved, or simply seen? These 100 handpicked quotes—spanning queer love stories, dystopian resistance, messy memoirs, and biting satires—are your invitation into the emotional engine room of every book I’ve written. If you’re new here, welcome. If you’ve read me before, you already know: I don’t flinch. I write raw, I write real, and I write to remember. Dive in and find the line that was meant for you.
From Small Town Gayby
- “If God made me, then either He’s not angry—or He’s not very good at His job.”
- “I was born with a bruise on my soul and a glitter bomb in my ribcage.”
- “Coming out didn’t feel brave. It felt like bleeding in front of people who cheered the wound.”
- “I didn’t survive by being strong—I survived by being too damn stubborn to stay broken.”
- “Some boys got bedtime stories. I got sermons and slaps.”
- “Home was a moving target I kept chasing with an empty suitcase.”
- “I learned to hold my breath in church, school, and every room where silence felt safer than the truth.”
- “Grief doesn’t ask permission. It just moves in and starts rearranging the furniture.”
- “Being gay wasn’t the sin. Surviving this town was.”
- “The hardest thing about leaving was realizing no one came after me.”
From Flour & Fury: A Sweet Rivalry
- “Her churros were chaos. Mine were legacy. And yet, I couldn’t stop biting.”
- “Love smelled like burnt sugar and bad decisions.”
- “We were frosting-covered enemies until midnight confessions made us something more.”
- “I didn’t fall in love. I tripped over her mixer and never got back up.”
- “Our rivalry was a recipe for disaster—and I still licked the spoon.”
- “Every kiss tasted like a dare. Every glance, a gamble.”
- “We were both just girls with heat-resistant gloves and emotional burn scars.”
- “She was chaos in crocs. I was order in heels. Somehow, we made it work.”
- “Love, like pastry, required layers and a terrifying amount of vulnerability.”
- “Our stall may have been double-booked, but our hearts were on the same page.”
From Sunset on Cloud Nine
- “Every code brown was just life reminding us: dignity is optional in long-term care.”
- “He talked about death the way most people talk about weather—inevitable and always shitty.”
- “Sunsets in nursing homes are often literal. And sometimes, they sneak up on you mid-chart.”
- “We laughed so we didn’t scream. We charted so we didn’t cry.”
- “Love in healthcare looks like staying past your shift and pretending you’re not falling apart.”
- “We held hands with ghosts and played bingo with time.”
- “It wasn’t the dying that broke me. It was the living, day after goddamn day.”
- “Sometimes compassion looks like morphine. Sometimes it looks like lying.”
- “We were the last line of defense between a system and the souls inside it.”
- “Every time a call light blinked, I braced for grief.”
From Suté & Solitude
- “My gumbo was perfect. My dating life was undercooked and emotionally salmonella.”
- “In the kitchen, I was a god. In bed, I was a ghost.”
- “He said ‘I love you’ with his mouth full—and I believed him anyway.”
- “Dating in San Francisco is like trying to sous vide a broken heart.”
- “Love came with a Yelp review and a panic attack.”
- “I built a restaurant from scratch, but I couldn’t rebuild myself.”
- “Food was love. But love didn’t always pay the check.”
- “Being queer and successful meant you could afford therapy and still be emotionally constipated.”
- “Every dish had a story. Mine were just messy and overcooked.”
- “I served comfort. I craved it.”
From A Queer Kind of Hallelujah
- “I didn’t need a miracle—I needed a moment where I wasn’t apologizing for existing.”
- “They baptized me in shame and called it salvation.”
- “Every hallelujah I’ve ever sung was half rebellion, half survival.”
- “I met God once. She was wearing glitter and humming Robyn.”
- “If grace is real, it has stretch marks and trauma scars.”
- “They offered me heaven on the condition I erased myself.”
- “Queerness wasn’t a detour—it was the sacred path no one told me I could take.”
- “Some prayers sound like screams. Mine always did.”
- ““I never left the church. I just stopped pretending it hadn’t left me first.”
- “My faith is a patchwork of doubt, disco, and defiance.”
From The Flawless Imperative
- “They wanted a perfect world. I gave them the truth: perfection kills.”
- “GRS wasn’t a miracle. It was a scalpel disguised as salvation.”
- “They erased differences in the name of optimization. And called it progress.”
- “I built the future. Then watched it consume every beautiful flaw I loved.”
- “Hope was a glitch they never coded for.”
- “We weren’t broken. We were just inconvenient.”
- “The algorithm couldn’t predict revolution—it only optimized obedience.”
- “I thought I could save my mother’s mind. I lost my own instead.”
- “The flawed ones always resisted best.”
- “You can’t patent redemption.”
From Don’t Ask, Don’t Die.
- “Don’t ask me why I served. Ask me why I lied to survive.”
- “In uniform, I was invisible and valuable. Out of it, I was just a faggot with a file.”
- “They let me die for my country. Just not live for who I was.”
- “Patriotism should never require pretending.”
- “My silence was honorable only to those who didn’t hear it.”
- “I folded flags and my identity.”
- “Closets don’t keep secrets. They bury truth with medals.”
- “I loved him in letters I couldn’t send.”
- “Service demanded sacrifice. Mine was authenticity.”
- “I wore the uniform. They never saw the whole soldier.”
From The Closet Strategist
- “Strategy was survival. Vulnerability was a liability I couldn’t afford.”
- “I played straight better than I played soccer.”
- “Every closet has a latch. Mine had a spreadsheet.”
- “Some of us built walls not to hide, but to survive the inspection.”
- “I didn’t lie. I optimized perception.”
- “The most dangerous thing I ever wore was honesty.”
- “My heart wasn’t in hiding—it was in hibernation.”
- “Success was a shield. Truth was a sword I wasn’t ready to swing.”
- “He made me want to risk the algorithm of my life.”
- “Coming out was a boardroom battle I hadn’t prepped for.”
From Ravendios: The Weight of Purity
- “Purity was a cage they gilded with scripture.”
- “They said my soul needed cleansing. I said it needed freedom.”
- “Chastity was the currency of control.”
- “Ravendios didn’t ask for blood. It asked for erasure.”
- “I was never impure. I was just inconvenient to their narrative.”
- “My love didn’t fit their doctrine. So they called it sin.”
- “Confession became a weapon.”
- “God wasn’t the villain. Fear was.”
- “I bled piety. But I craved peace.”
- “Redemption wasn’t earned—it was reclaimed.”
From Where Scars Remain
- “The scars were souvenirs from wars no one saw.”
- “We stitched joy between trauma and Tuesday morning emails.”
- “Healing didn’t feel like victory. It felt like learning to walk on a fractured leg.”
- “Some days, surviving felt like betrayal.”
- “I loved him with the parts of me I hadn’t forgiven.”
- “Joy was defiance in a world that kept breaking us.”
- “I carried grief like a purse: always with me, occasionally stylish.”
- “He made the scars feel like stories.”
- “Forgiveness wasn’t for them. It was a prison break.”
- “We don’t forget. We live anyway.”
Want more?
All of these quotes are pulled from stories I’ve bled into—fictional memoirs, techno-thrillers, culinary romances, dystopias, and long-term care comedies that are too real to be satire. You can find them wherever chaos is sold (aka: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or the sad little indie section no one dusts).
If you found yourself laughing, flinching, or staring out a window mid-scroll, consider this your sign to pick up one of the books. Or five.
🖤
Brandon