And give me insults, give me economic discrimination, give Bethe darkened parking lot of a windowless queer bar, give me fleets of bigots and books banned in libraries across America, feed the world with lies about my life and plop a second helping of oppression on my plate and thank you for not making me straight.

— Michelle Tea

Did anyone think this canon of druggie men were out of control? Only in the most admirable of ways! Out of control like a shaman or a space explorer, like a magician sawing himself in half. Out of control like a poet.

— Michelle Tea

How many lovers did a person need, anyway?

— Michelle Tea

I knew what I stood for, even if nobody else did. I knew the piece of me on the inside, truer than all the rest, that never comes out. Doesn't everyone have one? Some kind of grand inner princess waiting to toss her hair down, forever waiting at the tower window. Some jungle animal so noble and fierce you had to crawl on your belly through dangerous grasses to get a glimpse.

— Michelle Tea

It is so hard for a queer person to become an adult. Deprived of the markers of life's passage, they lolled about in a Neverland dreamworld. They didn't get married. They didn't have children. Furthermore, they didn't buy homes or have job-jobs. The best that could be aimed for was an academic placement and a lover who eventually tired of pansexual sport-fucking and settled down with you to raise a rescue animal in a rent-controlled apartment.

— Michelle Tea

It smelled of oily flowers, like the worn pillowcases of long-ago lovers.

— Michelle Tea

I wanted her so badly, my heart hung out of my chest like some hound-dog's tongue, pant, pant.

— Michelle Tea

I was really into communal living, and we were all /such free spirits, crossing the country we were /nomads and artists and no one ever stopped / to think about how the one working class housemate / was whoring to support a gang of upper middle class / deadheads with trust fund safety nets and Connecticut / childhoods, everyone was too busy processing their isms / to deal with non-issues like class....and it’s just so cool / how none of them have hang-ups about / sex work they’re all real / open-minded real / revolutionary you know / the legal definition of pimp is / one who lives off the earnings of / a prostitute, one or five or / eight and I’d love to stay and / eat some of the stir-fry I’ve been cooking / for you all but I’ve got to go fuck / this guy so we can all get stoned and / go for smoothies tomorrow, save me / some rice, ok?

— Michelle Tea

I was so sad that day. My heart was trying to climb from my body.

— Michelle Tea

Maybe we could all take care of each other, I dreamed.

— Michelle Tea