Top 500 Casey McQuiston Quotes (2026 Update)
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201. “Henry touches his hand, gently, two fingertips against his palm. “Five minutes for the rest of our lives,” he says, laughing a grim little laugh. Alex reaches for him in return, presses one thumb into the hollow of his collarbone, slipping right under the knot of his tie.”

— Casey McQuiston

202. “Jane’s leaning in, taking advantage of her height to bracket August in, burning so hot that August can’t make sense of the chill sweeping up her spine. So steady and beautiful and close, too close, never close enough, and August is so completely, irreversibly, spectacularly screwed.”

— Casey McQuiston

203. “Well, Alex is so in love he could die.”

— Casey McQuiston

204. “There are the flaws everyone’s allowed to see – his big mouth, his mercurial temper, his searing impulses – and then there’s this. It’s like how he only wears his glasses when nobody’s around: Nobody’s supposed to see how much he needs.”

— Casey McQuiston

205. “Nora, what’s the math?” June says, rounding on her, a slightly frantic look in her eyes. “I majored in nouns.”

— Casey McQuiston

206. “I did get both the gay kings,” Henry points our. ‘There’s a prophecy for you.”

— Casey McQuiston

207. “Coffee girl, don’t break my heart″ jane says.”

— Casey McQuiston

208. “August can feel her face glowing red to match the scarf, like a giant, stammering, bisexual chameleon. An evolutionary mistake.”

— Casey McQuiston

209. “Tu madre ha sido, sin la menor duda, el amor de mi vida. Jamas amare a nadie como la he amado a ella. Era una pasion devoradora. Un amor asi es muy raro de encontrar. A veces, uno se lanza, abrigando la esperanza de no encontrarse con un precipicio al otro lado.”

— Casey McQuiston

210. “You’re not the bloke from Seinfeld. You’re Jeff Goldblum.”

— Casey McQuiston

211. “With me it is quite stark: I miss you even more than I could have believed; and I was prepared to miss you a good deal.”

— Casey McQuiston

212. “Anderson Cooper’s face looms on the screen like a disgustingly handsome Hunger Games cannon, announcing they’re ready to call Florida.”

— Casey McQuiston

213. “I miss figuring out scams with my friends, having a beer, going to the movies. Dumb, small life things.”

— Casey McQuiston

214. “Oh my God. I’m so mad I missed that. Did you average the results at the end? Who won?” “Chloe, we’re gay. We can’t do math.” “Okay, well, next time I’ll come and make a spreadsheet.”

— Casey McQuiston

215. “You can try, she guesses. You can tear yourself apart and rebuild from stratch, bring yourself to every corner of the map, sew a new self from the scraps of a thousand other people and places. You can try to escape to fill a different shape. But at the end of the day, there’s a place at the foot of the bed where your shoes hit the floor, and it’s the same. It’s always the same.”

— Casey McQuiston

216. “And so, in her first month in the apartment on the corner of Flatbush and Parkside above the Popeyes, August learns that the Q is a time, a place, and a person.”

— Casey McQuiston

217. “She was walking through the shelves and imagining herself there one day, one spine tucked alongside all the others, fitting in perfectly.”

— Casey McQuiston

218. “I kinda wish people still wrote like that. History, huh? Bet we could make some.”

— Casey McQuiston

219. “We’ve kissed, like, three times, but he has that thing where he’s terrified of being loved and refuses to believe he deserves it. It’s so tedious.’ She sees the look on August’s face and laughs. ‘I’m joking. I mean, that is his deal. But I’ve never found that boy tedious.”

— Casey McQuiston

220. “He’s just as attracted to Henry’s cloudy tempers, the way he comes back from them, and the million of shades in between.”

— Casey McQuiston

221. “How am I supposed to do that? He has the personality of a cabbage.”

— Casey McQuiston

222. “At cruising altitude, he takes the chain off his neck and slides the ring on next to the old house key. They clink together gently as he tucks them both under his shirt, two homes side by side.”

— Casey McQuiston

223. “I didn’t know you wore glasses,” he says finally.”

— Casey McQuiston

224. “Anderson Cooper, you handsome bastard.”

— Casey McQuiston

225. “Please do smack me if this is out of line, but you are the most exquisite woman I have ever seen in my life, and I would like to procure for you the most lavish drink in this establishment if you will let me.”

— Casey McQuiston

226. “Alex hasn’t been a good Catholic in a long time, but he knows confession is a sacrament.”

— Casey McQuiston

227. “Who names a dog David? He sounds like a tax attorney.”

— Casey McQuiston

228. “All I want is a nice girlfriend in a cottage where we have philosophical conversations over scones or something.”

— Casey McQuiston

229. “The loudest Christians I’ve ever met were the worst ones. I don’t believe doing something in front of everybody makes it more meaningful, anyway. If anything, it makes it stop belonging to you. Sometimes, when I walk into a church, I’m not sure I’m supposed to be there, even though it feels like home. Home hasn’t always been a good place for me to be.”

— Casey McQuiston

230. “You only just noticed she has one outfit?” “I don’t know! It’s ripped jeans and a leather jacket! Every lesbian I’ve ever met has that outfit!”

— Casey McQuiston

231. “Jane is spun sugar. A switchblade girl with a cotton-candy heart.”

— Casey McQuiston

232. “Listen, I’m telling you right now, I will physically fight your grandmother myself if I have to, okay? And, like, she’s old. I know I can take her.”

— Casey McQuiston

233. “Saved by God first and her God complex second.”

— Casey McQuiston

234. “Alex, you need other friends.” Luna tells him. “Friends who aren’t in Congress.”

— Casey McQuiston

235. “Love is indomitable.”

— Casey McQuiston

236. “Henry looks Philip square in the face and says, “I’ve been gay as a maypole since the day I came out of Mum, Philip.”

— Casey McQuiston

237. “God, Shall I compare thee to an icebox pie? Couldn’t be gayer if she tried.”

— Casey McQuiston

238. “He’s too perfect. Alex wants to poke it.”

— Casey McQuiston

239. “A whole lifetime of fine.”

— Casey McQuiston

240. “I’m conscious this could be rather burdensome to hear, but you remain the thing I have most chosen for myself. The things that’s most exclusively mine. The one that brings me the deepest joy.”

— Casey McQuiston

241. “Her girl. She came back.”

— Casey McQuiston

242. “Sorry. Er. I was just. Cornettos.”

— Casey McQuiston

243. “Please do keep me in your – what is it American politicians say? – thoughts and prayers.”

— Casey McQuiston

244. “No, what I’m gonna do is silently compile and process enough data to know exactly what’s gonna happen for the next twenty-five years. Then I’m gonna buy a house on the top of a very tall hill at the edge of the city and become an eccentric recluse and sit on my veranda. Watch it all unfold through a pair of binoculars.”

— Casey McQuiston

245. “Wait,” she says, reaching for his phone again, “are you watching videos of Justin Trudeau speaking French again?”

— Casey McQuiston

246. “If it weren’t for her morning meditation sessions, Alex is sure his mom would have throttled an aide by now.”

— Casey McQuiston

247. “If there’s any legacy for me on this earth, I want it to be true.”

— Casey McQuiston

248. “I’m there for whatever you decide you want to do, just, like, let me know if I need to start practicing gazing wistfully out the window, waiting for my love to return from the war.”

— Casey McQuiston

249. “Or his senior year, when he got drunk and made out with Liam in his twin bed for an hour, and he didn’t have a sexual crisis about it – that had to mean he was straight, right? Because if he were into guys, it would have felt scary to be with one, but it wasn’t.”

— Casey McQuiston

250. “She was beautiful like a city you always wanted to go to, like how you wait years and years for the right time, and then as soon as you get there, you have to taste everything and touch everything and learn every street by name. I felt like I knew her. She reminded me who I was. She had soft lips and green eyes and a body that wouldn’t quit. Hair like you wouldn’t believe. Stubborn, sharp as a knife. And I never, ever wanted a person to save me until she did.”

— Casey McQuiston