Top 500 Casey McQuiston Quotes (2026 Update)
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401. “What? Pick the lock?” Wes says. “What kind of feral child are you? Are you Jessica Jones?”

— Casey McQuiston

402. “Yes,” she says, and for good measure adds, “sir.” Ew. Hated that.”

— Casey McQuiston

403. “I can’t believe our ancestors survived centuries of wars and plagues and genocide just to wind up with your sorry ass.”

— Casey McQuiston

404. “He didn’t realize how terrified he was of her knowing until the fear is gone.”

— Casey McQuiston

405. “Ellen sighs and looks over at Leo. “I did that, didn’t I? No goddamn manners. Like a couple of little opossums. This is why they say women can’t have it all.”

— Casey McQuiston

406. “The president is sitting down with as many member of the Office of Communications as we could drag out of bed at three in the morning,” Zahra tells him, ignoring his question. The phone is buzzing none stop in her hand. “It’s about to be gay DEFCON five in this administration. For god’s sake, put some clothes on.”

— Casey McQuiston

407. “Why do you even have staff?” Alex says. “Nobody has ever tried to stop me from walking straight in here.”

— Casey McQuiston

408. “Part of being a Brooklyn institution, August has learned, is collecting all the New York strangeness at the end of the night like a pool filter full of june bugs.”

— Casey McQuiston

409. “It’s freezing and Alex is only wearing his suit jacket, but his chest feels warmed from the inside with liquor and something heady his brain keeps stumbling over, trying to name.”

— Casey McQuiston

410. “Re: telling Philip, sounds like a great plan. If all else fails, just do what I did and act like a huge jackass until most of your family figures it out on their own.”

— Casey McQuiston

411. “If Alex from this time last year could see this,” Alex says, leaning into Henry’s ear. “He’d say, ‘Oh, I’m in love with Henry? That must be why I’m such a berk to him all the time,’” Henry suggests.”

— Casey McQuiston

412. “You think y’all are off the hook for institutional bigotry because you come from a blue state. Not every white supremacist is a meth-head from Bumfuck Mississippi. There are plenty of them at Duke or UPenn on Daddy’s money.”

— Casey McQuiston

413. “Something else might come forward,” he says, lighting another match with total nonchalance as if he has not just suggested some unknown force from the great beyond could Beetlejuice into the room and rub its little demon hands all over them. “It happens. If you open a door, anything can come through it. But it’ll be fine.”

— Casey McQuiston

414. “Can’t you ever just do one thing without having to be so goddamn extra about it?”

— Casey McQuiston

415. “He doesn’t, he reminds himself, even have feelings for the guy. Really.”

— Casey McQuiston

416. “His eyes are big and soft and blue, and he desperately needs to be punched in one of them.”

— Casey McQuiston

417. “Chloe enters the choir room for lunch with a peanut butter sandwich in her lunch bag and murder in her heart.”

— Casey McQuiston

418. “Everywhere I went, someone loved me. But everywhere I went, someone hated me.”

— Casey McQuiston

419. “We can-we can figure out a way to do that together.”

— Casey McQuiston

420. “You gotta put in a little more work to crack this egg, baby.”

— Casey McQuiston

421. “She still listens, and she tries, and she wants us to be happy. But I don’t know if she has it in her anymore to be a part of anyone’s happiness.”

— Casey McQuiston

422. “Have you met Henry?” Alex says. “How am I supposed to do that? He has the personality of a cabbage.”

— Casey McQuiston

423. “Is this what it’s always like? To want someone and know they want you back? How in the world does anyone get anything done?”

— Casey McQuiston

424. “I want you to know I’m sure. A thousand percent.”

— Casey McQuiston

425. “Many of the rooms in the White House have a similar hauntedness, a sense of history that hangs like cobwebs no matter how pristine the rooms are kept. He’s used to sleeping alongside ghosts, but that’s not it.”

— Casey McQuiston

426. “Space and time are nothing.”

— Casey McQuiston

427. “How was he supposed to know back then if he wanted to look like other guys, or if he wanted other guys?”

— Casey McQuiston

428. “He remembers when he was a kid, freckly and unafraid, when the world seemed like it was blissfully endless but everything still made perfect sense.”

— Casey McQuiston

429. “August’s brain tries “hi” and her mouth goes for “morning” and what comes out is, “Horny.”

— Casey McQuiston

430. “If they’re gonna kill you, get their DNA under your fingernails.”

— Casey McQuiston

431. “6TH OF JULY, 2020.”

— Casey McQuiston

432. “It hums under the surface-that feeling August felt when she stepped inside Delilah’s, when Miss Ivy calls her by name, when they paraded down to the Q behind Isaiah in his top hat, when the guy at the bodega doesn’t card her, when Jane looks at her like she could be a part of her mental photo album of the city. That feeling that she lives here, like really lives here.”

— Casey McQuiston

433. “So is that what’s happening now?” Alex says, glaring down at Nora’s napkin bird. “Has he decided to finally shut me up by wooing my sister?” “Aw, little buddy,” Nora says. She reaches over and pats his hand. “It’s cute how you think everything is about you.”

— Casey McQuiston

434. “Of course I’m nervous, Nora, it’s a presidential election and the president gave birth to me.”

— Casey McQuiston

435. “Sit down,” his mother tells him, and Alex feels dread coil deep in his stomach. He has no clue what to expect – knowing your parent as the person who raised you isn’t the same as being able to guess their moves as a world leader. He sits, and the silence hovers over them, his mother’s hands folded in a considering pose against her lips. She looks exhausted. “Are you okay?” she says finally. When he looks up in surprise, there’s no anger in her eyes.”

— Casey McQuiston

436. “It was kind of about what his idea of beauty was. Especially women – he always painted women sort of flowing through space. Girls with an effortless sort of elegance, like they’re weightless and solid at the same time.”

— Casey McQuiston

437. “Nothing. Ten long seconds of nothing. “Truly harrowing,” Henry’s voice says tinnily over the speaker.”

— Casey McQuiston

438. “Please don’t be stupid. No part of any of this will ever be uncomplicated. Anyway, you should be a writer. You are a writer.”

— Casey McQuiston

439. “On a chain around his neck, always hidden from view, he’s worn the key to that house since the day he left for DC.”

— Casey McQuiston

440. “This crush, she decides, is just not going to work for her.”

— Casey McQuiston

441. “And they’re not khakis, they’re chinos. Khakis are for white people.”

— Casey McQuiston

442. “The first time I let myself fall, it wasn’t hot at all. It was cold. January. There was ice on the sidewalks – at least, that’s what I’d heard. But this girl felt like nectarines and balconies to me. She felt like everything. She felt like a long winter, then a nervous spring, then a sticky summer, and then those last days you never thought you’d get to, the ones that spread themselves out, out, out until they feel like they go on forever. So, August is a person.”

— Casey McQuiston

443. “As usual, my duties as first gentleman are to work on my tablescapes and look pretty.”

— Casey McQuiston

444. “Sometimes I imagine moving to New York to take over launching Pez’s youth shelter there. Just leaving. Not coming back. Maybe burning something down on the way out. It would be nice.”

— Casey McQuiston

445. “Love God first, love Shara Wheeler second.”

— Casey McQuiston

446. “Crazy how August can imagine a whole life for this girl she doesn’t even know, but she’s can’t begin to picture what her own is supposed to look like.”

— Casey McQuiston

447. “Nothing like kissing anyone he’s ever kissed in his life. It feels as steady and huge as the ground under their feet, as encompassing of every part of him, as likely to knock the wind out of his lungs.”

— Casey McQuiston

448. “August lost everything and thought that maybe, if she could become someone who didn’t have anything to lose, she’d never have to feel that way again.”

— Casey McQuiston

449. “How does she always know?” June mutters, scooping up the plate.”

— Casey McQuiston

450. “She can’t imagine always knowing something huge about herself and never questioning it.”

— Casey McQuiston