Top 100 Trista Mateer Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “I treat my greatest loves like seeds. I put them down and I seldom look back at what has grown behind me.”

— Trista Mateer

52. “She writes a lot about religion for someone who looks out of place in a pew.”

— Trista Mateer

53. “I’ve gotten so good about not flinching at the sound of your name that people don’t know I’d still throw myself mouth-open into the ocean for the chance to drown somewhere you might see it.”

— Trista Mateer

54. “You’re made of the same stars as me. You may not have walked fully formed out of the ocean but the past is the past for a reason. Nothing that came before matters unless you want it to.”

— Trista Mateer

55. “I feel most like myself when I am washing blood off my hands; and I hope whatever is eating you alive does it as slowly as possible.”

— Trista Mateer

56. “When people say you cannot love others until you love yourself, they fundamentally misunderstand love. Nothing thrives in isolation.”

— Trista Mateer

57. “You are not required to be small. You are not required to be pleasant. You are not required to be conventional. You are not required to be accommodating. You are not required to be submissive. You are not required to be merciful. You are not required to be quiet.”

— Trista Mateer

58. “Now you have the audacity to bloom on my doorstep again like some cheap metaphor for spring. You rise from the ashes of my mistrust and you do this unforgivable thing: you still make me go soft in the middle.”

— Trista Mateer

59. “They called me Gravedigger.”

— Trista Mateer

60. “I’ll do anything if you say my name three times. I need to be reminded that I exist.”

— Trista Mateer

61. “I know I said some things about needing space, but you are not the moon or the sun, a planet or a dwarf star. I do not know if distance from you will ever sit right with me.”

— Trista Mateer

62. “I wept at what became of my name.”

— Trista Mateer

63. “You have to let something go. You carry too much in your heart. There’s no room for anything else.”

— Trista Mateer

64. “I have this dream where I only write you love poems and none of them have to say, “I’m so glad we’re alive.”

— Trista Mateer

65. “If love is a door I keep closed, will it be a wound I keep open?”

— Trista Mateer

66. “Your abuser’s past does not absolve them of their abuse. Their depression does not absolve them of their abuse. Your relationship with them does not absolve them of their abuse. How long you’ve known them does not absolve them of their abuse. Your love for them does not absolve them of their abuse.”

— Trista Mateer

67. “Don’t you ever let another human being tear you apart. Remember that you have claws and teeth, too.”

— Trista Mateer

68. “Some people will leave you. It will have everything to do with you and nothing to do with outside circumstances. You cannot sugarcoat it. You cannot dress it up and make it feel sweet or soft or warm. And it’s going to hurt you. I know your instinct will be to beg them to stay, to unpack their bags for them, to curl up by their wandering feet – but people are going to leave you. That is okay too.”

— Trista Mateer

69. “Aphrodite tells me that love is like wine. If your cup is already full and you try to add more, it ill just spill onto the carpet. Some people try and try and just stain everything. Their fingers are purple with want.”

— Trista Mateer

70. “I am always two parts tequila, one part longing.”

— Trista Mateer

71. “They wanted you to believe that love is weak, that you cannot curse and kiss with the same mouth. They wanted you to believe that the root of love is romance, soft and wide-eyed. See what they did to my stories? My Temples? My statues? Regardless o whether you desire it, love is what sits at the core of the world. It is stronger than greed and hate and jealousy and pain. What brings us together will always be more powerful than what keeps us apart.”

— Trista Mateer

72. “I’d rather hold a grudge than have an empty hand. At least it’s something.”

— Trista Mateer

73. “I don’t want to be another name on the list of angry women in our family.”

— Trista Mateer

74. “I am older than the poets and I am older than the pens. I am older than the stars and the ocean I crawled out of.”

— Trista Mateer

75. “And I believe all men think of me as a person. Correction: not all men. And I believe all men care about consent. Correction: not all men.”

— Trista Mateer

76. “To stop resenting my mother I had to unlearn the idea that our parents are these infallible beings who always know the right thing to do, and do it. I had to realize that she’s more than a mother. She’s a person with unresolved trauma and she’s scared of being alone and she’s frustrated with existence, just like everyone else.”

— Trista Mateer

77. “There is nothing inherently toxic about anger. It is hard not to be angry. There is no reason not to be angry.”

— Trista Mateer

78. “Accepting this body did not mean convincing myself that it was beautiful; it meant giving myself permission to exist regardless.”

— Trista Mateer

79. “I keep trying to make myself small enough to give other people space to grow.”

— Trista Mateer

80. “I slept incredibly well before I met you.”

— Trista Mateer

81. “I wanted to taste the salt on your skin, to press my mouth against the violent curve of you.”

— Trista Mateer

82. “You forgive your mother for the things she did wrong, because of the things that were done wrong to her. You expect your children to do the same. Everyone’s backs ache under the weight.”

— Trista Mateer

83. “And then God doesn’t answer, but Amanda does.”

— Trista Mateer

84. “That is okay. It is okay to leave. It is okay to feel smothered by the weight of a life you didn’t want or a relationship that doesn’t taste the way you thought it would. It does not make you hard or disagreeable or unreasonable.”

— Trista Mateer

85. “I am writing bad poems but I am writing look at that.”

— Trista Mateer

86. “The world was full of men who called themselves heroes for crossing boundaries, claiming bodies like prizes. The world still is.”

— Trista Mateer

87. “Wouldn’t have to hate yourself if you were dead, though her brain counters.”

— Trista Mateer

88. “No one ever talks about the loneliness that permeated Eden.”

— Trista Mateer

89. “You tried to make a grave out of me and I almost let you.”

— Trista Mateer

90. “When you fight for what is just, prepare to meet opposition. Remember, it is the good in us that stands in front of what needs protecting. There will always be reasons to back down but there will always be more to push forward.”

— Trista Mateer

91. “You long winter masquerading as spring.”

— Trista Mateer

92. “I stand in awe of your survival.”

— Trista Mateer

93. “All of us are survivors until we are not anymore.”

— Trista Mateer

94. “Yesterday I sat at a bar with a stranger and we practiced swallowing each other’s accents.”

— Trista Mateer

95. “You touched me more than once with tenderness and I never mistook it for affection. I know the code of miserable people. I was the rat trap for your loneliness. And the rat. And the loneliness. See how much poison I can swallow when it’s hand-fed?”

— Trista Mateer

96. “The person you are at the beginning of a story is rarely who you are at the end of one.”

— Trista Mateer

97. “I will not be a fairy-tale mermaid willing to give up her own voice for love.”

— Trista Mateer

98. “I had to ask for directions seven different times in LAX. It’s a monstrosity built almost entirely out of anxiety. It’s a shrine to nervousness.”

— Trista Mateer

99. “She says, “I thought you weren’t looking for love.” I say, “That doesn’t mean I’m not hoping it will find me.”

— Trista Mateer

100. “I stayed as long as anyone can stay in a place they don’t really belong.”

— Trista Mateer