Table of Contents
Introduction
Andrea Gibson (b. 1975–2025) was a celebrated queer spoken word poet and activist whose deeply personal work continues to resonate worldwide.
They rose to prominence with powerful performances and collections that explore themes of identity, love, grief, healing, and mortality.
Andrea Gibson’s poetry was shaped by their own life, including their experience as a non-binary person and their four-year battle with ovarian cancer, which ultimately led to their passing in July 2025.
Gibson published acclaimed works like Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns, The Madness Vase, and Lord of the Butterflies, which remain beloved in both literary and queer communities.
In this blog post, I’ve shared 33 Andrea Gibson Quotes on Death, Love, Identity & Healing. So, let’s begin.
12 Andrea Gibson Quotes on Death and the Beauty of Goodbye
Dying is the opposite of leaving.
Andrea Gibson
Grief is not a disorder, a disease or a sign of weakness. It is an emotional, physical and spiritual necessity, the price you pay for love.
Andrea Gibson
Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.
Andrea Gibson
I’m not lookin’ for someone who can save me. Life rafts might keep you afloat but they rarely get you anywhere and I’ve got places I wanna go.
Andrea Gibson
I am more here than I ever was before. I am more with you than I ever could have imagined.
Andrea Gibson
When I left my body, I did not go away. That portal of light was not a portal to elsewhere, but a portal to here.
Andrea Gibson
Also Read: 58 Edgar Allan Poe Quotes on Life, Love, Insanity, Death, Loneliness, Beauty & Dreams
I intend to leave this life so shattered there’s gonna have to be a thousand separate heavens for all of my flying parts.
Andrea Gibson
Just to be clear I don’t want to get out without a broken heart.
Andrea Gibson
Sometimes the break in your heart is like the hole in the flute. Sometimes it’s the place where the music comes through.
Andrea Gibson
Forests may be gorgeous but there is nothing more alive than a tree that learns how to grow in a cemetery.
Andrea Gibson
There is no bruise like the bruise loneliness kicks into your spine.
Andrea Gibson
What I know about living is the pain is never just ours. Every time I hurt, I know the wound is an echo.
Andrea Gibson
11 Andrea Gibson Quotes on Love That Hurt, Heal, and Hold On
Loving you was like going to war; I never came back the same.
Andrea Gibson
Also Read: 70 Margaret Atwood Quotes on Life, Love, Feminism & Writing (Analysis)
The saddest thing in the world is loving someone who used to love you.
Andrea Gibson
We fight. We fix. We stay. Because fights are temporary but our love is permanent.
Andrea Gibson
In any moment on any given day I can measure my wellness by this question: Is my attention on loving or is my attention on who isn’t loving me?
Andrea Gibson
It hurts to let go, but sometimes it hurts more to hold on.
Andrea Gibson
Sometimes, the person you love the most is the one who causes you the deepest pain.
Andrea Gibson
When your heart is broken, you plant seeds in the cracks and pray for rain.
Andrea Gibson
You have to understand when it hurt to love her, it hurt the way the light hurts your eyes in the middle of the night, but I had to see, even through the ruin, if what we were burying were seeds.
Andrea Gibson
To love and be loved is the most natural expression of our being.
Andrea Gibson
I’d always find them [love notes in my suitcase], even through the ruin.
Andrea Gibson
11 Andrea Gibson Quotes on Identity, Queerness, and Becoming
I am living today as someone I had not yet become yesterday and tonight I will borrow only pieces of who I am today to carry with me to tomorrow.
Andrea Gibson
Yes, I like girls; Yes, I like boys; I like boys who like boys; I like girls who wear toys and girls who don’t; I like girls who don’t call themselves girls; Crew cuts or curls or that really bad hair phase in between.
Andrea Gibson
I said to the sun, ‘Tell me about the big bang.’ The sun said, ‘it hurts to become.
Andrea Gibson
I’m never gonna play hard to get when I know your life has been hard enough already.
Andrea Gibson
I am living today as someone I had not yet become yesterday and tonight I will borrow only pieces of who I am today to carry with me to tomorrow.
Andrea Gibson
Commit to loving yourself completely. It’s the most radical thing you will do in your lifetime.
Andrea Gibson
I could never trust anyone who’s well adjusted to a sick society.
Andrea Gibson
Don’t edit your ugly out of your bio. Let your light come from the fire.
Andrea Gibson
You keep worrying you’re taking up too much space. I wish you’d let yourself be the Milky Way.
Andrea Gibson
You never wish on shooting stars. You wish on the ones that have the courage to shine where they are.
Andrea Gibson
Don’t google your name. Ever. Don’t ‘search’ for yourself on anything that glows in the dark. Don’t let your beauty be something anyone can turn off.
Andrea Gibson
