Han Nolan > Quotes

“If only his mind were as easy to fix as his body.”
― Han Nolan, Crazy

“There's always light after the dark. You have to go through that dark place to get to it, but it's there, waiting for you. It's like riding on a train through a dark tunnel. If you get so scared you jump off in the middle of the ride, then you're there, in the tunnel, stuck in the dark. You have to ride the train all the way to the end of the ride.”
― Han Nolan, Dancing on the Edge: A National Book Award-Winning YA Novel of Mental Health and Family Healing

“...I thought it was safer and easier to be one my own. But I don't think I was to be invisible anymore because-because it's lonely, and I don't want to be lonely. I don't want to be alone.”
― Han Nolan, Crazy

“And she didn't once say anything about this being a sin. It used to be I got the word sin slapped in my face every time I did something wrong, but come on, when you live in a sin-free family with sin-free parents and a sin-free sister, well, you can't help but sin a little extra on their behalf.”
― Han Nolan, Pregnant Pause

“I glance at the exit across the room. I want out. The bird in my chest is crashing up against its cage. I can feel the heavy thump, thump, thump of its feverish body inside and I open my mouth, not to speak, but to let the bird out so I can breathe.”
― Han Nolan, Crazy

“Anyway, I'm afraid to ask about Reed, where he is, because I'm afraid I can't handle the answer. The way people come and go in your life, where they're present and alive one minute, and missing or dead the next, is an idea that's too big for me to grasp. Life just seems way too fragile all of a sudden, and everybody seems to take it so lightly, as if they think we're all made like army tanks, big and strong and able to roll over anything in our way. And it's not just our bodies that are fragile; our minds are even more so. I don't know what fine membrane separates sanity from insanity, but after watching my dad slip-sliding around on the border between the two all my life, I know how easy it is to cross, and this scares me. This scares me to death. I've just been wondering, what if I had had the switchblade in my hand? What if Reed had dared me and I was the one with the switchblade? Maybe I would have used it. Then I'd be the one missing. It could have been me. I could have been Reed. Reed is me and I am Reed is Dad is Reed is me.”
― Han Nolan, Crazy

“Jason you can't control the universe and everything that happens in it, but you can control your reaction to it. You can control you, and how you choose to live each day.”
― Han Nolan, Crazy

“If you love someone, you stand by him, forever, no matter what.”
― Han Nolan, Crazy

“When God's moving his hands through your life, you had better sit up and take notice”
― Han Nolan, If I Should Die Before I Wake

“Our survival depends on not just what we can get in life but also what we can give”
― Han Nolan

“We sit huddled together for a few minutes, just being there with one another, and it feels dangerous to me that nobody is saying anything.”
― Han Nolan, Crazy

“For the first time in my life, I felt a gentleness, a softness in the unfolding of each day.”
― Han Nolan, Dancing on the Edge: A National Book Award-Winning YA Novel of Mental Health and Family Healing

“Honestly, I'm just so fed up with you. I'm at my wits' end.'
Since my mother is always at her wits' end, I'm surprised she had any wits left.”
― Han Nolan, Pregnant Pause

“Good for you, Jason. It's perfectly natural to be angry with your mother for dying. Everybody who loses someone special goes through that. It's just part of the grieving process.”
― Han Nolan, Crazy

“I stepped back and looked at all the people as they continued to weave in and out, around and around, faster and faster until they were one blur, until they were One. And then I knew what Bubbe meant. Here, was God.”
― Han Nolan, If I Should Die Before I Wake

“...and I was afraid because I knew I had outgrown my past before I could see a path to my future.”
― Han Nolan, A Face in Every Window

“We just have to accept that life is perfectly imperfect.”
― Han Nolan, Pregnant Pause

“I reached out and placed my hand on the book and thought maybe someday I wouldn't need the bruises or the scars anymore. Maybe someday it would be all right for the scars to go away.”
― Han Nolan, Dancing on the Edge: A National Book Award-Winning YA Novel of Mental Health and Family Healing

“I could feel it--inside, and I decided that night, reading poetry beneath a caged light bulb, that real was when you could fee your whole body light up from within.”
― Han Nolan, Dancing on the Edge: A National Book Award-Winning YA Novel of Mental Health and Family Healing

“Hardships and suffering should not lessen our love for God.”
― Han Nolan, If I Should Die Before I Wake