Matt de la Peña > Quotes

“I guess I don't really know what I want to do, either. Sometimes I feel like a shook-up bottle of soda. Like, I have all this passion that wants to explode, but I don't know where to aim it yet.”
― Matt de la Pena, My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories

“But when you read books you almost feel like you're out there in the world. Like you're going on this adventure right with the main character. At least, that's the way I do it. It's actually not that bad. Even if it is mad nerdy.”
― Matt de la Pena, We Were Here

“Sometimes when you're surrounded by dirt...you're a better witness for what's beautiful.”
― Matt de la Pena, Last Stop on Market Street

“People always think there's this huge hundred-foot-high barrier that separates doing good from doing bad. But there's not. There's nothing. There's not even a little anthill. You just take one baby step in any direction and you're already there. You've doing something awful. And your life is changed forever.”
― Matt de la Pena, We Were Here

“The feeling it gave me was an odd combination of weightless self-pity and excitement. I understood my life was meaningless, and this knowledge freed me up to accomplish absolutely anything.”
― Matt de la Pena, My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories

“I stayed there on the floor like that for a long, long time.
Eating and crying.
Crying and eating.”
― Matt de la Pena, My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories

“But mostly I remember every morning before school. How she'd say "Hey, honey!" just I was walking out the apartment door. And me stopping and turning around and saying "What?" And her saying "I love you." And me rolling my eyes like I just wanted to hurry up so I didn't miss the bus. I'd start going again and she'd say "Hey, honey!" and I'd pretend I was so annoyed 'cause she was wasting time and I had to go catch the bus. And how secretly it was my favorite part of every day.”
― Matt de la Pena, I Will Save You

“We only reveal what we want other people to know, right? It's like we create fictional characters for the public. And inside we're somebody totally different.”
― Matt de la Pena, I Will Save You

“The ocean talks to you. Especially at night. Whispering voices that never let up, not even when you sleep.”
― Matt de la Pena, The Living

“My chest got this weird feeling, like when you stare into the eyes of a little baby and the baby looks back up at you and you can feel how pure and innocent it is, so much that it makes your stomach feel empty - probably 'cause you realize you used to be pure like that, too, and now you're not.”
― Matt de la Pena, I Will Save You

“It's not stuff you leave with. It's love.”
― Matt de la Pena, Love

“Some people watch the world with their ears.”
― Matt de la Pena, Last Stop on Market Street

“He'd give anything to be out there playing instead of standing here watching. Trying to maintain this smile out of respect. He digs into his wrists some more with his nails. Breaks previously broken skin and pulls away. A smear of blood he wipes away with his other hand, rubs off across his dark jeans. Back home his mom is always on him to stop digging, but that only makes him want to dig more."

-exerpt from "Mexican White Boy”
― Matt de la Pena

“He wondered how his nana always found beautiful where he never even thought to look.”
― Matt de la Pena, Last Stop on Market Street

“And sometimes when her light brown eyes locked on to my dark brown ones, it was like she was reaching a hand all the way into my chest, like she was digging around in there for the most honest thing she could find.”
― Matt de la Pena, My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories

“He stared at the glowing moon again, and he listened to the whispering ocean. His thoughts were more staticky than before, but for the first time since the summer started, he felt like he understood the ocean's whispering. It all came down to this. The darkness. The loneliness. The mystery. The fact that everyone's days were numbered, and it didn't matter if you were in premier class or worked in housekeeping. Those were only costumes people wore. And once you stripped them away you saw the truth. This giant ocean and this dark pressing sky. We only have a few minutes, but the unexplainable world is constant and forever marching forward.”
― Matt de la Pena, The Living

“Stars shine long after they've flamed out and the shine they shine with is love.”
― Matt de la Pena, Love

“That’s the weirdest thing, by the way. That every person you come across lays down in a bed, under the covers, and closes their eyes at night. Cops, teachers, parents, hot girls, pro ballers, everybody. For some reason it makes people seem so much less real when I look at them.”
― Matt de la Pena, We Were Here

“But not just alive like I was yesterday and the day before. Alive like I knew I was alive. Like I could feel the breaths coming into my chest. And I knew I was the person inside my own body.”
― Matt de la Pena, We Were Here

“And all the sounds you heard- the wind whipping past your ears and the ocean's whispering and the trickle of whitecaps against your boat- that was the earth's blood pumping through imperceptible veins, and some of those veins were nothing more than people like Shy or Carmen or Addie.

And when the end came it smelled like morning dew and brine and everything around you morphed into a man, and that man shined a flashlight in your eyes and kneeled down beside you to pet your hair and he said: You're gonna be okay, young fella. Now come on.

And when he lifted you into his arms and carried you like a child into a hidden cave, where you would grow back into the earth's rich soil from which you came and where you would forever belong.”
― Matt de la Pena, The Living

“Truth is not a fixed thing. It evolves and morphs and inverts. What is true today may not be true tomorrow.”
― Matt de la Pena, The Hunted

“We can’t be spectators our whole lives, right? At some point we have to take a risk. Step into the action.”
― Matt de la Pena, Superman: Dawnbreaker

“So, he was breathing ice now? Great. He couldn’t even have dinner with friends without some random new power messing everything up.”
― Matt de la Pena, Superman: Dawnbreaker

“People always think there’s this huge hundred-foot-high barrier that separates doing good from doing bad. But there’s not. There’s nothing. There’s not even a little anthill. You just take one baby step in any direction and you’re already there. You’ve done something awful. And your life is changed forever.”
― Matt de la Pena, We Were Here

“Would you rather be great at something you like, or just okay at something you love?”
― Matt de la Pena, My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories

“When it comes to attractive females my policy has always been to nod first and ask questions later.”
― Matt de la Pena, My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories

“I've come to believe that everything is of this earth. Including you and me. The most complex human invention already existed in the soil. We do not make up new things out of thin air; we simply find already existing elements, born of this earth, and place them in new combinations. Progress is merely organization and creativity.
- Pacal”
― Matt de la Pena, Curse of the Ancients

“All Sera could do was shake her head. "Please understand, Dak. The only reason the older me is walking so close to the older you is because there's not a whole lot else to choose from."
"Whatever you say," Dak told her. "Come here, let's hook our arms together and see if it's a good fit."
"Gross," Sera said. "I'd rather make out with my dog.”
― Matt de la Pena, Eternity

“The fact that everyone’s days were numbered, and it didn’t matter if you were in premier class or worked in housekeeping. Those were only costumes people wore. And once you stripped them away you saw the truth. This giant ocean and this dark pressing sky. We only have a few minutes, but the unexplainable world is constant and forever marching forward.”
― Matt de la Pena, The Living

“My stain will never get fixed 'cause it's on the inside. And lasers can't reach there.”
― Matt de la Pena, I Will Save You