Nora Raleigh Baskin > Quotes

“Romance goes like this:
Boy gets girl.
Boy loses girl.
Boy gets girl again.
The end.
It can't be any other way.”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, Anything But Typical

“All we are, all we can be, are the stories we tell," he says, and he is talking as if he is talking only to me. "Long after we are gone, our words will be all that is left, and who is to say what really happened or even what reality is? Our stories, our fiction, our words will be as close to truth as can be. And no one can take that away from you.”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, Anything But Typical

“Why do people want everyone to act just like they do? Talk like they do. Look like they do. Act like they do.
And if you don't—
If you don't, people make the assumption that you do not FEEL what they feel.
And then they make the assumption—
That you must not feel anything at all. ”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, Anything But Typical

“When I write, I can be heard. And known. But nobody has to look at me. Nobody has to see me at all.”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, Anything But Typical

“Courage is contagious: When one person of courage stands up, others are affected and stand up with him”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story

“And what people see the most is his silence, because some kinds of silence is actually visible.”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, Anything But Typical

“But really, if you ask me, there is only one kid of plot. One. Stuff happens. That's it.”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, Anything But Typical

“Sometimes there is nothing to hold me together.”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, Anything But Typical

“I am like a leaf on a river, riding along the top of the water, not quite floating, not quite drowning. So I can't stop, and I can't control the direction I am going. I can feel the water, but I never know which way I am heading.
But I might feel lucky this day and avoid the sticks and branches scratching and pulling at me. ”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, Anything But Typical

“There are many, many different worlds to live in. And sometimes there is no connection from one to another.”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, Anything But Typical

“Boys are not supposed to cry. Because when they do, things get worse. Then suddenly you have two problems. You have whatever it was that made you cry in the first place, and then you also have the problem that you are a boy crying. And someone is bound to let you know this is worse. So now you have two problems. ”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, Anything But Typical

“Anger sends out a strange energy, like a force field in a science fiction movie. It repels. It destroys.”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story

“It's not about what makes you feel better or worse. If it's the right thing to do and you know it, you should do it.”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story

“These were such friendly people, they didn't notice how crabby we were, and before you knew it everyone was as happy as they were.”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, What Every Girl (Except Me) Knows

“But just because you can't see something doesn't mean it's not there. And just because you don't remember something doesn't mean you don't miss it. And just because you are used to something doesn't mean it's normal" -Ruby”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, Ruby on the Outside

“Old elbows," she told me. "A woman's elbows always give her age away.”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, What Every Girl (Except Me) Knows

“You can not know any better and still know you don't like something" -Ruby”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, Ruby on the Outside

“It occurred to me that a lot of beauty has to do with believing it yourself. That half of what we see is just the way it is presented.”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, All We Know of Love

“Because it was a selfish prayer, and selfish prayers don't get answered.”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, Nine, Ten: A September 11 Story

“There were absolutely amazing photographs everywhere, on everyone's Facebook page and everyone's iPhone and Instagram, just floating around in cyberspace for eternity. People took hundreds and thousands of digital pictures; one or two, even twenty or a hundred, were bound to be great. All anyone had to do was click through them all and post the ones they liked, deleting the rest. But using film meant you never knew what was going to be a good picture, let alone a great one, until you were standing there looking at a contact sheet with a magnifying glass and deciding which to print.

Maybe nobody cared anymore, but then again, writers probably felt the same way when word processors were invented. Anyone with a story and a keyboard could write their memoir now, write the great American novel, or tweet a 140-character trope that gets retweeted and it read by hundreds of people every hour of every day.”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, Subway Love

“You know how they say there's only one thing in the universe that's constant?' Jonas started. 'Change. Change is the only constant in the universe. And left alone, all things return to chaos.”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, Subway Love

“Some people, like teachers and librarians and other adults, like to say that names are not important.
Like sticks and stones.
But they are wrong.
Every word you choose means something you think it means, and more.”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, Anything But Typical

“Know how to live with the time that is given you.”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, Subway Love

“What was costly was not the shot but coming back without good pictures to choose from. The light was perfect, orange gray, casting long shadows. The city seemed to reveal more the darker it got.”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, Subway Love

“He says, "But, hey, wouldn't it be weird-if Bennu wakes up from the operation, and he's all tall and stuff, and then he doesn't recognize himself in the mirror?”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, Anything But Typical

“Because there is a need to hear one story and to tell another.”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, All We Know of Love

“When two people are destined in heaven to be together, they are complete, and the repairing of the world can begin”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, Subway Love

“In fact, being a unique individual is as much of a farce as trying to be like everyone else. Maybe more.”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, All We Know of Love

“...but I think when you are trying so hard to hide your own truth, it's hard to see anyone else's." -Ruby”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, Ruby on the Outside

“All we are, all we can be, are the stories we tell. Long after we are gone, our words will be all that is left, and who is to say what really happened or even what reality is? Our stories, our fiction, our words will be as close to truth as can be. And no one can take that away from you.”
― Nora Raleigh Baskin, Anything But Typical