Anna Jarzab > Quotes

“If there’s anything I learned from my mother, it’s that power makes you just as vulnerable as it makes you strong. People want to use you for it, or take it from you, all the same.”
― Anna Jarzab, Tandem

“How many people are we going to lose before the universe decides we've had enough?" Carly asked me. I didn't answer, but if I had known what was coming I would have said, "All of them.”
― Anna Jarzab, All Unquiet Things

“Her father had always told her that the things people hate most in others are likely the things they hate in themselves.”
― Anna Jarzab, Tandem

“My mouth hung slightly open, i was getting ready to sat something important. what i wanted to say was: I's so, so sorry. but instead I said, "i love you." Only then, when i said it out loud, did i know that it was true.
Carly threaded her fingers through mine and i squeezed her hand. She said it back to me, and i was relieved in a way that i wasn't expecting. i didn't know that i needed her to say it until she did. i was so grateful; i leaned down and kissed her fearlessly, which was unlike me. When she kissed me back, i brought my hand up and cupped the nape of her neck, pulling her hair with clumsy fingers. i tried to back off, to apologize for hurting her, but she kept me close, kissing me softly at first, then hard and fast until the lines between us blurred.”
― Anna Jarzab, All Unquiet Things

“I know some people find the idea of soul mates romantic, or comforting, but to me believing in soul mates means absolving yourself of any responsibility for your own happiness. If a relationship doesn't work out--whoops! It wasn't meant to be. Fuck meant to be.”
― Anna Jarzab, The Opposite of Hallelujah

“Best quote page 239: "The past doesn't disappear, but it doesn't have to define your future. That's up to you.”
― Anna Jarzab, The Opposite of Hallelujah

“From early childhood, I had been told how smart I was, and throughout my life various people had tried so hard to teach me everything there was to know. But it occurred to me then how negligent they had been in teaching me how to love. I had two example of love in life - my mother's, absolute and over- burdened, the trial of love; and my father's, the cold and ambitious pursuit of meaning in love, the desire to turn it into a product with a worth that could be measured. Of the two options, I had skewed towards the former, disappointed with my father's method, and so I had bestowed a sort of unconditional love on Carly without really understanding what it meant. I wished that just one person had taught me a way to love her less. If I had loved her less, maybe I wouldn't have hated her so much. And maybe then I could have forgiven her.”
― Anna Jarzab, All Unquiet Things

“It's a bit like staring into another dimension, one that has a different set of mathematical and physical laws. For me, it also serves as reminder that that the mind of God is unknowable, that things that seem contradictory to us only appear so because we have no context for them, or aren't seeing the full picture.”
― Anna Jarzab, The Opposite of Hallelujah

“When you’re deep undercover like that, you learn pretty quickly that facts aren’t people. They’re just facts. That’s what makes what you’re doing–what I did–so difficult. Friends, family…they can just tell when something’s not right, even if they never figure out why.”
― Anna Jarzab, Tandem

“My grandmother used to say that flaws are God's greatest gift to humanity, because they give us the opportunity to learn from ourselves and from each other. She said they're not obstacles to perfection, merely signs and guideposts on the path we take in pursuit of it.'
'But if nobody's perfect, no matter how hard we try, then what's the point?'
Harvey didn't look up; he was concentrating hard on his work. 'The universe is infinite; we'll never map its edges, yet NASA keeps on sending up spacecrafts,' he said, folding the metal precisely. 'The point is just to get a little closer.”
― Anna Jarzab, All Unquiet Things

“The world is far less random than it appears. Once you started paying attention, patterns emerged where before you only saw chaos.”
― Anna Jarzab, Tandem

“Well, normal is relative.”
― Anna Jarzab, Tandem

“My life held endless prospects, and I could've lived it so many different ways.”
― Anna Jarzab, Tether

“He was a life raft in a sea of assholes.”
― Anna Jarzab, All Unquiet Things

“He said that doubt provided contour to faith, like shading in a drawing, that it allowed you to see what was really there. At the time we were learning how to sketch in art class, I felt like it was the one thing he said that I actually understood.”
― Anna Jarzab, The Opposite of Hallelujah

“I had a chronic beer-face condition; no matter what I was drinking, I ended up looking like I'd just eaten a live tarantula. It was very sophisticated.”
― Anna Jarzab, The Opposite of Hallelujah

“Perhaps it wasn't age but what you were capable of, the lengths to which you were willing to go to get what you wanted, that mattered most.”
― Anna Jarzab, Tether

“But you can't prove God exists. And isn't that what all science is ultimately about? Proving theories about the universe?"

"Provability is not truth, Caro. Godel's incompleteness theorem tells us that, if we didn't already know it intuitively, which we do.”
― Anna Jarzab, The Opposite of Hallelujah

“Trust your gut, and don't let fear get the best of you.”
― Anna Jarzab, Tether

“Knowledge.Grace. True union with the divine. I find that sort of prayer so much more difficult than the other, because it requires an extreme emotional and spiritual vulnerability. It's frighting,because we're trained not to expose the weakest parts of ourselves, the things that cause us pain and shame and suffering. It's those same things that often block our access to God-- basically, we stand in our own way.”
― Anna Jarzab, The Opposite of Hallelujah

“There are moments in your life that you will remember forever, no matter how bad your recall, no matter how deep you sink into dementia.”
― Anna Jarzab, All Unquiet Things

“Even decent people can have awful friends.”
― Anna Jarzab, All Unquiet Things

“All tools are weapons in the hands of the wrong people.”
― Anna Jarzab, Tether

“You have to fight to hold on to the important things.”
― Anna Jarzab, Tether

“Those last few years were really hard. Miranda's death-- it changed her.' 'That's not an excuse,' Neily said. 'No, but it's an explanation.”
― Anna Jarzab, All Unquiet Things

“Normality is way overrated.”
― Anna Jarzab, Tether

“I want you to remember this, when everything around you appears to be falling to pieces, when it all seems lost: the world belongs to those who stick around and tough it out”
― Anna Jarzab, The Opposite of Hallelujah

“If you're going to have a life worth living, you have to take risks.”
― Anna Jarzab, Tether

“Frack joins Frick and me”
― Anna Jarzab, Breath Like Water

“I still can't believe that people can exist and then not exist, from one second to the next. And when they're gone, all they are is an accumulation of things. They're reduced to whatever possessions they leave behind.”
― Anna Jarzab, All Unquiet Things