Daisy Whitney > Quotes

“[Referring to rape] It already is bigger than everything else. It lives in front of me, behind me, next to me, inside me every single day. My schedule is dictated by it, my habits by it, my music by it.”
― Daisy Whitney, The Mockingbirds

“I don't need to be any place else, because the music takes me to the only place I want to be right now. To the place where I am and have always been wholly me, the only church I've ever belonged to, the only place I've ever prayed.”
― Daisy Whitney, The Mockingbirds

“Because this is what I believe - that second chances are stronger than secrets. You can let secrets go. But a second chance? You don't let that pass you by.”
― Daisy Whitney, When You Were Here

“We are what we love. We are the things, the people, the ideas we spend our days with. They center us, they drive us, they define us to our very core.
Without them, we are empty.”
― Daisy Whitney, The Rivals

“Some decisions are hard, some are easy, but either way it's our choices that matter. Who we chose to align with. What we choose to give in to. What we choose to resist. And most of all, who we choose to be. Because it is always our choice.”
― Daisy Whitney, The Rivals

“And we're all good, everything is forgiven between Beethoven and me because this is the part of me that hasn't changed. In this monent I'm not defined by the other things, the things that happened to me, the things I didn't choose. This is the part of me that defines me for all time, for always. The thing I choose completely.”
― Daisy Whitney, The Mockingbirds

“Sometimes, when we are sad, we have to do the opposite of sad. Sometimes we have to sing.”
― Daisy Whitney 'When You Were Here'

“ Trains are all the ways you miss each other—wrong train, wrong tracks, wrong time. ”
― Daisy Whitney, When You Were Here

“Hush, little students, we'll say the word,
Mama's gonna buy you a mockingbird.
And if that mockingbird won't sing,
Mama's gonna write down everything.
And so that book won't look the same,
Mama's gonna add a brand-new name.”
― Daisy Whitney, The Mockingbirds

“I risk a grin at the thought. Because there's a part of me that likes that idea. Get out of town and never look back.”
― Daisy Whitney, When You Were Here

“But I don't feel like dealing because dealing requires too much energy, and energy is what I lack.”
― Daisy Whitney, When You Were Here

“But I am tired of everyone being gone, and I am tired of everything that has tired me out for the last five years of my life.”
― Daisy Whitney, When You Were Here

“Standing up for what's right is a huge burden to bear. It's normal to have some doubt.”
― Daisy Whitney, The Mockingbirds

“Why am I doing this? Because it feels so good to talk like we used to, even though I know this is just a shadow of what we had. But I chase it anyway.”
― Daisy Whitney, When You Were Here

“Sometimes instinct can be wrong. But sometimes it can be right too. And sometimes you just have to take it on faith.”
― Daisy Whitney, The Rivals

“As you see, context is everything and nothing at the same time. Words stand alone and with each other.”
― Daisy Whitney, The Rivals

“You’re not the same. You’re not supposed to be the same. You’re supposed to be different. This isn’t something you will ever forget.”
― Daisy Whitney, The Rivals

“I would be a freak with you anytime, anywhere.”
― Daisy Whitney, When You Were Here

“To come to peace with the moving on. It is a gift, in a way. We spend so much of our time fighting death, as we should. But sometimes the greatest gift we can give ourselves, and in turn the ones we love, is to know when to let go. To know when it is time—and to be at peace with that.”
― Daisy Whitney, When You Were Here

“I am no longer the left behind. I am the living. And I want everything this life has to offer. I stop for a second and look around at all the shops and stores and stalls. At all the people, going about their days, at all the moments they're living. This is what I want. I want to live every moment. I want to feel everything.”
― Daisy Whitney, When You Were Here

“She expected a lot of me. When I was in fourth grade working on a book report, she made me start the whole thing over when she read it and said it was barely even legible. "What's wrong with it?" I asked her. "It's not good enough yet. You have to try harder," she said, her voice gentle. "You have to try hard at everything you do. That's all I ask." I rolled my eyes and revised it, and over time her approach wore off on me and I became like her too - wanting to do my best, expecting my best.”
― Daisy Whitney, When You Were Here

“Because maybe it's in the stories that the people we love are still alive.”
― Daisy Whitney, When You Were Here

“In this moment I'm not defined by the other things, the things that happened to me, the things I didn't choose. This is the part of me that defines for all time, for always. The thing I choose completely.”
― Daisy Whitney, The Mockingbirds

“No, I am not all right, I want to say. Have you been to my house? Have you seen how empty it is?”
― Daisy Whitney, When You Were Here

“Even though I know Miranda is suppose to jam her heel—she wears leather boots with four-inch spikes in my version—into his shin, sending Caliban to the floor in a crippline mess, I don’t do that.
Instead, like I’m some sort of primitive creature, an animal operating only on instinct, I whip around, lift my knee and jam it into his balls.
Henry grabs his crotch and falls to the ground. He moans, the class gasps, and Ms. Peck stands motionless.”—240”
― Daisy Whitney, The Mockingbirds

“I don't give a shit how many guys you hook up with as long as you use a condom. What I care about is whether you said yes. That's the only thing that matters.”
― Daisy Whitney, The Mockingbirds

“Life is short, and life is beautiful, and everything is lovely. Love it, embrace it, smell the lilacs, play with the dog, and love endlessly and fiercely with everything you've got. Live without regret.”
― Daisy Whitney

“…if you have someone who wants to heal, sometime they will respond to the unconventional. Their minds are more open to healing, so their bodies become more willing too. I believe that medication, while a wonderful thing, has its limits. That there are answers to be found in the unconventional.”
― Daisy Whitney 'When You Were Here'

“He gets that sometimes you just need to guard the door without knowing why”
― Daisy Whitney, Starry Nights

“Nothing is ever enough.”
― Daisy Whitney, When You Were Here