Nicola Yoon > Quotes

“Everything's a risk. Not doing anything is a risk. It's up to you.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“There’s a Japanese phrase that I like: koi no yokan. It doesn’t mean love at first sight. It’s closer to love at second sight. It’s the feeling when you meet someone that you’re going to fall in love with them. Maybe you don’t love them right away, but it’s inevitable that you will.”
― Nicola Yoon, The Sun Is Also a Star

“Maybe growing up means disappointing the people we love.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“Spoiler alert: Love is worth everything. Everything.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“Life is a gift. Don't forget to live it.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“Maybe part of falling in love with someone else is also falling in love with yourself.”
― Nicola Yoon, The Sun Is Also a Star

“Just because you can’t experience everything doesn’t mean you shouldn’t experience anything.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“Sometimes I reread my favorite books from back to front. I start with the last chapter and read backward until I get to the beginning. When you read this way, characters go from hope to despair, from self-knowledge to doubt. In love stories, couples start out as lovers and end as strangers. Coming-of-age books become stories of losing your way. Your favorite characters come back to life.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“You're not living if you're not regretting.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“I was happy before I met him. But I’m alive now, and those are not the same thing.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“We are capable of big lives. A big history. Why settle? Why choose the practical thing, the mundane thing? We are born to dream and make the things we dream about.”
― Nicola Yoon, The Sun Is Also a Star

“I don't believe in love."

"It's not a religion," he says. "It exists whether you believe in it or not.”
― Nicola Yoon, The Sun Is Also a Star

“prom·ise (ˈpräməs) n. pl. - es. 1. The lie you want to keep. [2015, Whittier]”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“Sometimes you do things for the right reasons and sometimes for the wrong ones and sometimes it’s impossible to tell the difference.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“Sometimes your world shakes so hard, it's difficult to imagine that everyone else isn't feeling it too.”
― Nicola Yoon, The Sun Is Also a Star

“Stars are important," I say, laughing.

"Sure, but why not more poems about the sun? The sun is also a star, and it's our most important one. That alone should be worth a poem or two.”
― Nicola Yoon, The Sun Is Also a Star

“You can do every goddamn thing right, and your life can still turn to shit.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“It's a hard concept to hold on to--the idea that there was a time before us. A time before time.

In the beginning there was nothing. And then there was everything.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“In my head I know I've been in love before, but it doesn't feel like it. Being in love with you is better than the first time. It feels like the first time and the last time and the only time all at once.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“Wanting just leads to more wanting. There’s no end to desire.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“Growing up and seeing your parents' flaws is like losing your religion. I don't believe in God anymore. I don't believe in my father either.”
― Nicola Yoon, The Sun Is Also a Star

“What colour are your eyes?
Olly (O): blue
Madeline (M): Be more specific please
O: jesus. girls. ocean blue
M: Atlantic or Pacific
O: atlantic. What colour are yours?
M: Chocolate brown.
O: More specific please
M: 75% cacao butter, dark chocolate brown
O: hehe. nice”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“You can't predict the future. It turns out that you can't predict the past either. Time moves in both directions - forward and backward - and what happens here and now changes them both.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“The thing about falling is you don't have any control on your way down.”
― Nicola Yoon, The Sun Is Also a Star

“My guilt is an ocean for me to drown in.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“I didn't know you this morning, and now I don't remember not knowing you.”
― Nicola Yoon, The Sun Is Also a Star

“I read once that, on average, we replace the majority of our cells every seven years. Even more amazing: we change the upper layers of our skin every two weeks. If all the cells in our body did this, we’d be immortal. But some of our cells, like the ones in our brains, don’t renew. They age, and age us. In two weeks my skin will have no memory of Olly’s hand on mine, but my brain will remember. We can have immortality or the memory of touch. But we can’t have both.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“How can you trust something that can end as suddenly as it begins?”
― Nicola Yoon, The Sun Is Also a Star

“I've read many more books than you. It doesn't matter how many you've read. I've read more. Believe me.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“The trouble with getting your hopes too far up is: it's a long way down.”
― Nicola Yoon, The Sun Is Also a Star