Martina > Martina's Quotes

“I’ve been trying to educate people for years and it’s exhausting. I’m tired of being patient with bigots. I’m tired of trying to explain why I don’t deserve to be treated like a piece of shit all the time. I’m tired of begging everyone to understand that people of color aren’t all the same, that we don’t all believe the same things or feel the same things or experience the world the same way.’ I shook my head, hard. ‘I’m just– I’m sick and tired of trying to explain to the world why racism is bad, okay? Why is that my job?”
― Tahereh Mafi, A Very Large Expanse of Sea

“If the decision you’ve made has brought you closer to humanity, then you’ve done the right thing.”
― Tahereh Mafi, A Very Large Expanse of Sea

“I didn't believe it was possible to hide a woman's beauty. I thought women were gorgeous no matter what they wore, and I didn't think they owed anyone an explanation for their sartorial choices. Different women felt comfortable in different outfits.
They were all beautiful.”
― Tahereh Mafi, A Very Large Expanse of Sea

“I wondered, for the very first time, if maybe I was doing this whole thing wrong. If maybe I'd allowed myself to be blinded by my own anger to the exclusion of all else. If maybe, just maybe, I'd been so determined not to be stereotyped that I'd begun to stereotype everyone around me.”
― Tahereh Mafi, A Very Large Expanse of Sea

“Because i always say that. I always say that i don't care what other people think. I say it doesn't bother me, that i don't give a shit about the opinions of assholes but it's not true. It's not true, because it huts every time, and that means i still care. It means i'm still not strong enough because every time someone says something rude, it hurts. it never stops hurting. It only gets easier to recover”
― Tahereh Mafi, A Very Large Expanse of Sea

“Maybe it was enough, i thought, that i knew someone like him existed in this world. Maybe it was enough that our lives had merged and diverged and left us both transformed. Maybe it was enough to have learned that i love was the unexpected weapon, that it was the knife i'd needed to cut through the Kevlar i wore every day.”
― Tahereh Mafi, A Very Large Expanse of Sea

“I looked out at the world around me and no longer saw nuance. I saw nothing but the potential for pain and the subsequent need to protect myself, constantly”
― Tahereh Mafi, A Very Large Expanse of Sea

“I could no longer distinguish people from monsters. I looked out at the world around me and no longer saw nuance. I saw nothing but the potential for pain and the subsequent need to protect myself, constantly.”
― Tahereh Mafi, A Very Large Expanse of Sea

“Everything is true at once. Life is a contradiction. We take in every lesson. We find what works.”
― Jandy Nelson, I'll Give You the Sun

“Our belief is often strongest when it should be weakest. That is the nature of hope.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Mistborn: The Final Empire

“Belief isn't simply a thing for fair times and bright days...What is belief - what is faith - if you don't continue in it after failure?...Anyone can believe in someone, or something that always succeeds...But failure...ah, now, that is hard to believe in, certainly and truly. Difficult enough to have value. Sometimes we just have to wait long enough...then we find out why exactly it was that we kept believing...There's always another secret.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Mistborn: The Final Empire

“Maybe some people are just meant to be in the same story.”
― Jandy Nelson, I'll Give You the Sun

“Meeting your soul mate is like walking into a house you've been in before - you will recognize the furniture, the pictures on the wall, the books on the shelves, the contents of drawers: You could find your way around in the dark if you had to.”
― Jandy Nelson, I'll Give You the Sun

“You have to see the miracles for there to be miracles.”
― Jandy Nelson, I'll Give You the Sun

“People die, I think, but your relationship with them doesn't. It continues and is ever-changing.”
― Jandy Nelson, I'll Give You the Sun

“Reality is crushing. The world is a wrong-sized shoe. How can anyone stand it?”
― Jandy Nelson, I'll Give You the Sun

“Maybe a person is just made up of a lot of people," I say. "Maybe we're accumulating these new selves all the time.”
― Jandy Nelson, I'll Give You the Sun

“Who knows if [maybe] destiny is just how you tell yourself the story of your life?”
― Jandy Nelson, I'll Give You the Sun

“It was right and wrong both. Love does as it undoes. It goes after, with equal tenacity, joy and heartbreak.”
― Jandy Nelson, I'll Give You the Sun

“There are two kinds of guilt. The kind that's a burden and the kind that gives you purpose. Let your guilt be your fuel. Let it remind you of who you want to be. Draw a line in your mind. Never cross it again. You have a soul. It's damaged but it's there. Don't let them take it from you.”
― Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes

“Fear can be good, Laia. It can keep you alive. But don't let it control you. Don't let it sow doubts within you. When the fear takes over, use the only thing more powerful, more indestructible to fight it: your spirit. Your heart.”
― Sabaa Tahir, An Ember in the Ashes

“Each day means a new twenty-four hours. Each day means everything's possible again. You live in the moment, you die in the moment, you take it all one day at a time.”
― Marie Lu, Legend

“We do not remember days, we remember moments.”
― Jennifer Niven, All the Bright Places

“It's my experience that people are a lot more sympathetic if they can see you hurting, and for the millionth time in my life I wish for measles or smallpox or some other easily understood disease just to make it easier on me and also on them.”
― Jennifer Niven, All the Bright Places

“Laia is curled in a ball on the other, one hand on her armlet, fast asleep.
"You are my temple", I murmur as I knee beside her. "You are my priest. You are my prayer. You are my release."- Elias”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Torch Against the Night

“True suffering lies in the expectation of pain as much as in the pain itself.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A Torch Against the Night