Olivia > Olivia's Quotes

“Marianne had the sense that her real life was happening somewhere very far away, happening without her, and she didn't know if she would ever find out where it was or become part of it.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“She closes her eyes. He probably won’t come back, she thinks. Or he will, differently. What they have now they can never have back again. But for her the pain of loneliness will be nothing to the pain that she used to feel, of being unworthy. He brought her goodness like a gift and now it belongs to her. Meanwhile his life opens out before him in all directions at once. They’ve done a lot of good for each other. Really, she thinks, really. People can really change one another.
You should go, she says. I’ll always be here. You know that.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“Generally I find men are a lot more concerned with limiting the freedoms of women than exercising personal freedom for themselves.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“It's funny the decisions you make because you like someone, he says, and then your whole life is different. I think we're at that weird age where life can change a lot from small decisions.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“Most people go through their whole lives, without ever really feeling that close with anyone.”
― Sally Rooney , Normal People

“I'm not a religious person but I do sometimes think God made you for me.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“People are a lot more knowable than they think they are.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“All these years, they’ve been like two little plants sharing the same plot of soil, growing around one another, contorting to make room, taking certain unlikely positions.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“I bet you could sometimes find all the mysteries of the universe in someone's hand.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Words were different when they lived inside of you.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“I got to thinking that poems were like people. Some people you got right off the bat. Some people you just didn't get--and never would get.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Another secret of the universe: Sometimes pain was like a storm that came out of nowhere. The clearest summer could end in a downpour. Could end in lightning and thunder.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“The summer sun was not meant for boys like me. Boys like me belonged to the rain.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“To be careful with people and with words was a rare and beautiful thing.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Maybe we just lived between hurting and healing.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“I wanted to tell them that I'd never had a friend, not ever, not a real one. Until Dante. I wanted to tell them that I never knew that people like Dante existed in the world, people who looked at the stars, and knew the mysteries of water, and knew enough to know that birds belonged to the heavens and weren't meant to be shot down from their graceful flights by mean and stupid boys. I wanted to tell them that he had changed my life and that I would never be the same, not ever. And that somehow it felt like it was Dante who had saved my life and not the other way around. I wanted to tell them that he was the first human being aside from my mother who had ever made me want to talk about the things that scared me. I wanted to tell them so many things and yet I didn't have the words. So I just stupidly repeated myself. "Dante's my friend.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“We all fight our own private wars.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“But love was always something heavy for me. Something I had to carry.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“I renamed myself Ari.

If I switched the letter, my name was Air.

I thought it might be a great thing to be the air.

I could be something and nothing at the same time. I could be necessary and also invisible. Everyone would need me and no one would be able to see me.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“I had a feeling there was something wrong with me. I guess I was a mystery even to myself.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Sometimes, you do things and you do them not because you're thinking but because you're feeling. Because you're feeling too much. And you can't always control the things you do when you're feeling too much.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Everyone was always becoming someone else.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Scars. A sign that you had been hurt. A sign that you had healed.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“This is my problem. I want other people to tell me how they feel. But I'm not so sure I want to return the favor.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“All this time.

This was what was wrong with me. All this time I had been trying to figure out the secrets of the universe, the secrets of my own body, of my own heart. All of the answers had always been so close and yet I'd always fought them without even knowing it. From the minute I'd met Dante, I had fallen in love with him. I just didn't let myself know it, think it, feel it. My father was right. And it was true what my mother said. We all fight our own private wars.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“Try it again," I said. "Kiss me."
"No," he said.
"Kiss me."
"No," And then he smiled. "You kiss me."
I placed my hand on the back of his neck. I pulled him toward me. And kissed him. I kissed him. And I kissed him. And I kissed him. And I kissed him. And he kept kissing me back.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“I knew that a part of him would never be the same. They cracked more than his ribs.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“I have this idea that the reason we have dreams is that we're thinking about things that we don't know we're thinking about-and those things, well, they sneak out of us in our dreams. Maybe we're like tires with too much air in them. The air has to leak out. That's what dreams are.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to feel nothing so as not to feel anything - what a waste!”
― Andre Aciman, Call Me by Your Name

“I'm like you,' he said. 'I remember everything.'

I stopped for a second. If you remember everything, I wanted to say, and if you are really like me, then before you leave tomorrow, or when you’re just ready to shut the door of the taxi and have already said goodbye to everyone else and there’s not a thing left to say in this life, then, just this once, turn to me, even in jest, or as an afterthought, which would have meant everything to me when we were together, and, as you did back then, look me in the face, hold my gaze, and call me by your name”
― André Aciman, Call Me by Your Name