Nicole > Nicole's Quotes

“Don't do that," he says. "Don't ask me questions you already know the answers to. Twice I've laid myself bare to you and all it's gotten me was a bullet wound and a broken heart. Don't torture me," he says, meeting my eyes again.
"It's a cruel thing to do, even to someone like me.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“In a world where there is so much to grieve and so little good to take? I grieve nothing. I take everything.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“Do you never get exhausted being so wholly unbearable? You have as much charisma as the rotting innards of unidentified roadkill.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“There are three things you should know about me, love." He steps forward.
"The first," he says, "is that I hate my father more than you might ever be capable of understanding."
He clears his throat.
"Second, is that I am an unapologetically selfish person, who, in almost every situation, makes decisions based entirely on self-interest. And third." A pause as he looks down. Laughs a little.
"I never had any intention of using you as a weapon.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“What difference does it make?" he says. "People can think whatever they like. I don't desire their validation."
"So you don't mind," I ask him, "that people judge you so harshly?"
"I have no one to impress," he says. "No one who cares about what happens to me. I'm not in the business of making friends, love. My job is to lead an army, and it's the only thing I'm good at. No one," he says, "would be proud of the things I've accomplished. My mother doesn't even know me anymore. My father thinks I'm weak and pathetic. My soldiers want me dead. The world is going to hell. And the conversations I have with you are the longest I've ever had.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“I have never claimed to live by any set of principles," Warner says to me. "I've never claimed to be right, or good, or even justified in my actions. I have been forced to do terrible things in my life, love, and I am seeking neither your forgiveness nor your approval. Because I do not have the luxury of philosophizing over scruples when I'm forced to act on basic instinct every day.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“So this—
This is agony.
This is what they talk about when they talk about heartbreak. I thought I knew what it was like before. I thought I knew, with perfect clarity, what it felt like to have my heart broken, but now—now I finally understand.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Restore Me

“Do you know,” he says, closing the cover of the journal only to lay his hand on top of it. Protecting it. Staring at it. “I couldn’t sleep for days after I read that entry. I kept wanting to know which people were chasing you down the street, who it was you were running from. I wanted to find them,” he says, so softly, “and I wanted to rip their limbs off, one by one. I wanted to murder them in ways that would horrify you to hear.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me

“I'm nineteen years old," he clarifies. "I'm a fairly impressive specimen for my age, I know.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“So you know how to get there?"
"Of course."
"But your father said you couldn't remember anything about Omega Point."
Warner glances over, his eyes laughing. "How convenient for us that I've regained my memory.”
― Tahereh Mafi

“Ignite, my love. Ignite.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“The tattoo is just setting below his hp bone.
H e l l i s e m p t y
a n d a l l t h e d e v i l s a r e h e r e

I kiss my way across the words.
Kissing away the devils.
Kissing away the pain.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“It's not charity," I snap. "He cares about me--and I care about him!"

Warner nods, unimpressed. "You should get a dog, love. I hear they share much the same qualities.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“So she told me a story. A story about a boy who was born with very green eyes, and the man who was so captivated by their color that he searched the world for a stone in exactly the same shade.” His voice is fading now, falling into whispers so quiet I can hardly hear him. “She said the boy was me. That this ring was made from that very same stone, and that the man had given it to her, hoping one day she’d be able to give it to me. It was his gift, she said, for my birthday." He stops. Breathes. “And then she took it off, slipped it on my index finger, and said, ‘If you hide your heart, he will never be able to take it from you'.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“People can think whatever they like....I don't desire their validation.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“You are so confident," he says to me. "You're stubborn and resilient. So brave. So strong. So inhumanly beautiful. You could conquer the world.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me

“She searches me with those odd, blue-green eyes and I feel guilty so suddenly, without understanding why. But there’s something about the way she looks at me that always makes me feel insignificant, as if she’s the only one who’s realized I’m entirely hollow inside. She’s found the cracks in this cast I’m forced to wear every day, and it petrifies me. That this girl would know exactly how to shatter me.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Destroy Me

“Stop.
Stop time.
Stop the world.
Stop everything for the moment he crosses the room and pulls me into his arms and pins me against the wall and I'm spinning and standing and not even breathing but I'm alive so very very alive.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“I am so tired, love.I'm so very,very tired.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me

“I love you, Ella. I will love you for the rest of my life. My heart is yours. Please don't ever give it back to me.

- Warner”
― Tahereh Mafi, Defy Me

“I want to be the friend you fall hopelessly in love with. The one you take into your arms and into your bed and into the private world you keep trapped in your head. I want to be that kind of friend," he says, " the one who will memorize the things you say as well as the shape of your lips when you say them. I want to know every curve, every freckle, and every shiver of your body, ...."
........
" I want to know where to touch you," he says, " i want to know how to touch you. I want to know how to convince you design a smile just for me." ...... " Yes, " he says, " i do want to be your bestfriend". He says, " I want to be your bestfriend in the entire world". --- Aaron Warner”
― Tahareh Mafi

“You think these recent events are everything. You think Aaron fell in love with your friend of several months, a rebel girl named Juliette. You don't know. You don't know. You don't know that Aaron has been in love with Ella for the better part of his entire life. They've known each other since childhood...…..The reason he had to keep wiping their memories was because it didn't matter how many times he reset the story or remade the introductions - Aaron always fell in love with her. Every time.


- Delalieu”
― Tahereh Mafi, Defy Me

“Because I was dying.
　　And Warner could’ve let me die. He was angry and hurt and had every reason to be bitter. I’d just ripped his heart out; I’d let him believe something would come of our relationship. I let him confess the depth of his feelings to me; I let him touch me in ways even Adam hadn't. I didn't ask him to stop.
　　Every inch of me was saying yes.
　　And then I took it all back. Because I was scared, and confused, and conflicted. Because of Adam.
　　Warner told me he loved me, and in return I insulted him and lied to him and yelled at him and pushed him away. And when he had the chance to stand back and watch me die, he didn’t.
　　He found a way to save my life.
　　With no demands. No expectations. Believing full well that I was in love with someone else, and that saving my life meant making me whole again only to give me back to another guy.
　　And right now, I can’t say I know what Adam would do if I were dying in front of him. I’m not sure if he would save my life. And that uncertainty alone makes me certain that something wasn't right between us.”
― Tahereh Mafi

“Juliette." I close my eyes. He says, "I don't want you to call me Warner anymore." I open my eyes. "I want you to know me," he says, breathless, his fingers pushing a stray strand of hair away from my face. "I don't want to be Warner with you," he says. "I want it to be different now. I want you to call me Aaron.”
― Tahereh Mafi

“I'm having a panic attack, you inconsiderate ass.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Restore Me

“I can't remember a single time in my life when someone apologized to me for hurting my feelings. No one has ever cared about my feelings long enough to apologize for hurting them. In my experience, I'm usually the monster. I'm the one expected to make amends.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Defy Me

“In this new, turbulent reality, the one person I recognize is him. My memories of him - memories of us - have done something to me. I've changed somewhere deep inside. I feel different. Heavier, like my feet have been more firmly planted, liberated by certainty, free to grow roots here in my own self, free to trust unequivocally in the strength and steadiness of my own heart. It's an empowering discovery, to find that I can trust myself - even when I'm not myself - to make the right choices. To know for certain now that there was at least one mistake I never made.

Aaron Warner Anderson is the only emotional through line in my life that ever made sense. He's the only constant. The only steady, reliable heartbeat I've ever had.

Aaron, Aaron, Aaron, Aaron.

I had no idea how much we'd lost, no idea how much of him I'd longed for. I had no idea how desperately we'd been fighting. How many years we'd fought for moments - minutes - to be together.

It fills me with a painful kind of joy.

- Ella”
― Tahereh Mafi, Defy Me

“Gone is the boy with the guns and the skeletons in his closet. These hands holding me have never held a weapon. These hands have never touched death. These hands are perfect and kind and tender.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me

“Warner has collapsed in the corner.
He's curled into himself, kness pulled up to his chest. arms wrapped around his legs, his head buried in this arms. And he's shaking.
Tremors are rocking his entire body.
I've never, ever seen him look like a child before. Never, not once, not in all the time I've known him. But right now, he looks just like a little boy. Scared, Vulnerable. All alone.
...
I touch his arms, so gently. I run my hand down his back, his shoulders. And then I dare to wrap myself around him until he slowly breaks apart, unfolding in front of me.
He lifts his head.
His eyes are red-rimmed and a startling, striking shade of green, shining with barely restrained emotion. His face is the picture of so much pain.
I almost can't breathe.
An earthquake hits my heart then, cracks it right down the middle. And It hink here, in him, there is more feeling then any one person should ever have to contain.
I try to hold him closer but he wraps his arms around my hips instead, his head falling into my lap. I bend over him instinctively, shielding his body with my own.
I press my cheek to his forehead. Press a kiss to his temple.
And then he breaks.
Shaking violently, shattering in my arms, a million gasping, choking pieces I'm trying so hard to hold together. And I promise myself then, in that moment that I will hold him forever, just like this, until all the pain and torture and suffering is gone, until he's given a chance to live the kind of life where no one can wound him this deeply ever again.”
― Tahereh Mafi

“Go to hell, Kishimoto.” “I'm right behind you, bro.” He winks at me.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Restore Me