Devin > Devin's Quotes

“
Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space. An intelligent, sensitive person is the exception, the very great exception. If you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment. The best you'll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way.”
― Janet Fitch, White Oleander

“Music. A flower in a vase on the tray. A January rose, it wouldn't last long, all big and full-blown like that. He loved things like this, fragile, that wouldn't last. She touched its silver-mauve petals, a hundred layers like an old-fashioned petticoat. The Japanese would say that's their elegance, the brevity of their beauty.”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“So much wanting and longing, clutching, desiring, passion and hatred and terrible need. Here, death was suitable, there was room for it, the grip of life's relentless urges slackened, replaced by this icy simplicity. This wasnt her death. It was his. That was the sad and honest truth. Though it would stay with her, it would be more like a black onyx heart on a silver chain, worn privately, under her clothes, close to her body, all her life. The guilt, the beauty, everything. It wasnt over, it had only begun. Well ok then, Okay.”
― Janet Fitch, Paint it Black

“She would be half a planet away, floating in a turquoise sea, dancing by moonlight to flamenco guitar.”
― Janet Fitch, White Oleander

“The phoenix must burn to emerge.”
― Janet Fitch, White Oleander

“I don't let anyone touch me," I finally said.
Why not?"
Why not? Because I was tired of men. Hanging in doorways, standing too close, their smell of beer or fifteen-year-old whiskey. Men who didn't come to the emergency room with you, men who left on Christmas Eve. Men who slammed the security gates, who made you love them then changed their minds. Forests of boys, their ragged shrubs full of eyes following you, grabbing your breasts, waving their money, eyes already knocking you down, taking what they felt was theirs. (...) It was a play and I knew how it ended, I didn't want to audition for any of the roles. It was no game, no casual thrill. It was three-bullet Russian roulette.”
― Janet Fitch, White Oleander

“That was the thing about words, they were clear and specific-chair, eye, stone- but when you talked about feelings, words were too stiff, they were this and not that, they couldn't include all the meanings. In defining, they always left something out.”
― Janet Fitch, White Oleander

“If sinners were so unhappy, why would they prefer their suffering? But now I knew why. Without my wounds, who was I?”
― Janet Fitch, White Oleander

“I felt like an undeveloped photograph that he was printing, my image rising to the surface under his gaze.”
― Janet Fitch, White Oleander

“Who are you if you lose your favorite person? Can you lose your favorite person without losing yourself? I reach for Stargirl and she's gone. I'm not me anymore.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Love, Stargirl

“Our hearts yearn backward. We long to be found, hoping our searchers have not given up and gone home. But I no longer hope to be found. Do not follow me! Let's just be fabulously where we are and who we are. You be you and I'll be me, today and today and today, and let's trust the future to tomorrow. Let the stars keep track of us. Let us ride our own orbits and trust they will meet. May our reunion be not a finding but a sweet collision of destinies!”
― Jerry Spinelli, Love, Stargirl

“Nothing’s more fun than being carried away.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl

“I’m not sure,” she said. “There’s no one answer to that. You have to
find your own way. Sometimes I try to erase myself. I imagine a big
pink soft soap eraser, and it’s going back and forth, back and forth,
and it starts down at my toes, back and forth, back and forth, and
there they go-poof!-my toes are gone. And then my feet. And then my
ankles. But that’s the easy part. The hard part is erasing my senses-my
eyes, my ears, my nose, my tongue. And last to go is my brain. My
thoughts, memories, all the voices inside my head. That’s the hardest,
erasing my thoughts.” She chuckled faintly. “My pumpkin. And then, if
I’ve done a good job, I’m erased. I’m gone. I’m nothing. And then the
world is free to flow into me like water into an empty bowl.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl

“She now knew that the death she feared might not be a physical one, that it could be death of the will, the soul, the mind, the laws, and thus not death, but a perpetual dying.”
― Joanne Greenberg, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

“Books are my friends, my companions. They make me laugh and cry and find meaning in life.”
― Christopher Paolini, Eragon

“First, let no one rule your mind or body. Take special care that your thoughts remain unfettered... . Give men your ear, but not your heart. Show respect for those in power, but don't follow them blindly. Judge with logic and reason, but comment not. Consider none your superior whatever their rank or station in life. Treat all fairly, or they will seek revenge. Be careful with your money. Hold fast to your beliefs and others will listen.”
― Christopher Paolini, Eragon

“Saphira to Eragon: "If anything happens, I’m going to pin you to my back and never let you off.
Eragon: I love you too.
Saphira: Then I will bind you all the tighter.
”
― Christopher Paolini, Eragon

“I have a new name for pain.
What’s that?
The Obliterator. Because when you’re in pain, nothing else can exist. Not thought. Not emotion. Only the drive to escape the pain. When it’s strong enough, the Obliterator strips us of everything that makes us who we are, until we’re reduced to creatures less than animals, creatures with a single desire and goal: escape.
A good name, then.”
― Christopher Paolini, Eldest

“Whatever you make, base it upon that which is most important to you. Only then will it have depth and meaning, and only then will it resonate with others.”
― Christopher Paolini, Eldest

“The monsters of the mind are far worse than those that actually exist.”
― Christopher Paolini, Brisingr

“I do not know everything; still many things I understand.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

“Qui plussait, plus se tait. French, you know. The more a man knows, the less he talks.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

“The truth is that I hate to think about other people reading my books," Miranda said. "It's like watching someone go through the box of private stuff that I keep under my bed.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

“As far as I am concerned, philosophic questioning is just as likely to make you confused and depressed as it is to improve your condition.”
― Christopher Paolini, Brisingr

“You cannot learn what you are made of if you rely on anyone or anything else to help you.”
― Christopher Paolini, Inheritance

“One foot in front of the other, counting tiles on the floor so I don't have to focus the blur of painted smiles, fake faces.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Impulse

“When someone won't let you in, eventually you stop knocking.”
― Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

“We cling to our fairy tales until the price for believing in them becomes too high.”
― Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

“Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“I regret that it takes a life to learn how to live.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close