West U’Ren > West's Quotes

“I just want to sleep. A coma would be nice. Or amnesia. Anything, just to get rid of this, these thoughts, whispers in my mind. Did he rape my head, too?”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“Having an aura of menace is like having a pet weasel, because you rarely meet someone who has one, and when you do, it makes you want to hide under the coffee table.”
― Lemony Snicket

“It is not very polite to interrupt a person, of course, but sometimes if the person is very unpleasant you can hardly stop yourself.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“Literature doesn’t exactly have a strong mental-health track record.”
― Lemony Snicket

“Don’t repeat yourself. It’s not only repetitive, it’s redundant, and people have heard it before.”
― Lemony Snicket, Who Could That Be at This Hour?

“I'm not a stranger," I said, and pointed to his book. "I'm someone who reads the same authors you do.”
― Lemony Snicket, When Did You See Her Last?

“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“You think because he doesn't love you that you are worthless. You think that because he doesn't want you anymore that he is right -- that his judgement and opinion of you are correct. If he throws you out, then you are garbage. You think he belongs to you because you want to belong to him. Don't. It's a bad word, 'belong.' Especially when you put it with somebody you love. Love shouldn't be like that. Did you ever see the way the clouds love a mountain? They circle all around it; sometimes you can't even see the mountain for the clouds. But you know what? You go up top and what do you see? His head. The clouds never cover the head. His head pokes through, beacuse the clouds let him; they don't wrap him up. They let him keep his head up high, free, with nothing to hide him or bind him. You can't own a human being. You can't lose what you don't own. Suppose you did own him. Could you really love somebody who was absolutely nobody without you? You really want somebody like that? Somebody who falls apart when you walk out the door? You don't, do you? And neither does he. You're turning over your whole life to him. Your whole life, girl. And if it means so little to you that you can just give it away, hand it to him, then why should it mean any more to him? He can't value you more than you value yourself.”
― Toni Morrison

“Don't ever think I fell for you, or fell over you. I didn't fall in love, I rose in it.”
― Toni Morrison, Jazz

“I tell my students, 'When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.”
― Toni Morrison

“Like any artist without an art form, she became dangerous.”
― Toni Morrison, Sula

“Smile. Nod. Say
something witty
before he finds
out what an incredible
geek you are.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Crank

“I am different. And I don't understand exactly how. And I don't understand just why.”
― Ellen Hopkins, Identical

“I want to open myself, let him inside. But how do I give what has already been taken?”
― Ellen Hopkins, Glass

“In one aspect, yes, I believe in ghosts, but we create them. We haunt ourselves.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls

“I wonder how long it would take for anyone to notice if I just stopped talking.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“What he knew, he knew from books, and books lied, they made things prettier.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“Everyone’s chest
is a living room wall
with awkwardly placed photographs
hiding fist-shaped holes.”
― Andrea Gibson