Tala❦︎ > Tala❦︎'s Quotes

“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

“And if you insist on continuing to make assumptions about my character, I’ll advise you only this: assume you will always be wrong.”
― 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

“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

“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

“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

“You’re perfect,” I tell him, so overcome I forget myself. “All of you. Your entire body.
Proportionally. Symmetrically. You’re absurdly, mathematically perfect. It doesn’t even make sense
that a person could look like you,”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

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

“To the world, she is formidable. To me? She is the world.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Imagine 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'm having a panic attack, you inconsiderate ass.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Restore 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

“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

“Marry me,' he whispers.
I stare at him, disbelief and joy colliding. And it's the look in his eyes —the hopeful, terrified look in his eyes— that nearly kills me. I'm suddenly crying.
I clasp my hands over my face. A sob escapes my mouth. Gently, he pries my hands away from my face.
'Ella?' he says, his words barely a whisper.
I'm still crying when I throw my arms around his neck, still crying when he says, a little nervously—
'Sweetheart, I really need to know if this means yes or no—'
'Yes,' I cry, slightly hysterical. 'Yes, yes to everything with you. Yes to forever with you. Yes.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Defy Me

“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

“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

“I understand perfectly. He's fallen for your quiet, timid shell. For who you used to be. He has no idea what you're capable of. What you might do if you're pushed too far.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“I love you, Ella.' I whisper. 'I will love you for the rest of my life. My heart's yours. Please don't ever give it back to me.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Defy Me

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

“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

“Forgive me. I know it all seems stupid now, but I don't want to take anything for granted anymore. Forgive me for hurting you. Forgive me for not trusting you. I took my pain out on you and I'm so sorry. I was selfish, and I hurt you, and I'm so sorry.

- Ella”
― Tahereh Mafi, Defy Me

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

“Right now all I want is this. I just want to be here. With you. Whatever comes next, we'll face it together.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Defy Me

“That you could love me at all seems like some kind of miracle."
She smiles, even as she shakes her head. "That's ridiculous," she says. "It's very, very easy to love you."

-Warner and Ella”
― Tahereh Mafi, Defy Me