Raina > Raina's Quotes

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“There's such a lot of different Annes in me. I sometimes think that is why I'm such a troublesome person. If I was just the one Anne it would be ever so much more comfortable, but then it wouldn't be half so interesting.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

“Your powers are what you always have with you. It’s one piece of knowledge we all share here. No matter how many dossiers the government keeps on you, no matter what data your enemies have collected, no one knows your powers the way you do. Everyone has seen them on TV. For everyone else, it’s a momentary fantasy. They don’t have to take them into the kitchen, the bathroom, and the bedroom. Or wake up in the night in flames, or sweep up shattered glass in their apartment, or show up late for work with a black eye. No one else knows where they itch or bruise you, or has tried the things you’ve tried with them when you were bored or desperate. No one else falls asleep with them and finds them still there in the morning, a dream that won’t disperse upon waking.”
― Austin Grossman, Soon I Will Be Invincible

“In the morning I woke like a sloth in the fog.”
― Leslie Connor, Waiting for Normal

“Did the men steal the papers?" Reynie asked, fearing her response.
No, because they are fools," Sophie said bitterly. "They demanded to see the papers, and when I did not answer fast enough -- they were very frightening, you see -- they hurt me so that I was not awake. . . . When I opened my eyes they were still trying to find the papers. They did not understand how we organize the library, you see. They were angry and creating a bad mess. . . . The police were coming and the men decided they must leave. I shouted at them as they left: 'It is a free and public library! All you had to do was ask!”
― Trenton Lee Stewart, The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey

“I've lived here ... my whole life. It's where I lost all my baby teeth. Where tiny hamster, gerbil, and bird skeletons lie in rotted-out cardboard coffins beneath the oak tree in our backyard. Also where, if some future archaeologist goes digging, they'll find the remains of a plush toy: a gray terrier named Toto I buried after the accident.”
― Jennifer McMahon, My Tiki Girl

“I spent the last Friday of summer vacation spreading hot, sticky tar across the roof of George Washington High. My companions were Dopey, Toothless, and Joe, the brain surgeons in charge of building maintenance. At least they were getting paid. I was working forty feet above the ground, breathing in sulfur fumes from Satan's vomitorium, for free.

Character building, my father said.

Mandatory community service, the judge said. Court-ordered restitution for the Foul Deed. He nailed me with the bill for the damage I had done, which meant I had to sell my car and bust my hump at a landscaping company all summer. Oh, and he gave me six months of meetings with a probation officer who thought I was a waste of human flesh.

Still, it was better than jail.

I pushed the mop back and forth, trying to coat the seams evenly. We didn't want any rain getting into the building and destroying the classrooms. Didn't want to hurt the school. No, sir, we sure didn't.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Twisted

“I was good at digging holes. It was the rest of life I sucked at.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Twisted

“We are all freaks. Yes! Alone in our rooms at night, we are all weirdoes and outcasts and losers. That is what being a teenager is all about! Whether you admit it or not, you are all worried that the others won’t accept you, that if they knew the real you, they would recoil in horror. Each of us carries with us a secret shame that we think is somehow unique…And if we are, each of us, freaks – then can’t we accept what’s different in each other and move on?”
― James St. James

“Someone walking past might think that he was being cruel, making fun of his young son. They would be missing the mark. It wasn't my ability to catch a ball that we were bonding over, it was my ability to catch his sarcasm.”
― Jack Ferraiolo

“Just because they're a story doesn't mean they're not real.”
― H. M. Bouwman, The Remarkable & Very True Story of Lucy & Snowcap

“Our role is to encourage, not discourage, reading.”
― Pat Scales

“Here stands a girl clutching a knife. There is grease on the stove, blood in the air, and angry words piled in the corners. We are trained not to see it, not to see any of it. . . . Someone just ripped off my eyelids.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls

“None of [the books are] worth reading. There are no fairy tales, no faerie tails, no sword-swinging princesses or lightning-throwing gods.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls

“Given though I am to the occasional notion of counter-survival, I didn't enjoy the idea of a stranger assuming the role of my executioner.
It was presumptuous, and I resented it.”
― Hannah Berry, Britten and Brülightly

“You never think it's gonna happen to you, but all that pollution and dirty fumes and flights and factories and shit we don't need and suddenly there you are, a stupid girl sitting alone on some steps, waiting to see if your family is ever coming back.”
― Saci Lloyd, The Carbon Diaries 2015

“It was a very hard thing to have crushed the heart, and the hopes, of a friend.”
― Kristin Cashore, Fire

“Mom always says you can solve most problems at the library, and there's a lady there who's my friend. We could ask her about helping Bernice. She has to answer people's questions. It's her job.”
― Laurel Snyder

“Remember, we're madly in love, so it's all right to kiss me anytime you feel like it.”
― Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

“Smug respectability, like the poor, we've had with us always. Today, however, ... such obtuseness is an indulgence we can no longer afford. The computer, nuclear energy for better or worse, and sudden, simultaneous influences upon everyone's TV screen have raised the ante and the risk considerably.”
― Studs Terkel, Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do

“A man? If I need a man, wouldn't you think I'd have one of my own? Must I wait for you?”
― Studs Terkel, Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do

“She has enough black eyeliner on to outline a corpse, and her skin's so pale she looks like she's just broken dawn.”
― John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson

“i wish i were someone else, even though i know i'll never, ever be able to get away from what i've done and what's been done to me.”
― David Levithan, Will Grayson, Will Grayson

“I'm so proud of you that it makes me proud of me. I hope you know that.”
― John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson

“Being in a relationship, that's something you choose. Being friends, that's just something you are. [But] I do pick you. We've been friends too long to pick, but if we could pick, I'd pick you.”
― John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson

“There wasn't any food or heat, but we had light, and places to sit, and a complete lack of frightening murderers, and that turned out to be enough for now.”
― Karen Healey, Guardian of the Dead

“You should totally get implants," she said admiringly in the mirror. I shake my head. "I don't yet know what I'm going to do with my life, Diane. But I'm hoping being shaped like a barbell could only be a hindrance.”
― Emma McLaughlin, The Real Real

“I'm discovering that once somebody physically moves out of your life, it's impossible for things not to change no matter how hard you try to keep them the same. The place you keep in your heart for that person is always there but it gets smaller and smaller, and I just moved my dad from a spacious loft to a cramped studio. The fact is, he has to make room in his heart for a new baby, and I suspect the place in his heart for me will get smaller too. How could it not?”
― Yvonne Prinz, The Vinyl Princess

“How absurd it was that in all seven kingdoms, the weakest and most vulnerable of people - girls, women - went unarmed and were taught nothing of fighting, while the strong were trained to the highest reaches of their skill.”
― Kristin Cashore, Graceling

“The truth is, until you know any different, the island is enough.
Actually, I know different. And it's still enough.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Scorpio Races