Alphy Abraham > Alphy's Quotes

“I spent my life folded between the pages of books.
In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“Books are easily destroyed. But words will live as long as people can remember them.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me

“Words, I think, are such unpredictable creatures.
No gun, no sword, no army or king will ever be more powerful than a sentence. Swords may cut and kill, but words will stab and stay, burying themselves in our bones to become corpses we carry into the future, all the time digging and failing to rip their skeletons from our flesh.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

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

“Raindrops are my only reminder that clouds have a heartbeat. That I have one, too.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“I've been screaming for years and no one has ever heard me.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“It's the kind of kiss that inspires stars to climb into the sky and light up the world.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“And we are quotation marks, inverted and upside down, clinging to one another at the end of this life sentence. Trapped by lives we did not choose.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me

“Time goes on even when we do not.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me

“Loneliness is a strange sort of thing.
It creeps on you, quiet and still, sits by your side in the dark, strokes by your hair as you sleep. It wraps itself around your bones, squeezing so tight you almost can't breathe. It leaves lies in your heart, lies next to you at night, leaches the light out of every corner. It's a constant companion, clasping your hand only to yank you down when you're struggling to stand up.
You wake up in the morning and wonder who you are. You fail to fall asleep at night and tremble in your skin. You doubt you doubt you doubt.
do I
don't I
should I
why won't I
And even when you're ready to let go. When you're ready to break free. When you're ready to be brand-new. Loneliness is an old friend stand beside you in the mirror, looking you in the eye, challenging you to live your life without it. You can't find the words to fight yourself, to fight the words screaming that you're not enough never enough never ever enough.
Loneliness is a bitter, wretched companion.
Sometimes it just won't let go.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me

“I only know now that the scientists are wrong.

The world is flat.

I know because I was tossed right off the edge and I've been trying to hold on for 17 years. I've been trying to climb back up for 17 years but it's nearly impossible to beat gravity when no one is willing to give you a hand.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“I always wonder about raindrops.

I wonder about how they're always falling down, tripping over their own feet, breaking their legs and forgetting their parachutes as they tumble right out of the sky toward an uncertain end. It's like someone is emptying their pockets over the earth and doesn't seem to care where the contents fall, doesn't seem to care that the raindrops burst when they hit the ground, that they shatter when they fall to the floor, that people curse the days the drops dare to tap on their doors.

I am a raindrop.

My parents emptied their pockets of me and left me to evaporate on a concrete slab.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“Sticks and stones keep breaking my bones but these words, these words will kill me.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Unravel Me

“Hope is a pocket of possibility.
I'm holding it in my hand.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

“His hands are holding my cheeks, and he pulls back just to look me in the eye and his chest is heaving and he says, "I think," he says, "my heart is going to explode," and I wish, more than ever, that I knew how to capture moments like these and revisit them forever.

Because this.

This is everything.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Ignite Me