Bethany > Bethany's Quotes

“Look at the stomach. Really look at it. See the wagon trails traced through vessels and fat. See Jupiter’s storms. Valleys of fire. Collapsing constellations. A million teardrops. Paths through forests. Dinosaurs, future dinosaurs. A yellow crescent moon. Men, women, snakes. Kissing lips. The silver ritual of rings. Bunches of pink balloons. The curve of a lover’s back. Baby chub. Elderly wrinkles. Cracked continents. The wrong road. A flood. Things drowned and ascended. Snowfall. A tree to climb. Spiderwebs. Solar flares.
Shh. See it?”
― Daniel Kraus, Whalefall

“I love how, whenever you tell me a story, you go backwards and forwards and tell me everything else that could possibly be happening in every direction, like an explosion. Like a flower blooming.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“What we perceive as art, the universe perceives as directions.”
― Neal Shusterman, Challenger Deep

“I have found that people never love the way they say they do. They can't. They are just people. Full of lies and sentiment and fear.”
― Laura Ruby, Bone Gap

“Not living your life is just like killing yourself, only it takes longer.”
― A.S. King, Glory O'Brien's History of the Future

“The thing about life is that it goes on. You wake up and there is the sun like always. There is your own body with bad breath and bruises and a headache. You have to move. You have to pee. You have to get a drink. No matter what happened the day before, you wake up and there is life and you have to do something about it.”
― M.H. Herlong, The Great Wide Sea

“I am both ever evolving and ever decaying.”
― Stephanie Kuehn, Charm & Strange

“I don't understand a thing about this world: about people, and why they do the things they do. The more I find out, the more I uncover, the more I know, the less I understand.”
― Craig Silvey, Jasper Jones

“Have you ever done that? You feel really bad, and then it goes away, and you don’t know why.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“I don't mind him not talking so much, because you can hear his voice in your heart; the same way you can hear a song in your head even if there isn't a radio playing; the same way you can hear those blackbirds flying when they're not in the sky”
― Adam Rapp, 33 Snowfish

“We've learned from this that death can hurt us. It can surprise us. It can scare us. It can keep us up a night. But we've also learned the things that death cannot do. It cannot crush our hopes. It cannot take away the love and support of our family and friends. It cannot make us lose our unending faith in world and in God. It has saddened us, but it will not prevail.”
― John Corey Whaley, Where Things Come Back

“Funny how you notice how beautiful things are just when you're about to leave them.”
― Laura Ruby, Bone Gap

“Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.”
― J. D. Salinger

“And I was thinking that it was so weird that the world could keep turning. I mean, that honey would still need to be delivered and vegetables would have to be picked and laundry would need to be done when I was so miserable.”
― Laura Ruby, Bone Gap

“We sit in his living room and he puts on some music and it sounds like a painting in my head and my chest. It’s hard to explain.”
― A.S. King, Dig.

“Joey told me nothing ever goes back exactly the way it was, that things expand and contract- like breathing, but you could never fill your lungs up with the same air twice.”
― Andrew Smith, Winger

“Don’t worry about wanting to change; start worrying when you don’t feel like changing anymore. And in the meantime, enjoy every version of yourself you ever meet, because not everybody who discovers their true identity likes what they find.”
― Antony John, Five Flavors of Dumb

“Seventy percent of the planet is water. Most of that water is deep ocean. The origin of everything. Less than 5 percent of the deep ocean is mapped. Humans know more about Mars. Anything could be down there. Therefore, everything is.”
― Daniel Kraus, Whalefall

“And then all of a sudden I realized how little time we have. Like on the earth, I mean. And when I say we, I mean everyone. It was a profound realization, and I suddenly had to share this fact with Mary. I know that sounds insane because of how it was already after midnight and all the other crazy things that had happened that day, but it was one of the most important feelings I’ve ever had – my chest was swelling and everything. It felt like there were only so many hours left on the earth – that’s the hardest part about being alive.”
― Adam Rapp, Under the Wolf, Under the Dog

“People never notice anything.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

“No one answered. You could hear the light buzzing over us. I love that sound. It means school isn't working, that the teachers are losing the battle.”
― Adam Rapp, The Children and the Wolves

“That’s the weirdest thing, by the way. That every person you come across lays down in a bed, under the covers, and closes their eyes at night. Cops, teachers, parents, hot girls, pro ballers, everybody. For some reason it makes people seem so much less real when I look at them.”
― Matt de la Pena, We Were Here

“I'm sorry, but I don't get it. If we're supposed to ignore everything that's wrong with our lives, then I can't see how we'll ever make things right.”
― A.S. King, Please Ignore Vera Dietz

“All those people who are chained here thinking that their reputations matter and this little shit matters are so freaking shortsighted. Dude, what matters is that you're happy. What matters is your future. What matters is that we get out of here in one piece. What matters is finding the truth of our own lives, not caring about what other people think is the truth of us.”
― A.S. King, Ask the Passengers

“The quiet lines matter as much as the noisy ones.”
― Colum McCann, Letters to a Young Writer: Some Practical and Philosophical Advice

“All good books are about everything, abbreviated.”
― Andrew Smith, Grasshopper Jungle

“Loafe with me on the grass—loose the stop from your throat;
Not words, not music or rhyme I want—not custom or lecture, not even the best;
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.
”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“Maybe smiling at people would be my new revenge on the bullshit world.”
― A.S. King, Glory O'Brien's History of the Future

“I didn't think about anything past tomorrow because anything past tomorrow was just like cloud busting - it depended soley on the person looking at the clouds and it could rain any minute.”
― A.S. King, Glory O'Brien's History of the Future

“She must have seen more of my charm than my strangeness tonight.”
― Stephanie Kuehn, Charm & Strange