Nena > Nena's Quotes

“It has been a long trip," said Milo, climbing onto the couch where the princesses sat; "but we would have been here much sooner if I hadn't made so many mistakes. I'm afraid it's all my fault."
"You must never feel badly about making mistakes," explained Reason quietly, "as long as you take the trouble to learn from them. For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do by being right for the wrong reasons.”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

“...it's not just learning that's important. It's learning what to do with what you learn and learning why you learn things that matters.”
― Norton Juster

“So many things are possible just as long as you don't know they're impossible.”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

“As the cheering continued, Rhyme leaned forward and touched Milo gently on the shoulder.
"They're cheering for you," she said with a smile.
"But I could never have done it," he objected, "without everyone else's help."
"That may be true," said Reason gravely, "but you had the courage to try; and what you can do is often simply a matter of what you *will* do."
"That's why," said Azaz, "there was one very important thing about your quest that we couldn't discuss until you returned.
"I remember," said Milo eagerly. "Tell me now."
"It was impossible," said the king, looking at the Mathemagician.
"Completely impossible," said the Mathemagician, looking at the king.
"Do you mean----" said the bug, who suddenly felt a bit faint.
"Yes, indeed," they repeated together; "but if we'd told you then, you might not have gone---and, as you've discovered, so many things are possible just as long as you don't know they're impossible."
And for the remainder of the ride Milo didn't utter a sound.”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

“You must never feel badly about making mistakes ... as long as you take the trouble to learn from them. For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do by being right for the wrong reasons.”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

“Just because you have a choice, it doesn't mean that any of them 'has' to be right.”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

“What you learn today, for no reason at all, will help you discover all the wonderful secrets of tomorrow.”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

“…it’s not just learning that’s important. It’s learning what to do with what you learn and learning why you learn things that matters.”
― Norton Juster

“The only thing worse than a boy who hates you: a boy that loves you.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“A DEFINITION NOT FOUND
IN THE DICTIONARY
Not leaving: an act of trust and love,
often deciphered by children”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“She said it out loud, the words distributed into a room that was full of cold air and books. Books everywhere! Each wall was armed with overcrowded yet immaculate shelving. It was barely possible to see paintwork. There were all different styles and sizes of lettering on the spines of the black, the red, the gray, the every-colored books. It was one of the most beautiful things Liesel Meminger had ever seen.

With wonder, she smiled.

That such a room existed!”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“I love you. Remember. They cannot take it”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“Love: a single word, a wispy thing, a word no bigger or longer than an edge. That's what it is: an edge; a razor. It draws up through the center of your life, cutting everything in two. Before and after. The rest of the world falls away on either side.”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“I run for I don't know how long. Hours, maybe, or days. Alex told me to run. So I run. You have to understand. I am no one special. I am just a single girl. I am five feet two inches tall and I am in-between in every way. But I have a secret. You can build walls all the way to the sky and I will find a way to fly above them. You can try to pin me down with a hundred thousand arms, but I will find a way to resist. And there are many of us out there, more than you think. People who refuse to stop believing. People who refuse to come to earth. People who love in a world without walls, people who love into hate, into refusal, against hope,and without fear. I love you. Remember. They cannot take it.”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“It's so strange how life works: You want something and you wait and wait and feel like it's taking forever to come. Then it happens and it's over and all you want to do is curl back up in that moment before things changed.”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“I know that the whole point—the only point—is to
find the things that matter, and hold on to them, and fight for them, and refuse to
let them go.”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“Sometimes I feel like if you just watch things, just sit still and let the world exist in front of you - sometimes I swear that just for a second time freezes and the world pauses in its tilt. Just for a second. And if you somehow found a way to live in that second, then you would live forever.”
― Lauren Oliver, Pandemonium

“It's amazing how words can do that, just shred your insides apart. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me - such bullshit.”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“An itchy feeling began to work its way through my body, as though a thousand mosquitoes were circulating through my blood, biting me from the inside, making me want to scream, jump, squirm.

I ran.”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“What is evil?' you ask.

To which I reply, 'Who are you, Friedrich Nietzsche?'

To which you respond, 'Duh, wha? Me no understand.'

Then I put you back in your cage.”
― Josh Lieb, I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President

“It’s simply the most adorable thing ever: My mother has joined a gang.”
― Josh Lieb, I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President

“Right before you head out running, it can be hard to remember exactly why you're doing it. You often have to override a nagging sense of futility, lacing up your shoes, telling yourslef that no matter how unlikely it seems right now, after you finish you will be glad you went. It's only afterward that it makes sense, although even then it's hard to rationalize why. You just feel right. After a run, you feel at one with the world, as though some unspecified, innate need has been fulfilled.”
― Adharanand Finn, Running with the Kenyans: Passion, Adventure, and the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth

“Running is a brutal and emotional sport. It's also a simple, primal sport. As humans, on a most basic level, we get hungry, we sleep, we yearn for love, we run.”
― Adharanand Finn, Running with the Kenyans: Passion, Adventure, and the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth

“Perhaps it is to fulfill this primal urge that runners and joggers get up every morning and pound the streets in cities all over the world. To feel the stirring of something primeval deep down in the pits of our bellies. To feel "a little bit wild." Running is not exactly fun. Running hurts. It takes effort. Ask any runner why he runs, and he will probably look at you with a wry smile and say, "I don't know." But something keeps us going. We may obsess about our PBs and mileage count, but these things alone are not enough to get us out running... What really drives us is something else, this need to feel human, to reach below the multitude of layers of roles and responsibilites that societ y has placed on us, down below the company name tags, and even the father, husband, and son, labels, to the pure, raw human being underneath. At such moments, our rational mind becomes redundant. We move from thought to feeling.”
― Adharanand Finn, Running with the Kenyans: Passion, Adventure, and the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth

“If we push on, we begin to feel a vague, tingling sense of who, or what, we really are. It's a powerful feeling, strong enough to have us coming back for more, again and again.”
― Adharanand Finn, Running with the Kenyans: Passion, Adventure, and the Secrets of the Fastest People on Earth

“I tried to contain myself... but I escaped!”
― Gary Paulsen

“There are no safe choices. Only other choices.”
― Libba Bray, A Great and Terrible Beauty

“I'm just saying it's not all sand castles and ninjas.”
― Libba Bray, Going Bovine

“Really, being a librarian is a much more dangerous job than you realize.”
― Libba Bray, Beauty Queens