Caitlin Magness > Caitlin's Quotes

“When I've thought about him dying - which admittedly isn't that much - I always thought of it like you said, that all strings inside him broke. But there are a thousand ways to look at it: maybe the strings break, or maybe our ships think, or maybe we're grass - our roots are so interdependent that no one is dead as long as soneone is still alive. We don't suffer from a shortage of metaphors, is what I mean. But you have to be careful which metaphor you choose, because it matters. If you choose the strings, then you're imagining a world in which you can become irreparably broken. If you choose grass, you're saying that we are all infinitely interconnected, that we can use these root systems not only to understand one another but to become one another. The metaphors have implications...
I like the strings, I always have. Because that's how it feels. But the strings make pain seem more fatal than it is...We are not as frail as the strings would make us believe. And I like the grass, too. The grass got me to you, helped me imagine you as an actual person. But we're not different sprouts from the same plant. I can't be you. You can't be me. You can imagine another well- but not quite perfectly, you know?
"Maybe, it's more like you said before, all of us being cracked open. Like each of us starts out as a watertight vessel. And these things happen-these people leave us, or don't love us, or don't get us, or we don't get them, and we lose and fail and hurt one another. And the vessel starts to crack open in places. And I mean, yeah, once the vessel cracks open, the end becomes inevitable...But there is all this time between when the cracks start to open up and when we finally fall apart. And it's only in that time that we can see each other, because we see out of ourselves through our cracks and into others through theirs. When did we see each other face-to-face? Not until you saw into my cracks and I saw into yours. Before that we were just looking at ideas of each other, like looking at your window shade but never looking inside. But once the vessel cracks, the like can get in. The like can get out.”
― John Green, Paper Towns

“No you don't", she answers, and she is right. She can see it in my face- I understand now that I can't be her and she can't be me. Maybe Whitman had a gift I don't have. But as for me: I must ask the wounded man where he is hurt, because I cannot become the wounded man. The only wounded man I can be is me.”
― John Green, Paper Towns

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

“Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, more loving.”
― Madeleine L'Engle

“Someone needs to tell those tales. When the battles are fought and won and lost, when the pirates find their treasures and the dragons eat their foes for breakfast with a nice cup of Lapsang souchong, someone needs to tell their bits of overlapping narrative. There's magic in that. It's in the listener, and for each and every ear it will be different, and it will affect them in ways they can never predict. From the mundane to the profound. You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone's soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows what they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift. Your sister may be able to see the future, but you yourself can shape it, boy. Do not forget that... there are many kinds of magic, after all.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
― Toni Morrison

“If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb. (Don't Hesitate)”
― Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems

“Hauntings are memes, especially pernicious thought contagions, social contagions that need no viral or bacterial host and are transmitted in a thousand different ways. A book, a poem, a song, a bedtime story, a grandmother's suicide, the choreography of a dance, a few frames of film, a diagnosis of schizophrenia, a deadly tumble from a horse, a faded photograph, or a story you tell your daughter.”
― Caitlín R. Kiernan, The Drowning Girl

“Do anything, but let it produce joy.”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.”
― Kurt Vonnegut Jr., A Man Without a Country

“Words were different when they lived inside of you.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“You're only given a spark of madness. You musn't lose it.”
― Robin Williams

“My favorite book, by a wide margin, was An Imperial Affliction, but I didn’t like to tell people about it. Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you withthis weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read thebook. And then there are books like An Imperial Affliction, which you can’t tell people about, books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like a betrayal.It wasn’t even that the book was so good or anything; it was just that the author, Peter Van Houten, seemed to understand me in weird and impossible ways. An Imperial Affliction was my book, in the way my body was my body and my thoughts were my thoughts.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“All novels are sequels; influence is bliss.”
― Michael Chabon

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“You can be just friends with people, you know," Orla said. "I think it's crazy how you're in love with all those raven boys."

Orla wasn't wrong, of course. But what she didn't realize about Blue and her boys was that they were all in love with one another. She was no less obsessed with them than they were with her, or one another, analyzing every conversation and gesture, drawing out every joke into a longer and longer running gag, spending each moment either with one another or thinking about when next they would be with one another. Blue was perfectly aware that it was possible to have a friendship that wasn't all-encompassing, that wasn't blinding, deafening, maddening, quickening. It was just that now that she'd had this kind, she didn't want the other.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Blue Lily, Lily Blue

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“They murdered him.”
― Robert Cormier, The Chocolate War

“Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?”
― Henry Ward Beecherr

“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

“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“Actually, the problem is that I can’t lose my mind,” I said. “It’s inescapable.”
― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

“We squeeze his hand. He squeezes back. You stare up at the same sky together, and after a while he says, I have to go, and you say, Good-bye, and he says Good-bye, Aza, and no one ever says good-bye unless they want to see you again.”
― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

“I would never slay the dragon, because the dragon was also me.”
― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...”
― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

“You love me. Real or not real?"
I tell him, "Real.”
― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

“In that moment, Blue was a little in love with all of them.
Their magic. Their quest. Their awfulness and strangeness.
Her raven boys.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

“This is a love story. I never knew there were so many kinds of love or that love could make people do so many different things.

I never knew there were so many different ways to say goodbye.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Linger