papalbina > papalbina's Quotes

“I can't believe I said it out loud. The truth doesn't set you free, you know. It makes you feel awkward and embarrassed and defenseless and red in the face and horrified and petrified and vulnerable. But free? I don't feel free. I feel like shit.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“grief is a house
where the chairs
have forgotten how to hold us
the mirrors how to reflect us
the walls how to contain us

grief is a house that disappears
each time someone knocks at the door
or rings the bell
a house that blows into the air
at the slightest gust
that buries itself deep in the ground
while everyone is sleeping

grief is a house where no one can protect you
where the younger sister
will grow older than the older one
where the doors
no longer let you in
or out”
― Jandy Nelson, The Sky Is Everywhere

“Comfort zones are overrated. They make you lazy.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“I used to tell your mother she looked like Sophia Lauren." He looks at me, frowning, and then it registers.
"Oh God, some guy's using that line on you, isn't he?"
"Not just 'some guy'." I tell him. "The guy.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“When he plays
all the flowers swap colors
and years and decades and centuries
of rain pour back into the sky”
― Jandy Nelson, The Sky Is Everywhere

“You go shake your foundations, Will. I think it's about time I saved myself.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“He bursts out laughing. It's short, as if he regretted allowing me to make him laugh, but the satisfaction's already mine.”
― Melina Marchetta, Saving Francesca

“Never say never,” he said urgently, rolling back on top of her and using all of his unusually heavy mass to press her deep into the cocoon of her little girl bed. “The gods love to toy with people who use absolutes.”
― Josephine Angelini, Starcrossed

“[...]Since then it’s been passed from mother to daughter, along with The Face.”
“The Face?” Lucas asked.
“That Launched a Thousand Ships,” Daphne said, repeating the title automatically. “It’s our curse.”
― Josephine Angelini, Starcrossed

“Sometimes you make choices in life and sometimes choices make you.”
― Gayle Forman, If I Stay

“If you stay, I'll do whatever you want. I'll quit the band, go with you to New York. But if you need me to go away, I'll do that, too. I was talking to Liz and she said maybe coming back to your old life would be too painful, that maybe it'd be easier for you to erase us. And that would suck, but I'd do it. I can lose you like that if I don't lose you today. I'll let you go. If you stay.”
― Gayle Forman, If I Stay

“It's okay,' he tells me. 'If you want to go. Everyone wants you to stay. I want you to stay more than I've ever wanted anything in my life.' His voice cracks with emotion. He stops, clears his throat, takes a breath, and continues. 'But that's what I want and I could see why it might not be what you want. So I just wanted to tell you that I understand if you go. It's okay if you have to leave us. It's okay if you want to stop fighting.'

For the first time since I realized that Teddy was gone, too, I feel something unclench. I feel myself breathe. I know that Gramps can't be that late-inning pinch hitter I'd hoped for. He won't unplug my breathing tube or overdoes me with morphine or anything like that. But this is the first time today that anyone has acknowledged what I have lost. I know that the social worker warned Gran and Gramps not to upset me, but Gramps's recognition, and the permission he just offered me--it feels like a gift.

Gramps doesn't leave me. He slumps back into the chair. It's quiet now. So quiet you can almost hear other people's dreams. So quiet that you can almost hear me tell Gramps, 'Thank you.”
― Gayle Forman, If I Stay

“Please Mia," he implores. "Don't make me write a song.”
― Gayle Forman, If I Stay

“You don’t share me. You own me.”
― Gayle Forman, Where She Went

“Adam is crying and somewhere inside of me I am crying, too, because I'm feeling things at last. I'm feeling not just the physical pain, but all that I have lost, and it is profound and catastrophic and will leave a crater in me that nothing will ever fill.”
― Gayle Forman, If I Stay

“You were so busy trying to be my savior that you left me all alone.”
― Gayle Forman, Where She Went

“You know, I thought about that a lot these last couple of years," She says in a choked voice. "About who was there for you. Who held your hand while you grieved for all that you'd lost?”
― Gayle Forman, Where She Went

“I don't really care. I shouldn't have to care. I shouldn't have to work this hard. I realize now that dying is easy. Living is hard.”
― Gayle Forman, If I Stay

“You?' is all I can manage to choke out.

'Always me,' she replies softly, bashfully. 'Who else?”
― Gayle Forman, Where She Went

“I get it now.
I have to make good on my promise. To let her go. To really let her go.
To let us both go.”
― Gayle Forman, Where She Went

“I wonder if the prayers of angel-bloods count more than regular people's.”
― Cynthia Hand, Unearthly

“Tucker: "But she gave me the perfect gift."
Clara: "What?"
Tucker: "You.”
― Cynthia Hand, Unearthly

“And then I can feel what he feels. He’s waited such a long time for this moment. He loves how I feel in his arms. He loves the smell of my hair. He loves the way I looked at him just now, flushed and wanting more from him. He loves the color of my lips and now the taste of my mouth is making his knees feel weak and he doesn’t want to seem weak in front of me.”
― Cynthia Hand, Unearthly

“An ending was an ending. No matter how many pages of sentences and paragraphs of great stories led up to it, it would always have the last word.”
― Sarah Dessen, Along for the Ride

“It shouldn't be easy to be amazing. Then everything would be. It's the things you fight for and struggle with before earning that have the greatest worth. When something's difficult to come by, you'll do that much more to make sure it's even harder―or impossible―to lose.”
― Sarah Dessen, Along for the Ride

“Maybe it was true, and being a girl could be about interest rates and skinny jeans, riding bikes and wearing pink. Not about any one thing, but everything.”
― Sarah Dessen, Along for the Ride

“He was the closest thing I'd ever had to something, or someone, that mattered. But in the end, close didn't count. You were either in, or you weren't.”
― Sarah Dessen, Along for the Ride

“I don't know," I said. "What else did you do for your first eighteen years?"
"Like I said," he said as I unlocked the car, "I'm not so sure that you should go by my example."
"Why not?"
"Because I have my regrets," he said. "Also, I'm a guy. And guys do different stuff."
"Like ride bikes?" I said.
"No," he replied. "Like have food fights. And break stuff. And set off firecrackers on people's front porches. And..."
"Girls can't set off firecrackers on people's front porches?"
"They can," he said... "But they're smart enough not to. That's the difference.”
― Sarah Dessen, Along for the Ride

“Sometimes a question can hurt more than an answer.”
― Sarah Dessen, Along for the Ride

“Guess what?" Maggie said as soon as I walked into Celmentine's.
"What?"
She clapped her hands. "I have a date to the prom!"
"Guess what?" I replied.
"What?"
"I don't." Her mouth dropped open. "Oh, and," I added, "I bought a bike."
.... "Okay, let's just slow down." She held up her hands, palms facing me. "First things first. What do you mean, you don't have a date?"
"Just that," I said, sitting down at the desk. "Jason bailed on me."
"Again?"
I nodded.
"When?"
"About twenty minutes ago."
"Oh, my God." She put her hand over her mouth: her expression was so horrified, like someone had died. "That's the worst thing ever."
"No," I said, swallowing. "It's actually not."
"No?"
I shook my head. "The worst thing is that right afterward, I marched right into the bike shop and asked Eli to go with me, and he said no."
She threw up her other hand, clapping it over the one already covering her mouth. "Holy crap," she said, her voice muffled. "Where does the bike come in?"
"I don't know," I said, waving my hand. "That part's kind of a blur.”
― Sarah Dessen, Along for the Ride