Nancy Shen > Nancy's Quotes

“You can't be happy unless you're unhappy sometimes".”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“So many things become beautiful when you really look.”
― Lauren Oliver, Before I Fall

“Maybe you can afford to wait. Maybe for you there's a tomorrow. Maybe for you there's one thousand tomorrows, or three thousand, or ten, so much time you can bathe in it, roll around it, let it slide like coins through you fingers. So much time you can waste it.
But for some of us there's only today. And the truth is, you never really know.”
― Lauren Oliver, Before I Fall

“I'd rather die my way than live yours.”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“I guess that's what saying good-bye is always like--like jumping off an edge. The worst part is making the choice to do it. Once you're in the air, there's nothing you can do but let go.”
― Lauren Oliver, Before I Fall

“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

“He who leaps for the sky may fall, it's true. But he may also fly.”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“Mama, Mama, help me get home
I'm out in the woods, I am out on my own.
I found me a werewolf, a nasty old mutt
It showed me its teeth and went straight for my gut.

Mama, Mama, help me get home
I'm out in the woods, I am out on my own.
I was stopped by a vampire, a rotting old wreck
It showed me its teeth and went straight for my neck.

Mama, Mama, put me to bed
I won't make it home, I'm already half-dead.
I met an Invalid, and fell for his art
He showed me his smile, and went straight for my heart.

-From "A Child's Walk Home," Nursery Rhymes and Folk Tales”
― 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

“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

“The most dangerous sicknesses are those that make us believe we are well”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“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

“Hearts are fragile things. That's why you have to be so careful.”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“How is it possible, I think, to change so much and not be able to change anything at all?”
― Lauren Oliver, Before I Fall

“The last laugh, the last cup of coffee, the last sunset, the last time you jump through a sprinkler, or eat an ice-cream cone, or stick your tongue out to catch a snowflake. You just don't know.”
― Lauren Oliver, Before I Fall

“Snapshots, moments, mere seconds: as fragile and beautiful and hopeless as a single butterfly, flapping on against a gathering wind.”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“Are you sure that being like everyone else will make you happy?”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

ҬSometimes day and night reverse. Sometimes up goes down and down goes up, and love turns into hate, and the things you counted on get washed out from under your feet, leaving you pedaling in the air.
Sometimes people stop loving you. And that´s the kind of darkness that never gets fixed, no matter how many moons rise again, filling the sky with a weak approximation of light¨”
― Lauren Oliver, Vanishing Girls

“So often we only do what we think is expected of us, when we are capable of so much more.”
― Cynthia Hand, Unearthly

“Have you ever been to a place you're supposed to love, but all you can think about is home?”
― Cynthia Hand, Unearthly

“Our purpose on this earth is not one single event, an accomplishment we can check off a list. There is no test. No passing or failing. There's only us, each moment shaping who we are, into what we will become.”
― Cynthia Hand, Hallowed

“We think of happiness as something we can take. But usually it comes from being content with what we have, and accepting ourselves.”
― Cynthia Hand, Boundless

“Time passes. That's the rule. No matter what happens, no matter how much it might feel like everything in your life has been frozen around one particular moment, time marches on.”
― Cynthia Hand, The Last Time We Say Goodbye

“Coward, says the nagging voice inside my head. You should talk to him. Find out what he has to say.
What if he says we belong together?
Well, then you'll have to deal with that. But at least you won't be running away.
I think it's more of a brisk walk.
Whatever.
I'm having an argument with myself. And I'm losing. So not a good sign.”
― Cynthia Hand, Hallowed