Helen Wei > Helen's Quotes

“In this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard. Yonder they do not love your flesh. They despise it. They don't love your eyes; they'd just as soon pick em out. No more do they love the skin on your back. Yonder they flay it. And O my people they do not love your hands. Those they only use, tie, bind, chop off and leave empty. Love your hands! Love them. Raise them up and kiss them. Touch others with them, pat them together, stroke them on your face 'cause they don't love that either. You got to love it, you! And no, they ain't in love with your mouth. Yonder, out there, they will see it broken and break it again. What you say out of it they will not heed. What you scream from it they do not hear. What you put into it to nourish your body they will snatch away and give you leavins instead. No, they don't love your mouth. You got to love it. This is flesh I'm talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved. Feet that need to rest and to dance; backs that need support; shoulders that need arms, strong arms I'm telling you. And O my people, out yonder, hear me, they do not love your neck unnoosed and straight. So love your neck; put a hand on it, grace it, stroke it and hold it up. and all your inside parts that they'd just as soon slop for hogs, you got to love them. The dark, dark liver--love it, love it and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet. More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. More than your life-holding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“You your best thing, Sethe. You are.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“The marks humans leave are too often scars.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is inprobably biased toward the consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe that it-or my observation of it-is temporary?”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“As the tide washed in, the Dutch Tulip Man faced the Ocean:
"Conjoiner rejoinder poisoner concealer revelator. Look at it, rising up and rising down, taking everything with it."

"What’s that?" Anna asked.

"Water," the Dutchman said. "Well, and time.”
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

“Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia. (...) You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“When I look at my room, I see a girl who loves books.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“What the hell is that?" I laughed.
"It's my fox hat."
"Your fox hat?"
"Yeah, Pudge. My fox hat."
"Why are you wearing your fox hat?" I asked.
"Because no one can catch the motherfucking fox.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can't know better until knowing better is useless.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“People, I thought, wanted security. They couldn't bear the idea of death being a big black nothing, couldn't bear the thought of their loved ones not existing, and couldn't even imagine themselves not existing. I finally decided that people believed in an afterlife because they couldn't bear not to.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“We need never be hopeless because we can never be irreperably broken.”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person.”
― John Green, Paper Towns

“As much as life can suck, it always beats the alternative.”
― John Green, Paper Towns

“Isn't it also that on some fundamental level we find it difficult to understand that other people are human beings in the same way that we are? We idealize them as gods or dismiss them as animals.”
― John Green, Paper Towns

“That's who you really like. The people you can think out loud in front of.”
― John Green, An Abundance of Katherines

“What matters to you defines your mattering.”
― John Green, An Abundance of Katherines

“He liked the mere act of reading, the magic of turning scratches on a page into words inside his head.”
― John Green, An Abundance of Katherines

“Maybe there's something you're afraid to say, or someone you're afraid to love, or somewhere you're afraid to go. It's gonna hurt. It's gonna hurt because it matters.”
― John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson

“NO. No no no. I don't want to screw you. I just love you. When did who you want to screw become the whole game? Since when is the person you want to screw the only person you get to love? It's so stupid, Tiny! I mean, Jesus, who even gives a fuck about sex?! People act like it's the most important thing humans do, but come on. How can our sentient fucking lives revolve around something slugs can do. I mean, who you want to screw and whether you screw them? Those are important questions, I guess. But they're not that important. You know what's important? Who would you die for? Who do you wake up at five forty-five in the morning for even though you don't even know why he needs you? Whose drunken nose would you pick?!”
― John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson

“maybe tonight you're scared of falling, and maybe there's somebody here or somewhere else you're thinking about, worrying over, fretting over, trying to figure out if you want to fall, or how and when you're gonna land, and i gotta tell you, friends, to stop thinking about the landing, because it's all about falling.”
― David Levithan, Will Grayson, Will Grayson

“Being in a relationship, that's something you choose. Being friends, that's something you just are.”
― John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson

“I responded to this development with the kind of sophisticated language for which I am famous. "Crap crap crap crap crap crap crap stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid crap.”
― John Green, Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances

“Stuart must have sensed my despair from the way I began lightly banging my forehead on the table.”
― Maureen Johnson, Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances

“Tell her that you love her hair, that you love her skin, her lips, because, in truth, you love them more than you love your own.”
― Junot Díaz, Drown

“I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

“And did I pass?" The face of the old woman on my right was unreadable in the gathering dusk. On my left the younger woman said, "You don't pass or fail at being a person, dear.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

“Words save our lives, sometimes.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

“I was a normal child. Which is to say, I was selfish and I was not entirely convinced of the existence of things that were not me, and I was certain, rock-solid, unshakeably certain, that I was the most important thing in creation. There was nothing that was more important to me than I was.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

“So you used to know everything?"
She wrinkled her nose. "Everybody did. I told you. It's nothing special, knowing how things work. And you really do have to give it all up if you want to play."
"To play what?"
"This," she said. She waved at the house and the sky and the impossible full moon and the skeins and the shawls and clusters of bright stars.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane