Jenn B > Jenn B's Quotes

“There's a word for it," she told me, "in French, for when you have a lingering impression of something having passed by. Sillage. I always think of it when a firework explodes and lights up the smoke from the ones before it."
"That's a terrible word," I teased. "It's like an excuse for holding onto the past."
"Well, I think it's beautiful. A word for remembering small moments destined to be lost.”
― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything

“She tasted like buried treasure and swing sets and coffee. She tasted the way fireworks felt, like something you could get close to but never really have just for yourself.”
― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything

“Ezra, the girl you're chasing after doesn't exist. I'm not some bohemian adventurer who takes you on treasure hunts and sends you secret messages. I'm this sad, lonely mess who studies too much and pushes people away and hides in her haunted house.”
― Robyn Schneider, The Beginning of Everything

“ako, ang hinahangaan kong tao na mahilig sa libro e yung may matututunan ka pag kausap mo, yung makikita mong naging marunong at mabuti siyang tao dahil sa pagbabasa niya ng mga libro.”
― Bob Ong, Lumayo Ka Nga Sa Akin

“There’s a Japanese phrase that I like: koi no yokan. It doesn’t mean love at first sight. It’s closer to love at second sight. It’s the feeling when you meet someone that you’re going to fall in love with them. Maybe you don’t love them right away, but it’s inevitable that you will.”
― Nicola Yoon, The Sun Is Also a Star

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”
― William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

“Sometimes I reread my favorite books from back to front. I start with the last chapter and read backward until I get to the beginning. When you read this way, characters go from hope to despair, from self-knowledge to doubt. In love stories, couples start out as lovers and end as strangers. Coming-of-age books become stories of losing your way. Your favorite characters come back to life.”
― Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything

“I don’t know what they are called, the spaces between seconds– but I think of you always in those intervals.”
― Salvador Plascencia, The People of Paper

“You can love someone down to their core and they can love you right back just as hard, and if you traded diaries you’d learn things you never suspected. There’s a part of everyone deep down inside of them not meant for you. And the sooner you learn that, the easier your life is gonna be.”
― Mindy McGinnis, The Female of the Species

“Sometimes you can only feel something by its absence. By the empty spaces it leaves behind.”
― Gayle Forman, Just One Day

“It's funny the things you think you're scared of until they're upon you, and then you're not.”
― Gayle Forman, Just One Day

“I think you're the sort of person who finds money on the ground and waves it in the air and asks if anyone has lost it. I think you cry in movies that aren't even sad because you have a soft heart, though you don't let it show. I think you do things that scare you, and that makes you braver than those adrenaline junkies who bungee-jump off bridges.”
― Gayle Forman, Just One Day

“...being Lulu, it made me realize that all my life I've been living in a small, square room, with no windows and no doors. And I was fine. I was happy, even. I thought. Then someone came along and showed me there was a door in the room. One that I'd never even seen before. Then he opened it for me. Held my hand as I walked through it. And for one perfect day, I was on the other side. I was somewhere else. Someone else. And then he was gone, and I was thrown back into my little room. And now, no matter what I do, I can't seem to find that door.”
― Gayle Forman, Just One Day

“He looks at one of the pictures for a long time. Then he looks at me. "I'll keep you up here." He taps his temple. "Where you can't get lost.”
― Gayle Forman, Just One Day

“He wraps an arm around me, and I swear we were once a single unit, a supercontinent divided millions of years ago - like my fifth grade science project - now reunited into some kaleidoscopic New Pangea. "I'm Madagascar," I say, sleepily. "You're what?" "I'm Madagascar. And you're Africa." He squeezes my shoulder, and - I think he gets it. I bet he does.”
― David Arnold, Mosquitoland

“When you were born, you cried while the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries while you rejoice.”
― David Arnold, Mosquitoland

“You spend you life roaming the hillsides, scouring the four corners of the earth, searching desperately for just one persons to fucking get you. And I’m thinking, if you can find that, you’ve found home.”
― David Arnold, Mosquitoland

“Life can be a real son of a bitch sometimes, bringing things back around long after you've said good-bye.”
― David Arnold, Mosquitoland

“Home is hard. Harder than Reasons. It's more a storage unit for your life and its collections. It's more than an address, or even the house you grew up in. People say home is where the heart is, but I think maybe home is the heart. Not a place or a time, but an organ, pumping life into my life. There may be more mosquitos and stepmothers than I imagined, but it's still my heart. My home.”
― David Arnold, Mosquitoland

“Life, it seems, delivers the best punch lines only after we've forgotten we were part of a joke.”
― David Arnold, Mosquitoland

“I think about how quickly things have changed for me. But that’s the personality of change, isn’t it? When it’s slow, it’s called growth; when it’s fast, it’s change. And God, how things change: some things, nothings, anythings, everything… all the things change.”
― David Arnold, Mosquitoland

“I wish wishing were enough, but it's not. Sometimes you need a thing.”
― David Arnold, Mosquitoland

“Remember that, Iz. Be a kid of honesty. Wave it like a banner for all to see. Also, while I'm thinking about it - be a kid who loves surprises. Squeal with delight over puppies and cupcakes and birthday parties. Be curious, but content. Be loyal, but independent. Be kind. To everyone. Treat every day like you're making waffles. Don't settle for the first guy (or girl) unless he's the right guy (or girl). Live your effing life. Do so with gusto, because my God, there's nothing sorrier than a gusto-less existence. Know yourself. Love yourself. Be a good friend. Be a kid of hope and substance. Be a kid of appetite, Iz. You know what I mean, don't you? (Of course you do. You're a Malone.) Okay, that's all for now. Catch you on the flip side.
Blimey, get ready.
Signing off,
Mary Iris Malone,
Your Big Sister”
― David Arnold, Mosquitoland

“I have limited experience, but I know this: moments of connection with another human being are patently rare. But rarer still are those who can recognize such a connection when they see one.”
― David Arnold, Mosquitoland

“What if … what if … what if … I play the What If? game all the time. But it’s rigged, is the thing. Impossible to win. Asking What If? can only lead to Maybe Things Could Have Been Different, via Was It My Fault?”
― David Arnold, Mosquitoland

“My Reasons may be hard, but my Objectives are quite simple.”
― David Arnold, Mosquitoland

“So I float in silence, watching the final touches of this perfect moonrise, and in a moment of heavenly revelation, it occurs to me that detours are not without purpose. They provide safe passage to a destination, avoiding pitfalls in the process.”
― David Arnold, Mosquitoland

“You ever have the feeling you lost something important, only to discover it was never there to begin with?”
― David Arnold, Mosquitoland

“Everything sounds better on vinyl. It’s not a trend. It’s a fact.”
― David Arnold, Mosquitoland

“Have a vision, unclouded by fear.”
― David Arnold, Mosquitoland