Iris > Iris's Quotes

“And here was Ronan, like a heart attack that never stopped.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven King

“Marianne had the sense that her real life was happening somewhere very far away, happening without her, and she didn't know if she would ever find out where it was or become part of it.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“I'm not a religious person but I do sometimes think God made you for me.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“Perhaps he makes a choice. He chooses the memory of her. That’s why he turns. He doesn’t make the lover’s choice, but the poet’s.”
― Céline Sciamma, Portrait of a Lady on Fire

“Yet the story of Orpheus, it occurs to me, is not just about the desire of the living to resuscitate the dead but about the ways in which the dead drag us along into their shadowy realm because we cannot let them go. So we follow them into the Underworld, descending, descending, until one day we turn and make our way back.”
― Meghan O'Rourke

“You're asking me to define an abstract concept that no one has managed to explain since time began. You sort of sprang it on me," Gansey said. "Why do we breathe air? Because we love air? Because we don't want to suffocate. Why do we eat? Because we don't want to starve. How do I know I love her? Because I can sleep after I talk to her. Why?”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven King

“I know when I'm awake and when I'm asleep," Ronan Lynch said.
Adam Parrish, curled over himself in a pair of battered, greasy coveralls, asked, "Do you?"
"Maybe I dreamt you," he said.
"Thanks for the straight teeth, then," Adam replied.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Blue Lily, Lily Blue

“Hers was tougher than tough love. It was brutal, industrial-strength. A sinewy love that never gave way to an inch of weakness. It was a love that saw what was best for you ten steps ahead, and didn't care if it hurt like hell in the meantime. When I got hurt, she felt it so deeply, it was as though it were her own affliction. She was guilty only of caring too much. I realize this now, only in retrospect. No one in this would would ever love me as much as my mother, and she would never let me forget it.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart

“In fact, she was both my first and second words: Umma, then Mom. I called to her in two languages. Even then I must have known that no one would ever love me as much as she would.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart

“Some of the earliest memories I can recall are of my mother instructing me to always “save ten percent of yourself.” What she meant was that, no matter how much you thought you loved someone, or thought they loved you, you never gave all of yourself. Save 10 percent, always, so there was something to fall back on. “Even from Daddy, I save,” she would add.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart

“Ronan kept going, his voice louder. “No. Do you hear me, Cabeswater? You promised to keep me safe. Who are we to you? Nothing? If you let him die, that is not keeping me safe. Do you understand? If they die, I die, too.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, Blue Lily, Lily Blue (The Raven Cycle, #3)

“No one knew what Ganseylike was, even Gansey. Teachers and family friends were always collecting articles and stories that they thought might capture his attention, things they thought were Ganseylike. The well-meaning items always addressed the most obvious parts of him. Welsh kings or old Camaros or other young people who had travelled the world for bizarre reasons no one else understood. No one dug down past that, and he supposed he didn't much encourage it. There was a lot of night in those days behind him, and he preferred to turn his face into the sun. Ganseylike. What was Ganseylike?”
― Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven King

“And what is love, in the end?" Alabaster said. "Except the irrational desire to put evolutionary competitiveness aside in order to ease someone else's journey through life?”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“The way to turn an ex-lover into a friend is to never stop loving them, to know that when one phase of a relationship ends it can transform into something else. It is to acknowledge that love is both a constant and a variable at the same time.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“Why wouldn’t you tell someone you loved them? Once you loved someone, you repeated it until they were tired of hearing it. You said it until it ceased to have meaning. Why not? Of course, you goddamn did.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“There are no ghosts, but up here”—she gestured toward her head—“it’s a haunted house.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“What's everyone talking about?"
"The end of The Iliad."
"That's the best part," Marx said.
"Why is it the best part?" Sadie asked.
"Because it's perfect," Marx said. "'Tamer of horses' is an honest profession. The lines mean that one doesn't have to be a god or a king for your life to have meaning.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“Maybe friendship is being the guardian of another person's hope. Leave it with me and I'll look after it for a while , if it feels too heavy for now.”
― Dolly Alderton, Ghosts

“(...) maybe that’s all love is. So much is how we perceive someone and the memories we have of them, rather than the facts of who they are. Maybe instead of saying I love you we should say I imagine you.”
― Dolly Alderton, Ghosts

“Home is where the heart begins, but not where the heart stays.”
― Hanif Abdurraqib, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us

“No matter how obsessed you've been with your own vanishing, there will always be someone who wants you whole.”
― Hanif Abdurraqib, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us

“A person is a whole person when they are good sometimes but not always, and loved by someone regardless.”
― Hanif Abdurraqib, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us

“Hasn’t that always been the way of it? We all choose our sins, and their measure. The ones we believe will render us unforgivable, and the ones that we will wash off with a morning prayer.”
― Hanif Abdurraqib, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us

“It is one thing to be good at what you do, and it is another thing to be good and bold enough to have fun while doing it.”
― Hanif Abdurraqib, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us