Jandy Nelson

“And it's just dawned on me that I might be the author of my own story, but so is everyone else the author of their own stories, and sometimes, like now, there's no overlap.”

“Maybe what my sister wanted was to stay here and get married and have a family.Maybe that was her color of extraordinary.”

“Sadness pulses out of us as we walk. I almost expect the trees to lower their branches when we pass, the stars to hand down some light. I breathe in the horsy scent of eucalyptus, the thick sugary pine, aware of each breath I take, how each one keeps me in the world a few seconds longer. I taste the sweetness of the summer air on my tongue and want to just gulp and gulp and gulp it into my body--this living, breathing, heart-beating body of mine.”

“As I walk through the redwood trees, my sneakers sopping up days of rain, I wonder why bereaved people even bother with mourning clothes, when grief itself provides such an unmistakable wardrobe.”

“I look into his sorrowless eyes and a door in my heart blows open. And when we kiss, i see that on the other side of that door is sky.”

“Let me just unsubscribe to my own mind already, because I don't get any of it.”

“Life’s a freaking mess… there’s not one truth ever, just a bunch of stories, all going on at once, in our heads, in our hearts, all getting in the way of each other. It’s all a beautiful calamitous mess.”

“My grandmother thinks it's really funny to put all sorts of things in our - my lunch. I never know what'll be inside: e.e. cummings, flower petals, a handful of buttons. She seems to have lost sight of the original purpose of the brown bag." - Lennie"Or maybe she thinks other forms of nourishment are more important." - Joe”

“I can't shove the dark out of my way.”

“La gente muere constantemente. Todos los días. A todashoras. Hay familias por todo el mundo mirando camas donde ya no duerme nadie, zapatos queya nadie se pone. Familias que ya no tienen que comprar un cereal en particular, un tipo dechampú. Hay gente por todas partes haciendo cola en los cines, comprando cortinas, paseandoperros, mientras que dentro, sus corazones se están haciendo jirones. Durante años. Durantetodas sus vidas. No creo que el tiempo cure.”

“Cada vez que alguien muere, se quemauna biblioteca.”

“—Dios —susurra, mientras me pasa la mano por la nuca y lleva mis labios hacia los suyos—Esta vez vamos a dejar que estalle todo este puto mundo.Y eso hacemos.”

“Before he finally hops on his borad, he hugs me good-bye and we hold on to each other so tightly under the sad, starless sky that for a moment I feel as if our heartbreak were one instead of two.”

“I want to thank him for not making me say a word, and getting it all the same, but I just remain silent as the sun pours heat and light, as if from a pitcher, all over our bewildered heads.”

“Telepathically, I tell her I'm sorry. I tell her I just can't confide in her right now, tell her the three feet between us feels like three light-years to me and I don't know how to bridge it.Telepathically, she tells me back that I'm breaking her broken heart.”

“What do you do when the worst thing that can happen actually happens?”

“Sarah is the most enthusiastic cynical person on the planet. She’d be the perfect cheerleader if she weren’t so disgusted by the notion of school spirit.”

“Sólo nos queda huir hacia delante”

“For the first time in our lives, I’m somewhere she can’t find, and I don’t have the map to give her that leads to me.”

“But what if music is what escapes when a heart breaks?”

“I try to fend off the oceanic sadness, but I can't. It's such a colossal effort not to be haunted by what's lost, but to be enchanted by what was.”

“I don't know how the heart withstands it.”

“You can tell your story any way you damn well please. It's your solo.”

“WTF-asaurus?”

“Grief is forever. It doesn't go away; it becomes part of you, step for step, breath for breath.”

“I can't believe Gram just said sex appeal.”

“... if you're someone who knows the worst thing can happen at any time, aren't you also someone who knows the best thing can happen at any time too?”

“He smiles and takes his index finger and presses it to my lips, leaves it there until my heart lands on Jupiter: three seconds, then removes it, and heads back into the living room. Whoa - well, that was either the dorkiest or sexiest moment of my life, and I'm voting for sexy on account of my standing here dumbstruck and giddy, wondering if he did kiss me after all.”

“His face is more open than an open book, like a wall of graffiti really. I realize I'm writing wow on my thigh with my finger, decide I better open my mouth and snap us out of this impromptu staring contest.”

“... every available inch of his face busts into a smile - whoa. Has he blown into our school on a gust of wind from another world? The guy looks unabashedly jack-o'-lantern happy, which couldn't be more foreign to the sullen demeanor most of us strove to perfect.”

“Big's voice trumpets, as if from stage or pulpit; his words carry weight, even pass the salt comes out of his mouth in a thou-shalt-Ten-Commandments kind of way.”

“This is it--what all the hoopla is about, what Wuthering Heights is about--it all boils down to this feeling rushing through me in this moment with Joe as our mouths refuse to part. Who knew all this time I was one kiss away from being Cathy and Juliet and Elizabeth Bennet and Lady Chatterley!?”

“Dreams change, yes, that makes sense, but I didn't know dreams could hide inside a person.”

“Later, as he plays and plays, as all the fog burns away, I think, he's right. That's exactly it--I am crazy sad, and somewhere deep inside, all I want is to fly.”

“It's as if someone vacuumed up the horizon while we were looking the other way.”

“I've no use for talking, would just as soon store paper clips in my mouth.”

“He looks at me incredulously. "I think you're amazing..." Why would he think this? Bailey is amazing and Gram and Big, and of course Mom, but not me. I am the two-dimensional one in a 3-D Family”

“The first thing I notice is the sky, so full of blue and the kind of brilliant white clouds that make you ecstatic to have eyes. Nothing can go wrong under this sky...”

“How will I survive this missing? How do others do it? People die all the time. Every day. Every hour. There are families all over the world staring at beds that are no longer slept in, shoes that are no longer worn. Families that no longer have to buy a particular cereal, a kind of shampoo. There are people everywhere standing in line at the movies, buying curtains, walking dogs, while inside, their hearts are ripping to shreds. For years. For their whole lives. I don't believe time heals. I don't want it to. If I heal, doesn't that mean I've accepted the world without her?”

“Who wants to know we are just one carefree breath away from the end? Who wants to know that the person you love and need the most can just vanish forever?”

“What kind of world is this? And what do you do about it? What do you do when the worst thing that can happen actually happens?”

“She's a sun-kissed beach girl who goes gothgrungepunkhippierockeremocoremetalfreakfashionistabraingeekboycrazyhiphoprastagirl to keep it under wraps.”

“I'm layering away: sauce, noodles, I belong to you, cheese, sauce, my heart is yours, noodles, cheese, I hear your soul in your music, cheese, cheese, CHEESE...”

“How could a mother who boils water for pasta leave two little girls behind?”

“Someone might as well roll up the whole sky, pack it away for good.”

“Everyone has always said I look like Bailey, but I don't.I have grey eyes to her green,an oval face to her heart-shaped one,I'm shorter, scrawnier, paler, flatter, plainer, tamer.All we shared is a madhouse of curlsthat I imprison in a ponytailwhile she let hers ravelike madnessaround her head.I don't sing in my sleepor eat the petals off flowersor run into the rain instead of out of it.I'm the unplugged-in one,the side-kick sister,tucked into a corner of her shadow.Boys followed her everywhere;they filled the booths at the restaurant where she waitressed,herded around her at the river.One day, I saw a boy come up behind herand pull a strand of her long hairI understood this-I felt the same way.In photographs of us together,she is always looking at the camera,and I am always looking at her.”

“I have an impulse to write all over the orange walls- I need an alphabet of endings ripped out of books, of hands pulled off of clocks, of cold stones, of shoes filled with nothing but wind.”

“I wonder why bereaved people even bother with mourning clothes when the grief itself provides such an unmistakable wardrobe.”

“According to all the experts, it's time for me to talk about what I'm going through... I can't. I'd need a new alphabet, one made of falling, of tectonic plates shifting, of the deep devouring dark.”

“He's bent over the strings tuning his guitar with such passionate attention I almost feel I should look away but I can't. In fact I'm full on gawking wondering what it would be like to be cool and casual and fearless and passionate and so freaking alive just like he is- and for a split second I want to play with him. I want to disturb the birds. Later as he plays and plays as all the fog burns away I think he's right. That's exactly it- I am crazy sad and somewhere deep inside all I want is to fly.”