Lauren Oliver

“Fear. Blame. Don't forget. Mom. I love you.-Lauren Oliver, Delerium”

“So many things become beautiful when you really look.”

“If singing were a feeling it would be this, this light, this lifting, like laughing...”

“Then I think of the dark, and the lights, and the roaring, and Juliet, and before I can think of anything else, I fight the final few steps to the door and step out into the cold, where the rain is still coming down like shards of moonlight, or like steel.”

“‎"...love will turn the whole world into something greater than itself.”

“The details that are my life's special pattern, like how in handwoven rugs what really makes them unique are the tiny flaws in the stitching, little gaps and jumps and stutters that can never be reproduced.”

“i suppose that's the secret, if you're ever wishing for things to back the way they were. You just have to look up.”

“Most of us won't see one another after graduation, and even if we do it will be different. We'll be different. We'll be adults--cured, tagged and labeled and paired and identified and placed neatly on our life path, perfectly round marbles set to roll down even, well-defined slopes.”

“Now I'd rather be infected with love for the tiniest sliver of a second than live a hundred years smothered by a lie.”

“I hate skin; I hate bones and bodies. I want to curl up inside of him and be carried there forever.”

“You can build walls all the way to the sky and I will find a way to fly above them. You can try to pin me down with a hundred thousand arms, but I will find a way to resist. And there are many of us out there, more than you think. People who refuse to stop believing. People who refuse to come to earth. People who love in a world without walls, people who love into hate, into refusal, against hope, and without fear.I love you. Remember. They cannot take it.”

“You came form different starts and you'll come to different ends.”

“I've learned to get really good at this - say one thing when I'm thinking about something else, act like I'm listening when I'm not, pretend to be calm and happy when I'm really freaking out. It's one of the skills you perfect as you get older”

“It's surprisingly nice out here, peaceful and pretty-strange to be standing in the middle of a little garden while enclosed by the massive stone walls of the prison, like being at the exact center of a hurricane, and finding peace and silence in the middle of so much shrieking damage.”

“... 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.”

“And I guess that's when it starts to hit me: the whole point is, you do what you can.”

“Here's another thing to remember: hope keeps you alive. Even when you're dead, it's the only thing that keeps you alive.”

“That's the way I feel, at least: like there's a real me and a reflection of me, and I have no way of telling which is which.”

“Everyone you trust, everyone you think you can count on, will eventually disappoint you. When left to their own devices, people lie and keep secrets and change and disappear, some behind a different face or personality, some behind early morning fog, beyond a cliff. That's why the cure is so important. That's why we need it.”

“I feel like I'm playing some giant video game, or trying to solve a really complicated math equation. 'One girl is trying to avoid forty raiding parties of between fifteen to twenty people each, spread out across a radius of seven miles. If she has to make it 2.7 miles through the center, what is the probablitiy she will wake up tomorrow morning in a jail cell? Please feel free to round pi to 3.14'.”

“Human beings, in their natural state, are unpredictable, erratic, and unhappy. It is only once their animal instincts are controlled that they can be responsible, dependable, and content.”

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

“That's all I want. Just you and me. Always.”

“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.”

“The past is nothing but a weight. It will build inside of you like a stone.”

“It's the way he says my name: like music.”

“I said, I prefer the ocean when it's gray. Or not really gray. A pale, in-between color. It reminds me of waiting for something good to happen.”

“The salt blowing off the sea makes the air feel textured and heavy.”

“A string of bright white buildinh, glistening like teeth over the slurping mouth of the ocean.”

“Be honest: Are you surprised that I didn't realize sooner? Are you surprised that it took me so long to even /think/ the word -- death? Dying? Dead?Do you think I was being stupid? Naive?Try not to judge. Remember that we're the same, you and me.I thought I would live forever too.”

“I used to lie here like this all summer long,' I tell her. 'I'd come up here and just stare at the sky.' She rolls over on her back so she's staring up as well. 'Bet this view hasn't changed much, has it?'What she says is so simple i almost laugh. She's right, of course. 'No. This looks exactly the same.'I suppose that's the secret, If you're ever wishing for things to go back to the way they were. You just have to look up.”

“Hearts are fragile things. That's why you have to be so careful.”

“They've lied about everything.-about the fence, and the existence of Invalids, about a million other things besides. They told us the raids were carried out for our own protection. They told us the regulators were only interested in keeping the peace.They told us love was a disease. They told us it would kill us in the end.For the very first time I realize, that this, too, maight also be a lie.”

“Mama, Mama, help me get homeI'm out in the woods, I am out on my own.I found me a werewolf, a nasty old muttIt showed me its teeth and went straight for my gut.Mama, Mama, help me get homeI'm out in the woods, I am out on my own.I was stopped by a vampire, a rotting old wreckIt showed me its teeth and went straight for my neck.Mama, Mama, put me to bedI won't make it home, I'm already half-dead.I met an Invalid, and fell for his artHe showed me his smile, and went straight for my heart.-From "A Child's Walk Home," Nursery Rhymes and Folk Tales”

“Everyone is asleep. They've all been asleep for years. You seemed ... awake.' Alex is whispering now. He closes his eyes, opens them again.'I'm tired of sleeping.”

“I know that life isn't life if you just float through it. I know that the whole point- the only point- is to find the things that matter and hold onto them and fight for them and refuse to let them go.”

“He’s speaking in the tone of voice that everyone uses when they’re about to break you apart. Gentle—kind, even—like they can make the news sound better just by speaking in a lullaby voice.”

“That's the thing about best friends. That's what they do. They keep you from spinning off the edge.”

“Happiness is found when no one is looking”

“I run for I don't know how long. Hours, maybe, or days. Alex told me to run. So I run. You have to understand. I am no one special. I am just a single girl. I am five feet two inches tall and I am in-between in every way. But I have a secret. You can build walls all the way to the sky and I will find a way to fly above them. You can try to pin me down with a hundred thousand arms, but I will find a way to resist. And there are many of us out there, more than you think. People who refuse to stop believing. People who refuse to come to earth. People who love in a world without walls, people who love into hate, into refusal, against hope,and without fear. I love you. Remember. They cannot take it.”

“I'd rather die my way than live yours.”

“Love: a single word, a wispy thing, a word no bigger or longer than an edge. That's what it is: an edge; a razor. It draws up through the center of your life, cutting everything in two. Before and after. The rest of the world falls away on either side.”

“It's like a razor blade edging its way through my organs, shredding me, all I can think is: It will kill me, it will kill me, it will kill me. And I don't care.”

“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.”

“Most things, even the greatest movements on earth, have their beginnings in something small. An earthquake that shatters a city with a tremor, a tremble, a breath. Music begins with a vibration. The flood that rushed into Portland twenty years ago after nearly two months of straight rain, that hurtled up beyond the labs and damaged more than a thousand houses, swept up tire and trash bags and old, smelly shoes and floated them through the streets like prizes, that left a thin film of green mold behind, a stench of rotting and decay that didn't go away for months, began with a trickle of water, no wider than a finger, lapping up onto the docks. And God created the whole universe from an atom no bigger than a thought. Grace's life fell apart because of a single word: sympathizer. My world exploded because of a different word: suicide. Correction: That was the first time my world exploded. The second time my world exploded, it was also because of a word. A word that worked its way out of my throat and danced onto and out of my lips before I could think about it, or stop it. The question was: Will you meet me tomorrow? And the word was: Yes.”

“It occurs to me that for a long time she has been doingher own version of resisting.”

“I know that the whole point—the only point—is tofind the things that matter, and hold on to them, and fight for them, and refuse tolet them go.”

“I guess that’s just part of loving people: You have to give things up. Sometimes you even have to give them up.”

“Standing there in-between two disgusting Dumpsters in some crappy alleywith the whole world crumbling down around me, and hearing Alex say thosewords, all the fear I have carried with me since I learned to sit, stand, breathe—since I was told that at the very heart of me was something wrong, somethingrotten and diseased, something to be suppressed—since I was told that I wasalways just a heartbeat away from being damaged—all of it vanishes at once.That thing—the heart of hearts of me, the core of my core—stretches and unfurlseven further, soaring like a flag: making me feel stronger than I ever have before.”

“Hate isn’t the most dangerous thing, he’d said. Indifference is.”