Lauren Oliver

“Maybe all of these different possibilities exist at the same time, like each moment we live has a thousand other moments layered underneath it that look different.”

“It strikes me how strange people are. You can see them every day, you can think you know them and then you found out you hardly know them at all.”

“Even the greatest movements on earth, have their beginnings with something small.”

“Feelings aren't forever. Time waits for no one, but progress waits for man to enact it.”

“That is what hatred is. It will feed you and at the same time turn you to rot.”

“We'll walk together holding hands, and kiss in broad daylight, and love each other as much as we want to, and no one will ever try to keep up apart.”

“Everywhere he touches is fire. My whole body is burning up, the two of us becoming twin points of the same bright white flame.”

“Everything has taken on a strange, distant quality - the sounds of running and shouting outside get warped and weird like they're being filtered through water, and Alex looks miles away. I start to think I might be dreaming, or about to pass out. And then I decide I'm definitely dreaming, because as I'm watching, Alex starts peeling his shirt off over his head.”

“Letting go is easy: it's all downhill.”

“Old words; words that nearly brought me to my knees.Live free or die”

“The second time my world exploded, it was alsobecause of a word. A word that worked its way out of mythroat and danced onto and out of my lips before I couldthink about it, or stop it.The question was: Will you meet me tomorrow?And the word was: Yes.”

“It’s the way he saysmy name: like music.”

“He showed me his smile, and went straight for my heart.”

“She is the only one who knowsof the Coldness: a feeling that comes sometimes when I’mlying in bed, a black, empty feeling that knocks my breathaway and leaves me gasping as though I’ve just beenthrown in icy water. On nights like that—although it is wrongand illegal—I think of those strange and terrible words, Ilove you, and wonder what they would taste like in mymouth, try to recall their lilting rhythm on my mother’stongue.”

“Still, I worry. They say that in the old days, love drovepeople to madness. That’s bad enough. The Book of Shhhalso tells stories of those who died because of love lost ornever found, which is what terrifies me the most.The deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both whenyou have it and when you don’t”

“I met an Invalid,and fell for his artHe showed me his smile, and went straight for my heart.”

“What glitters may not be gold; and even wolves may smile; and fools will be led by promises to their deaths.”

“Is this freedom? Is it happiness? I don't know. I don't care anymore. It is different--it is being alive.”

“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep.If I should die before I wake,I pay thee, Lord, my soul to take.”

“She is staring at me wide-eyed, willing me to understand: that people should be sacrificed to causes, that beauty can be built on the backs of the dead.”

“Cinta akan membunuh, sekaligus menyelamatkanmu.”

“Kebencian bukanlah hal yang paling berbahaya. Ketidakpedulian, ya!”

“Kau tahu, kan.. Kau takkan bahagia kecuali -sekali saja- kau pernah merasa tak bahagia.”

“Setiap pilihan selalu ada batasannya. Inilah hidup.”

“Jika mereka benar-benar ingin kita bahagia, mereka akan membiarkan kita memilih sendiri.”

“Hal yang paling mematikan dari yang mematikan: Cinta akan tetap membunuhmu, tak peduli apakah kau memilikinya atau tidak.”

“Cinta memengaruhi akal sehatmu sampai kau tak bisa lagi berpikir dengan jernih atau membuat keputusan rasional dalam hidupmu.”

“Penyakit yang paling berbahaya adalah penyakit yang membuat kita percaya kalau kita baik-baik saja.”

“Liesl knew then that Po had been lying. The ghost did miss the living side. She understood then, too, that everyone drowns differently; and that for everyone, even ghosts, there is a different kind of air.”

“I know part of the problem, of course. The disorientation, the distraction, the difficulty focusing-all classic Phase one signs of deliria. But I don't care. If pneumonia felt this good I'd stand out in the snow in the winter with bare feet and no coat on, or march into the hospital and kiss pneumonia patients.”

“Stupid, stupid-to be so careless with our time, to believe we had so much of it left.”

“Rage will make you careless”

“We're all hangmen.”

“My point is: maybe you can afford to wait. Maybe for you there's a tomorrow. Maybe for you there's one thousand tomorrows, or three thousand, or ten, so much time you can bathe in it, roll around it, let it slide like coins through your fingers. So much time you can waste it.But for some of us there's only today. And the truth is, you never really know.”

“That's when it happens. The moment of death is full of heat and sound and pain bigger than anything, a funnel of burning heat splitting me in two, something searing and scorching and tearing, and if screaming were a feeling it would be this.Then nothing. I know some of you are thinking maybe I deserved it. Maybe I shouldn't have sent that rose to Juliet or dumped my drink on her at the party. Maybe I shouldn't have copied off of Lauren Lornet's quiz. Maybe I shouldn't have said those things to Kent. There are probably some of you who think I deserved it because I was going to let Rob go all the way--because I wasn't going to save myself.But before you start pointing fingers, is what I did really so bad? So bad I deserved to die? So bad I deserved to die like THAT?Is what I did really so much worse than what anybody else does?Is it really so much worse than what YOU do?Think about it.”

“I remember a story I once heard about drowning: that when you fall into cold water it's not that you drown right away but that the cold disorients you and makes you think that down is up and up is down, so you may be swimming, swimming, swimming for your life in the wrong direction, all the way toward the bottom until you sink. That's how I feel, as though everything has been turned around.”

“Suicide. A sideways word, a word that people whisper and mutter and cough: a word that must be squeezed out behind cupped palms or murmured behind closed doors. It was only in dreams that I heard the word shouted, screamed.”

“And when we are with Alex, I might as well not be there. They speak in a language of whispers and giggles and secrets; their words are like a fairy-tale tangle of thorns, which place a wall between us.”

“It's amazing how close I have been, all this time, to my old life. And yet the distance that divides me from it is vast.”

“Love, the deadliest of all deadly things. It kills you.Alex.When you have it.Alex.And when you don't.Alex.”

“It was a bird. A bird struggling through stickiness: a bird coated in paint, floundering in its nest, splashing color everywhere.Red. Red. Red.Dozens of them: black feathers coated thickly with crimson-colored paint, fluttering among the branches.Red means run.”

“Promise me we'll stay together, okay?" His eyes are once again the clear blue of a perfectly transparent pool. They are eyes to swim in, to float in, forever. "You and me.""I promise," I say.Behind us the door creaks open, and I turn around, expecting Raven, just as a voice cuts through the air: "Don't believe her.”

“For a second I feel a rush of sadness: for the horizons that vanish behind us, for the people we leave behind, the tiny-doll selves that get stored away and ultimately buried.”

“And suddenly it's all so ridiculously and stupidly clear I feel like laughing. This is what I want. This is the only thing i've ever wanted. Everything else---every single second of every single day that has come before this very moment, this kiss---has meant nothing.”

“Anger is useful only to a certain point. After that, it becomes rage, and rage will make you careless.”

“Live free or die.Four words. Thirteen letters. Ridges, bumps, swirls under my fingertips. Another story. We cling tightly to it, and our belief turns it to truth.”

“I just want to be normal, like everybody else." "Are you sure that being like everybody else will make you happy?”

“When I’m running, there’s always this split second when the pain is ripping through me and I can hardly breathe and all I see is color and blur—and in that split second, right as the pain crests, and becomes too much, and there’s a whiteness going through me, I see something to my left, a flicker of color […]—and I know then, too, that if I only turn my head he’ll be there, laughing, watching me, and holding out his arms.I don’t ever turn my head to look, of course. But one day I will. One day I will, and he’ll be back, and everything will be okay.And until then: I run.”

“...if you are one tardy away from missing out on a big competition, you should probably make your coffee at home.”

“Lord, help us root our feet to the earthAnd our eyes to the roadAnd always remember the fallen angelsWho, attempting to soar,Were seared instead by the sun and, wings melting,Came crashing back to the sea.Lord, help root my eyes to the earthAnd stay my eyes to the roadSo I may never stumble.-Psalm 24 (From "Prayer and Study," The Book of Shhh)”