58 Memorable Young Adult Fiction Quotes

In the vivid world of young adult fiction, each page unravels not just a story, but an emotional journey that resonates deeply with readers of all ages. These narratives often capture the turbulence of youth, the intricacies of identity, and the battle between dreams and reality. Within their pages lie memorable quotes that linger long after the books are closed—lines that inspire hope, provoke thought, or merely comfort us in knowing that we're not alone. In this collection, we've curated 58 of the most memorable quotes from young adult fiction, each offering a glimpse into the profound wisdom and raw emotion that define this beloved genre. Whether you're revisiting old favorites or discovering new gems, these quotes promise to evoke nostalgia and spark reflection.

1. “Oh for craps sake. You're not dying again, are you? It's seriously inconvenient when you do that." -Aphrodite” - P.C. Cast

2. “I used to think that's what love was: knowing someone so well he was like a part of you.” - Lauren Oliver

3. “This is what happens when you try to help people. You get screwed.” - Lauren Oliver

4. “Mr. Freeman: You are getting better at this, but it's not good enough. This looks like a tree,but it is an average, ordinary, everyday, boring tree. Breathe life into it. Make it bend - trees are flexible, so they don't snap. Scar it, give it a twisted branch - perfect trees don't exist. Nothing is perfect. Flaws are interesting. Be the tree.” - Laurie Halse Anderson

5. “Hurry up, he'll be coming back pretty soon!"Lynda spelled with a "y" Corgill, who was two years behind Dara, Mackenzie, and Jennifer, and had just completed her sophomore year, squeezed the hot glue gun into the door lock of the headmaster's office. Shelby Andrews, her accomplice and the newest resident to be accepted at Wood Rose, stood watch."I see the lights of the truck. Hurry! He's coming back! Are you finished?"Lynda gave the metal apparatus one last squeeze, filling the lock with the quick-drying cement glue guaranteed to harden on contact. "Finished."In the soft illumination of the crescent moon high overhead, the two girls, barefooted and wearing dark blue pajamas, ran across the lawn crisscrossed by dark, elongated shadows and dampened by night-cooled air to the maintenance shed where they placed the glue gun on the top shelf where it was normally kept. With their task completed, they quickly returned to the dormitory, to the far end from where Ms. Larkins slept, and crawled through the open window. Within minutes they were back in their rooms, in their individual beds, and sound asleep. The sleep of innocent angels.It would soon be light; and Wood Rose Orphanage and Academy for Young Women would start another day.” - Barbara Casey

6. “My little sister, Prim, curled up on her side, cocooned in my mother’s body, their cheeks pressed together. In sleep, my mother looks younger, still worn but not so beaten-down. Prim’s face is as fresh as a raindrop, as lovely as the primrose for which she was named. My mother was very beautiful once, too. Or so they tell me.” - Suzanne Collins

7. “I spent the period reading the first novel assigned for English. And wow. If I hadn't realized I was in France yet, I do now. Because Like Water for Chocolate has sex in it. LOTS of sex.” - Stephanie Perkins

8. “All that we know, soon shall we abandon. As time will lend itself. Eyes know only what they see. But brave hearts beat on with belief.” - Nathalie M. Leblanc

9. “Believe in yourself, Follow your dreams, and all things are possible!” - Garry E. Lewis

10. “Hip-hop is a reflection of your surroundings and an instrument of change.” - Laura Goode

11. “I don’t know if it was just me making things up in my head but after the fear in their eyes had gone what replaced it was like a sad kind of wondering. A wondering of where the old me was hiding. A wondering about where the old me had gone to. It was like I had suddenly been taken over by someone else and they could see the old me had fallen away for good.” - Kerem Mermutlu

12. “I work in a restaurant in an airport in Taiwan. I am eighteen years old and I don’t like my job because everyone gets on planes and leaves. And I want to leave too.” - Kerem Mermutlu

13. “Why am I not good enough?At least he loves Darren and Yaichain some wayeven if it's horrible, he shows them attentionand I am furnitureI get nothing nothingnothingno thing” - Thalia Chaltas

14. “Are we talking hell hounds and flames here?" Des asked, pacing at the end of our beds.I repeated the question and gave a heaving sigh of relief when Jameson said I had the wrong idea."He's going to 'lead us into temptation.'""That doesn't sound so bad," Des said with a cheeky grin.” - Terri Clark

15. “This one is for our crew, but it’s also for all the weird girls and word nerds, for all the in-the-middle wickeds and queers and misfits and hell-raisers.” - Laura Goode

16. “You make obstacle courses and hurricanes, I make T-shirt slogans.” - Kimberly Sabatini

17. “Too many adults wish to 'protect' teenagers when they should be stimulating them to read of life as it is lived.” - Margaret A. Edwards

18. “You see, there is a major downfall to living in a tourist town. You guessed it, the constant turnover of new people. You cannot really connect with anyone because no one is ever here for more than two weeks every year, if they comeback at all. The intruders never thought about what happens once they leave. ~ Stella” - Michele Richard

19. “It had become their creation, and they all would know it.” - Evan Meekins

20. “You can always tell the heart of man by what he do, and by what he don't do...” - Steven J. Carroll

21. “Milcas raced out his door, anxious to find the answer to this riddle and discover the source of hope for a Roegan in Fargranther; the propellant of an unheard of, forgotten, impossible, and by all accounts, damned idea.” - Evan Meekins

22. “The dominoes of fate are falling down as we are speaking, and Ferriar knows what will happen when the last one crashes down.” - Evan Meekins

23. “Some justice, though did not deal with kindheartedness or good feeling toward others. No, justice had a darker side, a gray area where it mingled alongside vengeance, and only the wise and pure of heart were able to tell the two apart. That kind of justice was swift. It was only called upon afer mercy and morals fail. It was the darkest form of goodness known to anyone, even the gods, and required only the strongest, most daring men to bring about.” - Evan Meekins

24. “the illusion that power lies within the hands of the common man is more important than legitimate efficiency within the government.” - Evan Meekins

25. “There is no right or wrong, only what we believe is more right or more wrong” - Evan Meekins

26. “there are some some times in life where you have to let your feelings go and do what must be done” - Evan Meekins

27. “Animals do not respect their master's brother, but they do respect their brothers as masters.” - Evan Meekins

28. “Sometimes, reality is the illusion, and the truth only visible where our eyes can’t see.”- Lady Lalaigne” - Jeanine Henning

29. “Love is not measured by acts or years, but by truth between two people.” - Evan Meekins

30. “A book is a wonderful present. Though it may grow worn, it will never grow old.” - Jane Yolen

31. “As I was escorted outside by the officers, my friends looked back at me with blank expressions. I don’t think they knew what to say to me. I had lied to them about my home life. They had always been there for me and probably would have understood if I had told them the truth from the start, but it was too late. All the lies I had told them about having a perfect family had been shattered by that one incident.” - Jen Naumann

32. “If I stay. If I live. It’s up to me.All this business about medically induced comas is just doctor talk. It’s not up to the doctors. It’s not up to the absentee angels. It’s not even up to God who, if He exists, is nowhere around right now. It’s up to me.” - Gayle Forman

33. “She forks up a little nibble and wedges it in her mouth. "Yum," she croaks.Mrs. Wong looks pleased. "It's made with tofu."I can't resist. "Free-range tofu?"My mother looks over at me sharply. Mrs. Wong takes the bait. "Now, Cassidy, tofu isn't an animal," she chides. "It's soy bean curd. Soy bean curd doesn't need to roam free."On the floor below me, Emma lets out a little snort. I nudge her again with my foot. We're both grinning at the thought of a corral somewhere with little cubes of tofu wandering around. "Home, home on the range," I sing to her under my breath. "Where the deer and the tofu roam free...” - Heather Vogel Frederick

34. “Something was bleeding… and something was broken. It was my heart… because I had to leave you. (Chase to Rayne)” - Kimberly Brockman

35. “He grinned at me and whispered, “I’m going to kiss you now. It’ll be a big one, so don’t hit me.” - Jennifer Echols

36. “Just a taste. That was the Cambion policy, our credo. 'Just take enough to appease the spirit, then move on.' It sounded simple enough, but sometimes taking a little was worse than taking none at all.” - Jaime Reed

37. “I wanted to remind you that you do not allow me to deliver boats, as I have been known to crash them.” - Jennifer Echols

38. “Who’s driving the boat?”Over the motor, I heard girls screaming at us the instant before we crashed.” - Jennifer Echols

39. “But first I had to get through the ironing. It took a lot of patience. I had none. It took forever, and then I had to press the whole shirt again to get out the creases I’d pressed into it.” - Jennifer Echols

40. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be a dickhead. Well, I did.” - Simone Elkeles

41. “Is that your cheap way of telling me you want to kiss me?”He looks into my eyes, his dark gaze capturing mine. “Querida, I always want to kiss you.” - Simone Elkeles

42. “I’m not going anywhere until you hear me out.”Oh, please no. Anything except having to listen to her lecture. I push the button that calls the nurse.“Can we help you, Alex?” a voice bellows through the speaker.“I’m bein’ tortured.” - Simone Elkeles

43. “The Professor doesn’t have a problem being called Dick? If my name was Richard, I’d go by Richard or Rich . . . not Dick. Hell, I’d even settle for being called Chard.” - Simone Elkeles

44. “There’s always time for arguin’ when you’re a Fuentes.” - Simone Elkeles

45. “I have to protect you,” he says softly.” - Simone Elkeles

46. “Listen, I don’t know what the hell happened between you and Marco. To be honest I don’t really want to know, ’cause if I did I’d probably want to kick the shit outta him.”“I don’t need you to protect me.”“What if I want to?” - Simone Elkeles

47. “But it hadn't just been Sebastian who had been watching me. Rather, it had been tribes of merman and mermaids, who had been curious about this newcomer in town that could outswim any school of small fish.” - Keira D. Skye

48. “The stars twinkled above him brilliantly, representing all of the beautiful laws of the universe.” - Keira D. Skye

49. “This angered me. “Nothing has changed!?!?” I screamed at him. I was furious with him. He had duped me. “Your a mermaid! Your a freak!” Calling him a freak hurt his feelings. “I am the same boy you fell in love with. I can't help who I was born as, but that doesn't affect the boy in which I want to be.”“And what is that?” I asked, really emotional right now. “A boy who wants to be given the chance to love you.” With these tender words, I instantly ran into his arms. “Oh Trysten, I don't care who you are, or what you can become, but I love you for loving me.” - Keira D. Skye

50. “Her heart fluttered. It had only been a few hours, but it felt like a lifetime since she saw him last. She seriously felt addicted to that boy.” - Julia Crane

51. “My mom was sitting at the kitchen table. She’d set her coffee down, making a noise that made me look her way. I’d begun to notice her less and less often, like her colors were fading and blending in with walls. She was shrinking. Or maybe her sphere of influence in the family was shrinking. My dad glanced at her, too, and then wrote something on a napkin. He slid it across the counter to me—Don’t worry. Come home in one piece. Have fun and act like a sixteen-year-old for a change.” - Laura Anderson Kurk

52. “Every moment of our lives we make choices. Most we don’t even know we’re making, they’re so dull or routine or automatic. Some are beyond explanation—like my mom choosing Wyatt’s memory over Dad and me.” - Laura Anderson Kurk

53. “I found I could only glance at him for tiny moments and then I had to look away. He was perfect enough to hurt my feelings for a long time, and I wanted to let him.” - Laura Anderson Kurk

54. “Hmmm. What you’re saying is that you’ve never been kissed?” He picked at a string on the blanket under us.” - Laura Anderson Kurk

55. “We all think when we’re young that we want excitement and highs and passion. To hell with ordinary.”I smiled and she chuckled. “But when we find ourselves in these adult bodies,” she said. “When we wise up a little, or get slapped in the face by life, we realize we just want all things to be equal.” She put the heels of her hands together near her heart like the Yoga prayer position. “And we want to understand them better.” - Laura Anderson Kurk

56. “But I understood, now, that we don’t live only for ourselves. We’re connected by millions of shared experiences and dreams and nightmares, all tied together with compassion. I learned that even when we’re going through our darkest winter, spring is waiting to appear.” - Laura Anderson Kurk

57. “I started picturing Rens smiling face, the warmth of his touch, the slight curl of his lip before he kissed me. Every happy memory came rushing back through the blackness illuminating it in brilliant color.” - S.G. Holster

58. “Finally, her father spoke. “Are you sure? I mean, I don’t understand how this could have happened. She’s only fifteen; I didn’t even know she was sexually active.” Mallory’s father, normally in control, was on the verge of tears. He refused to look at his daughter, his little girl. As much as he had preached abstinence to her, he still kept a watchful eye over her, yet here they were, facing the unthinkable. He wanted to know when this happened, and with whom—but those questions would have to wait.” - Tracy L. Darity