Judith > Judith's Quotes

“I wanted to tell her that I was getting better, because that was supposed to be the narrative of illness: It was a hurdle you jumped over, or a battle you won. Illness is a story told in the past tense.”
― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

“Once upon a time there was a hazel-eyed boy with dimples. I called him Khalil. The world called him a thug.
He lived, but not nearly long enough, and for the rest of my life I'll remember how he died.
Fairy tale? No. But I'm not giving up on a better ending.”
― Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give

“You like someone who can't like you back because unrequited love can be survived in a way that once-requited love cannot. ”
― John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson

“Women who go into the harem do not come out. It is a permanent position." [...]
"I am not going in as a woman. I am going in as an assassin. So we have nothing to fear.”
― Kiersten White, And I Darken

“Once on a yellow piece of paper with green lines
he wrote a poem
And he called it "Chops"
because that was the name of his dog

And that's what it was all about
And his teacher gave him an A
and a gold star
And his mother hung it on the kitchen door
and read it to his aunts
That was the year Father Tracy
took all the kids to the zoo

And he let them sing on the bus
And his little sister was born
with tiny toenails and no hair
And his mother and father kissed a lot
And the girl around the corner sent him a
Valentine signed with a row of X's

and he had to ask his father what the X's meant
And his father always tucked him in bed at night
And was always there to do it

Once on a piece of white paper with blue lines
he wrote a poem
And he called it "Autumn"

because that was the name of the season
And that's what it was all about
And his teacher gave him an A
and asked him to write more clearly
And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
because of its new paint

And the kids told him
that Father Tracy smoked cigars
And left butts on the pews
And sometimes they would burn holes
That was the year his sister got glasses
with thick lenses and black frames
And the girl around the corner laughed

when he asked her to go see Santa Claus
And the kids told him why
his mother and father kissed a lot
And his father never tucked him in bed at night
And his father got mad
when he cried for him to do it.


Once on a paper torn from his notebook
he wrote a poem
And he called it "Innocence: A Question"
because that was the question about his girl
And that's what it was all about
And his professor gave him an A

and a strange steady look
And his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
because he never showed her
That was the year that Father Tracy died
And he forgot how the end
of the Apostle's Creed went

And he caught his sister
making out on the back porch
And his mother and father never kissed
or even talked
And the girl around the corner
wore too much makeup
That made him cough when he kissed her

but he kissed her anyway
because that was the thing to do
And at three a.m. he tucked himself into bed
his father snoring soundly

That's why on the back of a brown paper bag
he tried another poem

And he called it "Absolutely Nothing"
Because that's what it was really all about
And he gave himself an A
and a slash on each damned wrist
And he hung it on the bathroom door
because this time he didn't think

he could reach the kitchen.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“But sometimes, unexpectedly, grief pounded over me in waves that left me gasping; and when the waves washed back, I found myself looking out over a brackish wreck which was illumined in a light so lucid, so heartsick and empty, that I could hardly remember that the world had ever been anything but dead.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“So the question becomes, Daughter of the Dragon, what will you sacrifice? What will you let be taken away so that you, too, can have power?”
― Kiersten White, And I Darken

“Well, are you ready, Lada Dragwlya, daughter of the dragon?" Fire burned in her heart, and her wounded soul spread out, casting a shadow like wings across her country. This was hers. Not because of her father. Not because of Mehmed. Because the land itself had claimed her as its own. "Not Dragwlya," she said. "Lada Dracul. I am no longer the daughter of the dragon." She lifted her chin, sights set on the horizon. "I am the dragon.”
― Kiersten White, And I Darken

“You're both the fire and the water that extinguishes it. You're the narrator, the protagonist, and the sidekick. You're the storyteller and the story told. You are somebody's something, but you are also your you.”
― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

“Your now is not your forever.”
― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

“The price of living seems to always be death.”
― Kiersten White, And I Darken

“Everyone wanted me to feed them that story—darkness to light, weakness to strength, broken to whole. I wanted it, too.”
― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

“You love him like a flower loves the sun.”
― Kiersten White, And I Darken

“I'm not saying that everything is survivable. Just that everything except the last thing is.”
― John Green, Paper Towns

“It's better to see life as it is, not as you wish it to be. Things don't happen for a reason. They just happen.”
― Nicola Yoon, The Sun Is Also a Star

“Anything that happens all at once is just as likely to unhappen all at once, you know?”
― John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson

“What I mean is don't be a person who seeks out grief. There is enough of that in life.”
― Nina LaCour, We Are Okay

“Listen to me, Frankenstein. You accuse me of murder; and yet you would, with a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature. Oh, praise the eternal justice of man!”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

“The point of the story is they built the city anyway, you know? You work with what you have. they had this shit river, and they managed to build an okay city around it. Not a great city, maybe. But not bad. You're not the river. You're the city.”
― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

“There is little point in teaching anything backwards. The whole object of life, Headmistress, is to go forwards.”
― Roald Dahl, Matilda

“Matilda said, "Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it. Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it's unbelievable...”
― Roald Dahl, Matilda

“True terror isn’t being scared; it’s not having a choice on the matter.”
― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

“no one ever says good-bye unless they want to see you again. aa”
― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

“But how can you walk away from something and still come back to it?”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“Maybe the one had to be lost for the others to be found?”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“A great sorrow, and one that I am only beginning to understand: we don’t get to choose our own hearts. We can’t make ourselves want what’s good for us or what’s good for other people. We don’t get to choose the people we are.”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“Caring too much for objects can destroy you. Only—if you care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn’t it? And isn’t the whole point of things—beautiful things—that they connect you to some larger beauty?”
― Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

“Evil has only the power that we give it.”
― Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

“I’m never going to own anything can hurt me.”
― Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

“But no man's a hero to himself.”
― Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes