Quotes by Lauren Oliver

He pauses for only a fraction of a second. Then he leans forward and presses his lips to mine, and the whole world powers off, the moon and the rain and the sky and the streets, and it’s just the two of us in the dark, alive, alive, alive.

Is it true?” I ask him.“Is what true?” His eyes are the color of honey. These are the eyes I remember from my dreams.“That you still love me,” I say, breathless. “I need to know.”Alex nods. He reaches out and touches my face—barely skimming my cheekbone and brushing away a bit of my hair. “It’s true.”“But . . . I’ve changed,” I say. “And you’ve changed.”“That’s true too,” he says quietly. I look at the scar on his face, stretching from his left eye to his jawline, and something hitches in my chest.“So what now?” I ask him. The light is too bright; the day feels as though it’s merging into dream.“Do you love me?” Alex asks. And I could cry; I could press my face into his chest and breathe in, and pretend that nothing has changed, that everything will be perfect and whole and healed again.But I can’t. I know I can’t.“I never stopped.” I look away from him. I look at Grace, and the high grass littered with the wounded and the dead. I think of Julian, and his clear blue eyes, his patience and goodness. I think of all the fighting we’ve done, and all the fighting we have yet to do. I take a deep breath. “But it’s more complicated than that.”Alex reaches out and places his hands on my shoulders. “I’m not going to run away again,” he says.“I don’t want you to,” I tell him.His fingers find my cheek, and I rest for a second against his palm, letting the pain of the past few months flow out of me, letting him turn my head toward his. Then he bends down and kisses me: light and perfect, his lips just barely meeting mine, a kiss that promises renewal.

I cant stop thinking about what Caroline said to Minna about death. It isnt an infection, she said. She might be right. Then again, weve nested in the walls like bacteria. Weve taken over the house, its insulation and its plumbing - weve made it our own. Or maybe its life thats the infection: a feverish dream, a hallucination of feelings. Death is purification, a cleaning, a cure.

At least when Im sleeping I can dream myself back to Alex, can dream myself into a different world.

She knew that this day, this feeling, couldnt last forever. Everything passed; that was partly why it was so beautiful. Things would get difficult again. But that was okay too.The bravery was in moving forward, no matter what.

The sparrows jumped before they knew how to fly, and they learned to fly only because they had jumped

Im scared all the time, she whispered. Youd be an idiot if you werent, Anne said. And you wouldnt be brave either.

It’s kind of sad, if you think about it. Like there’s no continuity in people at all. Like something ruptures when you hit twelve, or thirteen, or whatever the age is when you’re no longer a kid but a “young adult,” and after that you’re a totally different person. Maybe even a less happy person. Maybe even a worse one.

Stop your idiocy, Sandra, please. For once in your death.

My aunt just stood there, and in that second it was as though the world and the future collapsed down into a single point, and I understood that this—the kitchen, the spotless cream linoleum floors, the glaring lights, and the vivid green mass of Jell-O on the counter—was all that was left now that my mother was gone.Suddenly I couldn’t stay there. I couldn’t stand the sight of my aunt’s kitchen, which I now understood would be my kitchen. I couldn’t stand the Jell-O. My mother hated Jell-O. An itchy feeling began to work its way through my body, as though a thousand mosquitoes were circulating through my blood, biting me from the inside, making me want to scream, jump, squirm.I ran.

Time waits for no man, but progress waits for man to inact it.

Who the hell calls at two in the morning?Maybe its Matt Wilde, confessing his love, Lindsay says.Very funny,

Now, after so many years, I understand what the Coldness was and where it came from—this sense that everything is lost, and worthless, and meaningless.

It’s for the best. But no matter how many times I repeat it, the strange, hollow feeling in my stomach doesn’t go away. And ridiculous as it is, I can’t shake the persistent, needling feeling that I’ve forgotten something, or missed something, or lost something forever.

But for now, the future, like the past, means nothing. For now, there is only a homestead built of trash and scraps, at the edge of a broken city, just beyond a towering city dump; and our arrival-hungry, and half-frozen, to a place of food and water and walls that keep out the brutal winds. This, for us, is heaven.

So many things become beautiful when you really look

This is the mistake they make above. They think that only certain people habe a place. Only certain kinds of people belong. The rest is waste. But even waste must have a place. Otherwise it will clog and clot, and rot and fester.

Power isnt free. Energy isnt free. It has to be earned.

An eye for an eye. And the whole world goes blind, Coral puts in quietly.

Dont worry about what youre writing or whether its good or even whether it makes sense.