Quotes by Lauren Oliver

There are so many things I want to tell her, so many things she doesnt know; like how I remember when she first came home from the hospital, a big pink blob with a perma-smile, and she used to fall asleep while grabbing on to my pinter finger; how I sued to give her piggyback rides up and down the beach on Cape Cod, and she would tub on my ponytail to direct me one way or the other; how soft and furry her head was when she was first born; that the first time you kiss someone youll be nervous, and it will be weird, and it wont be as good as you want it to be, and thats okay; how you should only fall in love with people who will fall in love back... I feel an ache in my throat, but i manage to smile. Two conflicting desires go through me at the same time, each as sharp as a razor blade: I want to see you grow up and Dont ever change.

If I could make it better I would,” he says. In some ways it’s a stupid, obvious thing to say, but the way he said it, so honest and simple like it’s the truest thing there is, makes the tears prick in my eyes. (Before I Fall)

I’ll tell you another secret, this one for your own good. You may think the past has something to tell you. You may think that you should listen, should strain to make out its whispers, should bend over backward, stoop down low to hear its voice breathed up from the ground, from the dead places. You may think there’s something in it for you, something to understand or make sense of.But I know the truth: I know from the nights of Coldness. I know the past will drag you backward and down, have you snatching at whispers of wind and the gibberish of trees rubbing together, trying to decipher some code, trying to piece together what was broken. It’s hopeless. The past is nothing but a weight. It will build inside of you like a stone.Take it from me: If you hear the past speaking to you, feel it tugging at your back and running its fingers up your spine, the best thing to do—the only thing— is run.

And its the funniest thing: as soon as I see it, the whistling in my ears stops and the feeling of terror drains away, and I realize this whole time I havent been falling at all. Ive been floating.

You cant be happy unless youre unhappy sometimes.

But maybe happiness isnt in the choosing. Maybe its in the fiction, in the pretending: that wherever we have ended up is where we intended to be all along.

And for a moment―for a split second―everything else falls away, the whole pattern and order of my life, and a huge joy crests in my chest. I am no one, and I owe nothing to anybody, and my life is my own.

God bless Dunkin Donuts.

Unhappiness is bondage; therefore, happiness is freedom.

They couldn’t have known that even this was a lie—that we never really choose, not entirely. We are always being pushed and squeezed down one road or another. We have no choice but to step forward, and then step forward again, and then step forward again; suddenly we find ourselves on a road we haven’t chosen at all.But maybe happiness isn’t in the choosing. Maybe it’s in the fiction, in the pretending: that wherever we have ended up is where we intended to be all along.

He is my world and my world is him and without him there is no world.

Are you sure that being like everybody else will make you happy?I dont know any other way.Let me show you.And then were kissing. Or at least, I think were kissing—Ive only seen it done a couple of times, quick closed-mouth pecks at weddings or on formal occasions. But this isnt like anything Ive ever seen, or imagined, or even dreamed: this is like music or dancing but better than both.

This is what I want. This is the only thing Ive ever wanted. Everything else—every single second of every single day that has come before this very moment, this kiss—has meant nothing.

I know the rules. Ive been living here longer than you have.He cracks a smile then. He nudges me back. Hardly.Born and raised. Youre a transplant. I nudge him again, a little harder, and he laughs and tries to catch hold of my arm. I squirm away, giggling, and he stretches out to tickle my stomach. Country bumpkin! I squeal, as he grabs out and wrestles me back onto the blanket, laughing.City slicker, he says, rolling over on top of me, and then kisses me. Everything dissolves: heat, explosions of color, floating.

If they really want us to be happy, theyd let us pick ourselves.

His eyes are blazing with light, more light than all the lights in every city in the whole world, more light than we could ever invent if we had ten thousand billion years.

Nothing has ever been so painful or delicious as being so close to him and being unable to do anything about it: like eating ice cream so fast on a hot day you get a splitting headache.

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

But you can build a future out of anything. A scrap, a flicker. The desire to go forward, slowly, one foot at a time. You can build an airy city out of ruins.

Hope keeps you alive.