Quotes by Tahereh Mafi

All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart.

Im oxygen and hes dying to breathe.

I want to be the friend you fall hopelessly in love with. The one you take into your arms and into your bed and into the private world you keep trapped in your head. I want to be that kind of friend. The one who will memorize the things you say as well as the shape of your lips when you say them. I want to know every curve, every freckle, every shiver of your body. I want to know where to touch you, I want to know how to touch you. I want to know convince you to design a smile just for me. Yes, I do want to be your friend. I want to be your best friend in the entire world.

Its the kind of kiss that inspires stars to climb into the sky and light up the world.

And Ive fallen.So hard.Ive hit the ground. Gone right through it. Never in my life have I felt this. Nothing like this. Ive felt shame and cowardice, weakness and strength. Ive known terror and indifference, self-hate and general disgust. Ive seen things that cannot be unseen.And yet Ive known nothing like this terrible, horrible, paralyzing feeling. I feel crippled. Desperate and out of control. And it keeps getting worse. Every day I feel sick. Empty and somehow aching.Love is a heartless bastard.

His hands are holding my cheeks, and he pulls back just to look me in the eye and his chest is heaving and he says, I think, he says, my heart is going to explode, and I wish, more than ever, that I knew how to capture moments like these and revisit them forever. Because this.This is everything.

And he leans in, so carefully. Breathingand not breathing and hearts beatingbetween us and he’s so close, he’s so close and I can’t feel my legs anymore. I can’t feel my fingers or the cold or the emptiness of this room because all I feel is him, everywhere,filling everything and he whispers“Please.”He says “Please don’t shoot me for this.”And he kisses me.His lips are softer than anything Ive ever known, soft like a first snowfall, like biting into cotton candy, like melting and floating and being weightless in water. It’s sweet, it’sso effortlessly sweet.And then it changes.“Oh God—”He kisses me again, this time stronger,desperate, like he has to have me, like he’s dying to memorize the feel of my lips against his own. The taste of him is making me crazy; he’s all heat and desire and peppermint and I want more. Ive just begun reeling him in, pulling him into me when he breaks away.He’s breathing like he’s lost his mind andhe’s looking at me like something has brokeninside of him, like he’s woken up to find thathis nightmares were just that, that they never existed, that it was all just a bad dream that felt far too real but now he’s awake and he’s safe and everything is going to be okay andI’m falling.I’m falling apart and into his heart and I’m a disaster.

Hate looks like everybody else until it smiles

I love you, I whisper. I love you exactly as you are.

I touch the tip of my finger to his lips. There are secrets in here, I say. I want them out.He tries to bite my finger.I steal it back.

I feel like I’ve been split open and stuffed with sunshine.

Please, he says. Im begging you to stop.I still. I cant stomach your pain, he says. I can feel it so strongly and its making me crazy- please, he says to me. Dont be sad. Or hurt. Or guilty. Youve done nothing wrong. Im sorry-Dont be sorry, either, he says. God, the only reason Im not going to kill Kent for this is because I know it would only upset you more.

Lift your hips for me, love.

That this girl would know exactly how to shatter me.

I am nothing more than the consequence of catastrophe.

Have you ever had a girlfriend, Kenji? me?

Kenji snorts.“That’s because you’re not fragile,” Kenji says. “If anything, everyone needs to protect themselves from you. You’re like a freaking beast,” he says. Then adds, “I mean, you know—like, a cute beast. A little beast that tears shit up and breaks the earth and sucks the life out of people.

Kenji has a hand pressed to his mouth, desperately trying to suppress a smile. He’s shaking his head, holding up a hand in apology. And then he breaks, laughing out loud, snorting as he tries to muffle the sound. “I’m sorry,” he says, pressing his lips together, shaking his head again. “This is not a funny moment. It’s not. I’m not laughing

I’m not an idiot, Kenji. I have reasons for the things I say.”“Yeah, and maybe I’m just saying that you have no idea what you’re saying.”“Whatever.”“Don’t whatever me—”“Whatever,” I say again.“Oh my God,” Kenji says to no one in particular. “I think this girl wants to get her ass kicked.”“You couldn’t kick my ass if I had ten of them.”Kenji laughs out loud. “Is that a challenge?”It’s a warning,” I say to him.“Ohhhhhh, so you’re threatening me now? Little crybaby knows how to make threats now?”“Shut up, Kenji.”“Shut up, Kenji,” he repeats in a whiny voice, mocking me.

I’m not sure. But there’s something about the darkness, the stillness of this hour, I think, that creates a language of its own. There’s a strange kind of freedom in the dark; a terrifying vulnerability we allow ourselves at exactly the wrong moment, tricked by the darkness into thinking it will keep our secrets. We forget that the blackness is not a blanket; we forget that the sun will soon rise. But in the moment, at least, we feel brave enough to say things we’d never say in the light.