Beth Revis Quotes

She stares back into me, as if we are both seeking a humanity that neither of us has.

I feel hollow inside, as if there's a black hole where my heart was, as if I am caving in around myself.

I cannot imagine a more perfect hell than being trapped inside my own mind.

Everyone, this is the new girl. Elder knows her. New girl, this is everyone." A few people look up politely; some actually smile. Most, however, look wary at best, disgusted at worse. The nurse closest to me jabs her finger behind her ear and starts whispering to nobody.
"What's wrong with her?" I ask Harley as he leads me to the table he was sitting at.
"Oh, don't worry, we're all mad here."
I giggle, mostly from nerves. "It's a good thing I read Alice in Wonder-land . I definitely think I've fallen into the rabbit hole."
"Read what?" Harley asks.
"Never mind." All around me, eyes follow my every move.
"Look," I say loudly. "I know I look different. But I'm just a person, like you." I hold my head up high, looking them all in the eyes, trying to hold their stares for as long as possible.
"You tell 'em," says Harley with another Cheshire grin.

All the computers in the world are on a network. They're linked by our cuffs. But I'm a computer. Jack's a computer - Akilah - PA Young - all the cy-clones. We're all computers.
You know the great thing about computers?
They can be hacked.

I remember the first time I saw the stars. I thought they changed everything. I thought they changed me, like I'd become a different person just by seeing shining specks of light a million miles away. Now when I stare at them, I feel nothing. I don't believe in them anymore.

I will never, never be the same.
I have seen stars.
Real stars.

Be fearless. Write what you want. Write how you want. Create art.

I might have the whole world now, but it's not enough if I don't get to share it with her.

How ironic it would be, to die at his hands while trying to save him, when he first came to me because he was trying to save me.

We are, at least in part, who we remember ourselves to be. Take away our memories, and you take away our selves.

And there is nothing between us but rain.
Then there is nothing between us at all.

She is trying to control me with fear, because she cannot control me any other way.
My eyes open wide. They burn as if they are on fire - no, as if they are made of fire. Eyes are the window to the soul.

I'm running as if the force of the wind whipping around my body will be enough to keep all the pieces of me from crumbling.

Memories always kill nightmares.

You want to just dump me in space?" My voice is low, but not for long. "It's not like I've done anything wrong! I didn't wake myself up, you know!"
Eldest shrugs. "It would be by far the simplest solution. You are, after all, nonessential."
"We can't do that," the doctor says, and I totally forgive him for being creepy and threatening me with drugs.

I think his chutz is up, don't you?

I want to take her into my arms and hold her tight. But at the same time, I know that is the exact opposite of what she wants. She wants to be free, and all I want is to hold her tight against me. ~ Elder

I look up, and he's searching my eyes, just like he did after kissing me for the first time in the rain. "What are you looking for?"
He doesn't answer.
He doesn't need to.
I know what he wants.
And it's not fair.
"Just because we're the only two teenagers on this whole ship doesn't mean I have to love you. Why can't I have a choice? Options?"
Elder steps back, stung.
"Look, it's not that I don't like you," I say quickly, reaching for him. He jerks away. "It's just…"
"Just what?" he growls.
Just that if I was back on Earth instead of on this damn ship, if I had met Elder at school or at a club or on a blind date, if I had my choice between Elder and every other boy in the world…Would I love him then?
Would he love me?
Love without choice isn't love at all.
"Just that I don't want to be with you just because there's no one else." [p.57-58]

And here we are, in the middle, surrounded by a sea of stars.
A million suns.
Any of them could hold a planet. Any of them could hold a home.
But all of them are out of reach. [p.218]

They'll never truly be able to comprehend how much was lost for their limitless sky.

Remember that time I punched you in front of my father's grave? I ask in a sentimental voice.

I never thought about how important the sky was until I didn't have one.

She holds the brightly colored wires in her hand. "Well, that did the trick," she says, smiling.

But of course these are scientists. Tell them to leave something alone, and all they want to do is poke it with a stick.

Kayleigh was right. Without the pills, you really do feel nothing.
And nothing can be nice.

What matters right now is this: we're each of us standing here, together, alive, together.

So, I do what any reasonable person would do when faced with a crying girl.
I get the frex out of there.

So you're sticking with me, and I'm sticking with you.

But death doesn't work like that. It doesn't care if someone loves you, doesn't want you to go. It just takes. It takes and it takes until eventually you have nothing left.

If you do this, Nedra, if you choose necromancy… I cannot follow you into that darkness."
"Oh, Grey," I said, shifting my bag onto my shoulder. "What do you know of darkness?

A week ago, I would have snorted at those words. Love was no more real than the "god" Amy worshipped. I'd heard of "love" in the same context that I heard of those religious fairy tales - as stories Sol-Earth people used to tell to make themselves feel better about the imperfect world they helped to create.

But now...

We're not ignoring the problem, not really. We're all aware it's there, even Bo. We see the edges of this new Bo, this Bo who's special, different. We're not ignoring it. We're just carefully, carefully avoiding it.

When I finally get out of bed, the only thing I want to do is go straight to Amy and demand her forgiveness. Maybe we can at least go back to what we had before our fight, even if all we had was an awkward friendship punctuated by significant silences.

Wannagogardenwime?" I ask all in one breath. My eyes grow wide. What came over me? Why would I blurt that out like that? ~Elder

You must dedicate your whole life to this idea: you are the caretaker of every single person on this ship. They are your responsibility.
You can never show weakness in front of them: you are their strength.
You can never let them see you in despair: you are their hope.
You must always be everything to everyone on board.

There's a war going on, that much is clear. And I'm no longer sure I'm on the right side.

I have no idea why she needs them. I just know that I'd face another plague to get them for her if I had to. Fortunately, it's a lot easier than that. - Elder

The truth is, sometimes siblings have nothing in common but blood...Sometimes you stay up late at night, thinking things that make you feel like a heartless monster, wishing for something different and then feeling sick with guilt because you know what the cost of "different" would be...There's a difference between having no siblings and having a broken one.

As the dreamscape around me grows clearer, I slip further away from it. The mind is a magical thing, I'm discovering. A dreamscape is made of thought and is wider than the sky, able to grow large enough to fit not just our own world, but every possibility and impossibility beyond it. Once I quit thinking of it as being forced into the laws of physics, it's easy to manipulate the dreamscape into anything I want. I don't know how I know all this, no more than I understand how I know things when I dream. I just do.
I throw up my hand, and a wall rises between the orange grove and me. Behind the wall, I start creating the world I need in Representative Belles's mind.

And I know what I told my father was true: let us taste the world, and we'll do whatever it takes to shape it into our home.

This ship is built on secrets; it runs on secrets", he says, tiny droplets of spittle flying from his mouth to my face. "And if you keep asking about them, you'll see how far I'm willing to go to keep mine." ~ Eldest

That was before I'd started thinking about how life stuck on a ship wouldn't be so bad if Elder walked around pantless more.

Sometimes writing is hard. You know what's not hard? Watching Netflix. That's easy.

She grips my elbow tighter, somehow finding the thinnest skin to dig her fingernails into. I want to pry her fingers from my arm, but when I look down at her, I can tell she's using me as a lifeline, and I'm not going to be the one to let her drown.

I could tell them about the different kinds of rain, pouring rain that's perfect for when you want to stay inside and watch a movie or read, or piercing rain that feels like needles on your skin, or soft summer rain that makes your first kiss with your first love all the sweeter. ~ Amy

Across the Universe takes place entirely on a generation spaceship, and, aside from a brief introduction, is not on Earth at all. But obviously, something had to have been happening on Earth. Something that would stem from the world that made the Financial Resource Exchange (FRX) and phydus.
That's when I decided to write The Body Electric, to show what was happening on Earth while Amy and Elder were in space.

I stare at the stars... And even though there are so many and they look so close together, I know they are light years apart. The glitter in the sky looks as if I could scoop it all up in my hands and let the stars swirl and touch one another, but they are so distant, so very far apart, that they cannot feel the warmth of each other, even though they are made of burning.
This is the secret of the stars, I tell myself. In the end, we are alone. No matter how close you seem, no one else can touch you.

Love without choice isn't love at all.

Mom used to say that the thoughts in our heads were nothing more than electrical impulses. I remember Dad and her talking about this over dinner. It frustrated Dad that the human brain can fire electrical sparks and think, but that the electricity he'd pump into an android brain would never give it independent thought. The body isn't that different from a machine. Humans and androids both run on electricity.
That lightning spark of energy I saw in the reverie.
That was my mother's last thought, an echo of electricity, something that sparked when I entered her dreamscape.
That spark is gone now. Her life is gone now. Everything that made her, her, is gone now. Faded into nothing.

I have the whole world now, but I don't have him.

As soon as I say the words, I know they were the right ones. My eyes dip down to Dad's memorial plaque. Truth doesn't lie in the heart of fortune ... it's under Triumph Towers, where the labs are.

I shut my eyes, and I force myself to feel myself. You never really think of what it's like to be in your body, but even with my eyes shut, I can feel the boundaries of my skin, real or not. Everything that's me is contained inside this body, and I feel it all. The heartbeat I cannot control. The mind that may not be mine. I am here, in this moment, in this body. All that I am - maybe not all that I ever was, but all that I currently am - is right here.

Even when you are silent, even when you block out all noise, your body is still a cacophony of life. Mine is not. It is the silence that drives me mad. The silence that drives the nightmares to me. Because

Other species have interstellar travel," Jyn protested. "That didn't just come from humans. The humans never would have figured it out if not for - " Burta

What is in our hearts is real whether we name it or let it exist only in darkness or silence.

It's hard to think about all the bad when she reminds me of all that's good.

I have never desired anything more than him in this moment.

Maybe I'm reading too much into this. It's probably nothing. But I've had "nothing" for too long, and I'm ready for something. Anything.

There is only him and me and this thing between us that I cannot name, not out loud, but that my heart knows is love.

She was a good person. She didn't deserve to die."
"I don't think it works that way.

I am surrounded by death, inside and out, and all it does is remind me of how futile everything is, everything ever was.

When I get to my room, the first thing I do is punch the button that operates the blind over the window. The room dims. Good. I want darkness. ~Amy

I saw you running," she says, her attention on the rabbit. "What were you running from?"
"Just running," I say. She watching me silently and intently, like a cat.
"Why?" she asks.
I shrug. "Why not?"
"It's not Productive." She says it like productivity is holy, the only thing worth having.
"So?" ~Amy

You could drop me anywhere in the universe, blindfolded, and I'd know this was his room just from the smell.

A splatter of rain on my skin, but its bright and sunny under the blue sky and Jason's there, and we almost kiss but everything changes and were at that party where we met.

Even when you're silent, even when you block out all noise, you body is still a cacophony of life.

If we don't have that, what do we have to live for? Does it matter if it's a lie if it keeps us alive?

I would use the same word to describe both my joy and the rain: torrential. This - this - this is all I ever wanted from the world: wide-open spaces and cooling rain and the chance to run.

Don't stagnate because of fear.

I open my mouth. I want o say: I'm breaking, and i need someone to hold me together.
But no sound comes out.

But Amy," Elder says. "Space suits!

What else can you tell me?" Dad stares at me. "What have you learned while you were awake?"
I learned that life is so, so fragile. I learned that you can know someone for just days and never forget the impression he left on you. I learned that art can be beautiful and sad at the same time. I learned that if someone loves you, he'll wait for you to love him back. I learned that how much you want something doesn't determine whether you get it or not, that "no" might not be enough, that life isn't fair, that my parents can't save me, that maybe no one can. "Nothing much," I mutter.

I'll always come back to you, he tells me, pulling me close.
Always.
Beth Revis (Shades of Earth pg. 441)

There's a meaning behind blank pages, too.

Doc begs me for the wires to fix the pump.
We should at least keep putting the hormones in the water," he insists, "so that they don't start mating with relatives."
"Most people don't want to commit incest," I say dryly.

But, really, grief left a hole in you, and while you healed around the hole, you never didn't have it. A piece of you was gone. You couldn't heal something that wasn't there.

As soon as the words slip past my lips, I wish I could grab them with my hands and crush them in my fists.
But I can't.
The words are there.

Family is never really gone.

Like walking through water.
Like drowning.

And this is what she wants to do to people. Let them have their own lives, until she wants them. Give them the strength of giants, but not the power to control it.

Sometimes home is a person.

Science can make a heart beat," Jack says softly, each word falling on me like a caress. "But it can't make it race.

I'll always come back to you.

Even though I know the rain is fake, it feels the same as real rain, and I desperately need that.

Should we wait?"
"Yes! YES. Wait - I'm coming. Just give me some time to thaw, and I will rise from the ice and live again. I will be your frozen phoenix. Just give me a chance!

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It's bad, being frozen, but it's better than waking up alone.

I wrote a book. It sucked. I wrote nine more books. They sucked, too. Meanwhile, I read every single thing I could find on publishing and writing, went to conferences, joined professional organizations, hooked up with fellow writers in critique groups, and didn't give up. Then I wrote one more book.

She stops speaking, but I can hear her silent sobs. They're the loudest thing I've ever heard.

Who are the real monsters?

The dark sky.
A hundred million stars.
More stars than I've ever seen before. My eyes let me see farther, but they don't show me the one thing I want to see. I would trade all the stars in the universe if I could just have him back again.

Wind whistles through the trees nearby. Birdsong weaves in and out of the sound.

The hybrids emerge from the communication building, heads tilted to the sky.

And then we see the end.
Godspeed's engine was nuclear; who knows what fueled the biological weapons. But they explode together. In space, they don't make the familiar mushroom cloud. They don't make the boom! of an exploding bomb.

There is, against the dark sky, a brief flash of light. It is filled with colors, like a nebula or the aurora borealis, bursting like a popped bubble.

Nothing else - no sound of an explosion, no tremors in the earth, no smell of smoke. Not here, on the surface of the planet.
Nothing else to signify Elder's death.
Just light.
And then it's gone.

And then he's gone.

More than the sound of my own beating heart, I miss the sound of a ticking clock. Time passes. It must pass ...

Maybe one day the smears of paint Harley left throughout Godspeed will fade, and maybe the stars never will, but i'd rather have Harley's colors.

I never knew how easy it is to escape if you don't mind leaving nearly everything behind.

Because if I break, they'll break too. It's a responsibility I'd never really felt before, or at least I never thought about enough to name. But, Bo's actions just cement my place in my family. He can walk away from the dinner table. I can't.

God, did they know? A year made the world of difference! This was one more year I could be with Jason, one more year I could live! I signed up for three hundred years ... not three hundred and one!

Choice or no, my heart is his.

I click on the deaths and read the names carefully, memorising them. Because here's the simple truth - if I hadn't taken the ship off Phydus, people like ***** and ******* would still be alive. And while I could say that a shorter life with feelings is better than a longer life without, the dead can't tell me their side. [p.88]

But how can I be disappointed in space?

He looks once in my eyes, a question still there. But we are beyond questions. We are in a plsce where there are only answers, and my answer to him is yes.